Pretrial & Defense

When Mia Greer went to prison, she says she wasn’t the only one who was punished. Her kids suffered too.

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The Harris County Commissioners Court voted Tuesday against District Attorney Kim Ogg’s request for a $20 million budget increase to hire more prosecutors.

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Criminal Justice reform groups have criticized Kim Ogg’s request to hire 102 new lawyers. They argue more people will be jailed, but the DA says her office needs more staff to handle a backlog of cases.

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Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg is seeking an extra $20 million to hire 102 prosecutors, in order to relieve a backlog that has built up since Harvey.

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A lawsuit challenging the cash bail system in Harris County, Texas, is at an unusual crossroads after 14 Republican municipal court judges named as defendants in the suit — all of whom opposed reforms — were voted out of office this month, a move that likely spells big changes for alleged offenders stuck behind bars because they can't pay their way out.

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In Harris County, which is home to Houston and the third-largest county in the United States, Democrats unseated 59 Republican judges—including all 23 district judges, all 13 family court judges, all eight county civil judges and probate judges, and all 15 misdemeanor judges. Of the newly appointed Democrats, an unprecedented 19 are black women, significantly changing the face of a judiciary that had been primarily white.

The Democratic sweep in Harris County Tuesday night could remake one of the largest criminal justice systems in the country.

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The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition released the third report in its “One Size FAILS All” report series. The report, Out of Sight: LGBTQ Youth and Adults in Texas Justice Systems, explores how the Lone Star State often fails to adequately address the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Texans, and instead frequently moves them into the youth and adult justice systems at higher rates than people in the non-LGBTQ community.

Two years ago, Kim Ogg was elected district attorney of Harris County. One of her campaign promises was to implement a diversion program for first time offenders charged with low-level marijuana possession. These are cases where a person gets arrested for “two ounces or less” of marijuana.

Read the rest of this op-ed at the Houston Chronicle. 

Two Harris County judges accounted for more than one-fifth of all children sent to the state’s juvenile prisons last year, driving up the county’s Texas Juvenile Justice Department commitments even as those figures fall in the rest of the state.

Read the rest of this article at the Houston Chronicle.