Category: Texas

Mass incarceration and the criminalization of homelessness

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By Melanie Wilmoth

Exacerbated by the economic recession and increased home foreclosures, the homelessness crisis in the U.S. continues to grow at an alarming rate. According to a new report published by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP), over 650,000 individuals in the U.S. are without a home on any given night. The report, “Criminalizing Crisis,” highlights the increasing criminalization of homeless individuals.

NLCHP reports that, despite the knowledge that there are inadequate services for those who are homeless, cities continue to prohibit activities that are essential for survival:

“Criminalization measures often prohibit activities like sleeping/camping, eating, sitting, and/or begging in public spaces and include criminal penalties for violations of these laws…Many of these measures appear to be designed to move homeless persons out of sight, or even out of a given city.”

Once individuals are criminalized (and, therefore, have a criminal record), they face more barriers when trying to obtain employment, housing, public benefits, and healthcare.

In a recent survey of large employers, “over 90% performed a criminal background check on some or all job applicants.” Moreover, individuals with a criminal record may be suspended from or ineligible for public benefits such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and food stamps. Furthermore, many Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) have policies that disqualify individuals from housing based on arrest records. Thus, criminalization serves to preclude individuals from working toward economic self-sufficiency, further perpetuating the cycle of homelessness. (more…)

A white preacher celebrates the black church

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By Alan Bean

Eddie Glaude, a professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton, set off a fire storm last year when he performed last rites over the black church.  “The Black Church is dead,” Dr. Glaude announced.  I didn’t notice it at the time, but Joel Gregory, the dean of Texas Baptist preachers, wrote a spirited rebuttal to Eddie Glaude for the Huffington Post.

In the course of a post-worship lunch this Sunday at Fort Worth’s Broadway Baptist Church, Joel Gregory’s name came up.  I learned that he was teaching a Sunday School class at Broadway a few years back but was forced to withdraw (the story went) when the congregation decided to publish pictures of gay couples in the church directory. 

The repercussions of that decision were immediate.  The congregational infighting became so intense that the Rev. Brett Younger (a fine preacher in his own right), was forced to submit his resignation.  Broadway had already been expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention and withdrew from the Baptist General Conference of Texas to spare everyone an ugly fire fight on the convention floor.  Finally, I was told, Joel Gregory was asked to withdraw his membership at Broadway.  He was teaching homiletics at Truett Theological Seminary on the campus of Baylor University at the time and pressure was applied in high places.

Dr. Gregory is full of surprises.  I was surprised to learn that he had been a member at Broadway, one of the flagship “moderate” churches in Texas Baptist life.  There was a time when Gregory was the fundamentalist camp’s most articulate frontman.  I’m not sure his core theology has changed much over the years, but his spirit has softened considerably. (more…)

The passion of the prosecutor

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The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has issued a stay of execution in the Hank Skinner case so relevant DNA evidence can be tested.  The prosecutors in this case remain adamant that Skinner should die with the evidence untested.  Mark Osler (a Friends of Justice board member who teaches law at the University of Saint Thomas in Minnesota) says that what looks like baffling intransigence from the outside springs from the best of motives.  But then, so did the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Osler’s insights originally appeared on the CNN site. AGB

Texas prosecutors won’t stop rush to execution

By Mark Osler, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: Mark Osler, a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minnesota, is a former federal prosecutor and the author of “Jesus on Death Row,” a book about capital punishment.

 As the nation and the world’s attention turned to the impending execution of Hank Skinner in Texas before a late stay by a Texas court, one question seemed paramount: “Why the rush?” The answer to that question is buried deep inside the psychology of prosecutors and the culture of Texas.

Skinner was scheduled for execution on Wednesday for the 1993 killing of his girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two sons, until the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (the top criminal court in that state) issued a stay late on Monday. (more…)

For God’s sake, test the DNA!

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Hank Skinner

By Alan Bean

Before the State of Georgia killed Troy Davis, I would have bet good money that Texas wouldn’t execute Hank Skinner without bothering to test the DNA evidence.  But now all bets are off.

Common sense suggests that a simple DNA test should be performed in the interest of justice.  What have we got to lose (other than our reputation as a nation that guarantees liberty and justice)?

The State of Texas argues that Skinner had a chance to ask for DNA testing and he failed to take advantage. 

This may strike you as a peculiar argument, but in the Alice and Wonderland world of modern jurisprudence, procedure is everything and common sense counts for nothing.  It doesn’t matter what the DNA might tell us; the constitutionally guaranteed window of opportunity is now closed.

Killing Hank Skinner is a bad idea, practically and on principle.  But if we’re in the people-killing business, shouldn’t we at least make sure they are guilty of something really bad?  If you think so, please keep reading.  

Will Texas Kill an Innocent Man Next Week?

Hank Skinner is scheduled to die on November 9. But the state of Texas may execute him without even conducting DNA tests on all of the evidence from his trial, despite a decade of requests from Hank and his lawyers. (more…)

“Lost in detention”: The criminalization of immigration

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by Melanie Wilmoth

Earlier this week, PBS Frontline aired its documentary “Lost in Detention.” The documentary takes a hard look at the broken U.S. immigration system and the resulting increase in the number of detained and deported immigrants.

Under the Obama Administration, over 400,000 immigrants were detained and deported this year alone (which is a significantly higher number of deportations than in previous administrations). As Frontline suggests, much of this increase in detention and deportation is a result of Secure Communities, a partnership between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the FBI that uses fingerprint data to track criminal immigrants. Secure Communities allegedly aids in the deportation of immigrants who have committed serious crimes and, thus, pose a threat to public safety. According to ICE, Secure Communities prioritizes “the removal of individuals who present the most significant threats to public safety as determined by the severity of their crime, their criminal history, and other factors.”

However, the Secure Communities program has reached far beyond its stated purpose. Since its implementation in 2008, Secure Communities has successfully broken up families and incited fear in immigrant communities. Thousands of individuals, many of whom are non-criminals, U.S. citizens, and parents of children who are U.S. citizens, have been arrested. In addition, Latinos have been disproportionately affected by Secure Communities, making up 93% of those arrested through the program.

After arrest, 83% of individuals are placed in detention centers. Punitive in nature, the 250 detention centers in the country warehouse immigrants in prison-like settings until deportation. Reports of abuse in these centers run rampant.  (more…)

Michael Morton and the case for Texas criminal justice reforms

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Michael Morton

By Melanie Wilmoth

Michael Morton spent 25 years behind bars for the murder of his wife, Christine, before he was released based on DNA evidence that pointed to another suspect.

In Morton’s case, there was a wealth of evidence suggesting Morton was not the murderer, but prosecutors never pursued another suspect. Prosecutors were convinced, despite no clear evidence, that Morton was guilty.

It is a classic case of prosecutorial tunnel vision.

As Texas Sen. Rodney Ellis so aptly points out, “The role of the prosecutor is to discover the truth, but oftentimes there’s more interest in getting a conviction.”

Morton’s case is one of hundreds that highlights flaws within the Texas criminal justice system. However, the question remains: Will Texas actually see this case as a sign that serious criminal justice reforms are necessary to prevent prosecutorial misconduct and the continuance of wrongful convictions?

(Check out a related post over at Grits for Breakfast.)

Morton Case Sparks Calls for Texas Evidence Law Reform

by Brandi Grissom

Not long after his mother was murdered, 3-and-a-half-year-old Eric Morton began to tell his grandmother what he had seen that terrible day.

“Mommy’s crying. She’s — Stop it. Go away,” his grandmother said he told her. She asked why his mother was crying.

“’Cause the monster’s there,” Eric said.

Gingerly, she pressed for more details.

“He hit Mommy. He broke the bed,” her grandson said.

“Is Mommy still crying?”

“No, Mommy stopped.” (more…)

Texas Execution Put On Hold By Supreme Court

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Death row inmate Duane Buck.
Duane Buck

By Alan Bean

It doesn’t get any closer than this.  Two hours after the State of Texas legally could have executed Duane Buck, the US Supreme Court issued a stay.  It has long been asserted that racial bias factored inappropriately in Buck’s death sentence.  A psychologist answered in the affirmative when asked if the fact that Buck is black made it more likely that he would someday commit another act of violence.

Unlike the case of Troy Davis, Buck’s guilt has never been in dispute.  But would the jury have been more likely to sentence the defendant to life in prison if they hadn’t been led to believe that, being black, he would likely kill again.

As a statistical matter, the psychologist was right: black males are considerably more likely, as a group, to commit acts of violence than white males.  But race, per se, has nothing to do with it.  In the post Civil War South, white males were far more likely to commit murder than black males.  Buck’s blackness did not predispose him to violent behavior– and that is the only relevant issue for a jury to consider.

The racially biased testimony of the expert witness, in this and five other cases, deeply concerned John Cornyn when he was Texas Attorney General, and it clearly bothered the Supreme Court as well.  There are no guarantees that they will call for a new sentencing hearing, of course, but at least the matter will receive careful review. (more…)

Dreaming a Christian aristocracy: The evolution and meaning of Dominionism

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By Alan Bean

Our twenty-four hour news cycle doesn’t lend itself to careful analysis of complex social movements.  Rick Perry, the pugnacious presidential hopeful, raised eyebrows when he used a loose network of organizations associated with the New Apostolic Reformation to organize a big religious-political rally in Houston.  Interest quickened when the mainstream media learned that some of Perry’s friends were “Dominionists,” folks who want to bring secular politics (and everything else) under the dominion of God.

The questions couldn’t be avoided.  If elected, will Rick Perry pack his cabinet with Christian preachers?  Since that didn’t sound likely, the pundits too-easily assumed that politicians like Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann are just standard-issue conservatives with close ties to the religious right.  (more…)

Rick Perry’s Texas: 234 executions and counting

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by Melanie Wilmoth

Under Governor Rick Perry’s leadership, the state of Texas has executed a shocking number of individuals (234 to be exact). When this fact was mentioned at the GOP debate on Wednesday evening, it was welcomed with cheerful applause.

Perry went on to defend his record of executions stating:

“Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you’re involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed.”

Although the death penalty was mentioned in the debate, no meaningful discussion occurred. For example, nothing was said about the moral issues surrounding capital punishment. Nor was there mention of the fact that the death penalty disproportionately affects poor people of color, or that research suggests that capital punishment does little (if anything) to deter crime. Moreover, there was no talk of the number of individuals who are wrongfully convicted and even wrongfully executed by the dysfunctional Texas justice system. (more…)

What was really behind Rick Perry’s push for privatized prisoner care?

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By Melanie Wilmoth

Earlier this year, Texas Governor Rick Perry proposed privatizing prisoner healthcare. Perry claimed that privatization would save Texas millions of dollars, something which was sorely needed in light of the state’s $27 billion budget deficit. There was much argument over whether or not this proposal would actually save the state money, but the proposal was ultimately shot down when it faced bipartisan resistance.

In a recent article, Tim Murphy sheds light on why Perry was so eager to privatize prisoner care, a move that would have greatly benefitted the private-prison industry. According to Murphy, Perry’s privatization proposal “coincided with an influx of campaign contributions from private-prison executives and lobbyists, among them his former top aide, Michael Toomey, a political powerbroker who represents the nation’s largest private corrections contractor, Corrections Corporation of America.” Overall, representatives from the private-prison industry donated over $100,000 to Perry’s reelection campaigns. (more…)