A disturbing viral photo showing two mounted Galveston Police leading a handcuffed African-American man tied to a rope is causing outrage in Texas and beyond. The photo shows 43-year-old Donald Neely being arrested on criminal trespassing charges on Saturday and being...
Criminal Justice
back to archiveTexas’ largest county passes historic criminal justice reform
Harris County passed a historic criminal justice system reform thanks to a commissioner's court vote on Tuesday. County Judge Lina Hidalgo and others successfully voted on an agreement that will allow roughly 85 percent of misdemeanor defendants to be released from...
Governor slams his iron fist down on Texas cities for marijuana prosecutions
Pot smokers who dabble in small amounts of the weed should take note. The governor and his indicted attorney general are now wagging their Republican finger at those Texas counties that announced they weren’t going to prosecute small amounts of marijuana...
Texas Republicans accidentally gave a green light to small amounts of pot
Republicans unknowingly invited a smoking Trojan horse filled with pot into Texas law. This week, multiple county district attorney offices around the state announced they would no longer be accepting criminal charges for misdemeanor possession of 4 ounces or less of...
How do Texans fight human trafficking? Look to Houston.
Houston area officials are fighting tooth and nail against human trafficking, a form of modern-day slavery that’s alive and well in Texas. Roughly 300,000 people — many of whom are young children —are the victims of human trafficking across the state. They represent a...
John Cornyn says one thing and does another on violence against women
The landmark Violence Against Women Act, signed into law in the 1990s to help survivors of domestic violence, is lingering in Washington, D.C. amid partisan squabbles. The Senate, so far, has failed to reauthorize its funding. The VAWA, says the NAACP, is “one of the...
Texas presidential candidates O’Rourke and Castro call for re-opening the Sandra Bland case
Following the disclosure Tuesday of a new video taken by Sandra Bland, presidential candidates Beto O'Rourke and Julian Castro called on authorities to re-open her case. Bland was the 28-year old African-American woman arrested in 2015 for a traffic stop outside of...
Indiscriminate youth shackling continues in Houston
Thirteen years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against shackling defendants in court, arguing that the move violated due process. Despite that major ruling, children going through the U.S. criminal justice system do not have the right to be unshackled in court,...