Media

Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins will be interviewed this a.m. by Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune in a public event here in Austin, and though I'd RSVP'd, I regret seeing no option but to skip the show to focus on an important, unrelated work deadline. Watkins hasn't been speaking much to local reporters in Dallas so this will be an opportunity to get answers on the record to many of the questions swirling around Constablegate and some of the other topics swirling around the embattled DA. Wish I could be there.

A blind prisoner with a history of mental illness died after he threw urine on a guard at a TDCJ medical facility and an extraction team removed him from his cell. The news story doesn't describe his injuries or say whether they were caused by the extraction team. But especially notable to me were the rabid, borderline inhuman statements bandied about in the comment section at the Houston Chronicle. Here's a sampling among the "most recommended" comments:

The title of this post is the headline to a piece from the Texas Observer blog informing us that:
The ABC News program 20/20 will broadcast a report this Friday night about people wrongly convicted of arson.

The segment—which airs at 9 p.m. central time—will feature the case of Curtis Severns, who was convicted in 2006 of starting a fire in his Plano gun shop. He remains in federal prison in Beaumont for a crime he likely didn’t commit.