Texas Legislature Authorizes Doubling of Prisoners' Monthly Phone Minutes by Matthew Clarke In 2007, when Texas became the last state in the union to allow prisoner phone calls, the limit on phone usage was 120 minutes a month. In 2009, the Texas Board of Criminal Justice (TBCJ) responded to requests …
New Ways to Help HIV+ Texas Releasees Receive Meds Promised by When Diana Harris was released from a Texas prison over a decade ago, she wasn't given any information on how to continue her regime of HIV medication. When the ten-day supply of meds the prison had issued her ran …
Sale of Texas Private Prison Falls Through by The City of Littlefield, Texas sold the Bill Clayton Detention Center (BCDC) at an auction, but the deal fell through. The BCDC is a 363-bed prison private prison developers talked city officials into building in this 6,500 person community. Mesmerized by the …
Fifth Circuit Says Private Prisons Liable Under § 1983 by The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that private prison-management corporations and their employees may be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. “Billy Rosborough is a prisoner of the Bradford State Jail, a Texas prison owned and operated by…Management and …
Fifth Circuit Reverses District Court's Denial of Appointment of Counsel by On March 6, 2009, Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of appointment of counsel and upheld the dismissal of free exercise, equal protection and retaliation claims. Texas prisoner Willie Lee Garner filed a pro se lawsuit pursuant to …
Texas Court Holds Juvenile Capital Murder Adjudication Not Subject to Extraordinary Parole Review by Matthew Clarke On February 9, 2016, a Texas court held that a person adjudged delinquent for capital murder as a juvenile and later transferred from the Texas Youth Commission to the adult prison system is not …
Texas Man Exonerated By DNA Test He Didn't Request by Matthew Clarke A Texas man, Michael Phillips, 57, recently became the first person to be cleared of a crime by DNA testing he did not request. Phillips was accused of raping a white teenage girl at a Dallas motel in …
Avalon Demands Texas Remove Civilly Committed From Halfway Houses by In the latest controversy surrounding the beleaguered Texas Office of Violent Sex Offender Management (OVSOM), the agency that oversees the approximately 300 civilly committed sex offenders in Texas, Avalon Correctional Services sent OVSOM a letter telling it to remove the …
Texas Guards and Prisoners Rarely Prosecuted for Contraband Cellphones by Matthew Clarke According to an investigation conducted by the Texas Tribune, guards and prisoners are rarely prosecuted for the contraband cell phones found within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). The investigation discovered that only 5% of the cellphone …
California, Other States Weigh Banning Late-Night Releases from Custody by Joe Watson Late-night releases from prisons and jails place former prisoners across the country at not only an immediate disadvantage—possibly unable to access transportation and shelter or a support system of friends and family— but also in the dangerous position …
Texas Violates International Law, Again, in Execution of Mexican National by Joe Watson In violation of international law, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has executed a Mexican national with an IQ of 67, placing Americans in danger of being denied fair legal treatment abroad. The January 22, 2014, execution …
New Hepatitis C Treatment to Dramatically Increase Texas Prison Health Costs by Matthew Clarke Hepatitis C is a slow-progressing potentially-fatal viral disease that ultimately destroys the liver. Unlike HIV, the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is resilient, capable of surviving for weeks outside the human body. It is spread by blood-to-blood …
Texas Rejects GEO Bid to Privatize State Mental Hospital by On October 3, 2012, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) announced that it had rejected a bid by the GEO Group, a private prison company, to operate the Kerrville State Hospital. GEO Care, a GEO Group subsidiary, was …
DNA Keeps Overturning Convictions, But Spike in Exonerations Owed to Other Factors by Joe Watson Nicole Harris, Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown have lived through their own nightmares of injustice. All three were wrongfully convicted of the heinous murders of children. Combined, they spent nearly 70 years in prison …
Jail Crowding at Texas County That Recently Sold Expansion Jail by Matthew Clarke In 2008, Montgomery County, Texas built the 1,293-bed Joe Corley Detention Center (JCDC) for $45 million. The voters who approved the bond issue believed the JCDC would be used to expand the capacity of the 1,251-bed Montgomery …
Crime Statistics for Texas Prison System Unchanged by Matthew Clarke The crime rate in Texas prisons has remained about the same despite a decrease in prisoner population of about 9,000 over the past ten years. Since 2009, 3,001 Texas prisoners and 584 Texas prison guards have been charged with crimes …
Texas County Closes Most of Jail Due to Staff Shortage by Matthew Clarke People are escaping from the Austin County Jail in Texas. Not the prisoners, but the jailers. Low salaries and a lack of overtime compensation have driven jail staff away and led Austin County Sheriff Jack Brandes to …
A Thin Line - The Texas Prison Healthcare Crisis and the Secret Death Penalty, Texas Civil Rights Project, 2011 A TEXAS CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2011 “A THIN LINE” The Texas Prison Healthcare Crisis and The Secret Death Penalty “Right now the [health care] system is constitutional… but …
Deadly Heat in Texas Prisons, HRC, 2014 This report does not represent the official positon of the School of Law or of The University of Texas, and the views presented here reflect only the opinions of the individual authors and of the Human Rights Clinic. 1 Contents Acronyms & Abbreviations …
Elected Judges and the Death Penalty in Texas, Bright, 2000 Elected Judges and the Death Penalty in Texas: Why Full Habeas Corpus Review by Independent Federal Judges Is Indispensable to Protecting Constitutional Rights Stephen B. Bright* Texas Law Review, Volume 78, page 1806 (2000) Copyright c 2000 Texas Law Review …
