Politics

Rick Casey at the Houston Chronicle has some new detail on the behind the scenes machinations at the State Judicial Conduct Commission over Presiding Judge Sharon Keller's public warning. For starters, he says:
During the closed-door session in which the 13-member commission debated what sanction it should give Sharon Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, one non-lawyer member of the commission opined that Keller should be commended for saving the state money by blocking the appeal. However, he wrote:
A majority of the panel agreed that Keller needed to be sanctioned for ignoring the procedures she admitted to knowing. Because of the poor performance of Richard’s lawyers and evidence of other problems at the Court of Criminal Appeals itself, none of the commissioners argued to remove Keller from office.

As I focus elsewhere today, let me share a few links with y'all that have been backing up on my to-blog list:

Deaf man could be next Texas exoneree
The next Dallas-based exoneree could turn out to be a deaf man convicted of sexual assault whose "confession came during 18 hours of questioning and included admissions to fictitious crimes made up by investigators to test his credibility." A fingerprint found at the crime scene matches another man convicted of sexually assaulting a child.

Texas Tough

An important new report out of the U.K. could signal the start of a widespread shift toward use of "restorative justice" techniques in juvenile law, modeled on a program in Northern Ireland. According to this source:
A landmark report has called for the introduction of restorative justice across England and Wales to halve the current number of juveniles in custody.

The Independent Commission on Youth Crime and Antisocial Behaviour reports that restorative justice in Northern Ireland should provide the model for major changes to the youth justice system.

The commission, which carried out an 18-month study into alternative responses to youth crime, concludes that restorative meetings known as "youth conferencing" are the way to deliver better justice for the victims of crime, while cutting re-offending rates and custody numbers.

A commenter pointed out this commercial spray-on product that defeats red-light camera technology and likely also those pesky new License Plate Readers starting to be used around the state. See a story from Austin's KXAN-TV about the unintended spawning of this new technology and economic market by the expansion of police surveillance apparatus in public spaces.