Pretrial & Defense

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg on Tuesday promised more pre-trial diversion programs for suspects in drug possession cases and those with mental health issues.

Read the rest of this article at the Houston Chronicle.

Texas counties are watching to see how Harris County's fight against court-ordered bail practices will affect them.

Read the rest of this article at The Texas Tribune.

The FBI released its 2016 Crime in the United States report today and, although there are pockets of increased crime, the data indicates that Texas crime rates have dropped statewide.

Read the rest of this press release here.

Last week, in a scathing 193-page opinion, a federal judge ruled the misdemeanor bail system violates poor people's constitutional rights, given that people with money can go free within hours of arrest while those without must languish in jail until trial.

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On Tuesday, the House Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety heard public testimony on both HB567 and HB574, two bills that would eliminate the authority of police officers to arrest people on offenses that are punishable by fines only — including minor traffic offenses such as speeding and, as in Sandra Bland's case, failure to use a turn signal.

Read the rest of this article at Hosuton Press.

Harris County commissioners on Tuesday approved a pilot program to make public defenders available at bail hearings, a step aimed at retooling a criminal justice system that has increasingly drawn criticism for jailing thousands of poor, low-risk offenders.

Read the rest of this article at the Houston Chronicle.

Harris County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to develop a pilot program that would make public defenders present at bail hearings, a move aimed at reducing what officials say is the unnecessary jailing of thousands of defendants because they can't afford bail or are unfamiliar with the legal process. The pilot could lead to Harris County becoming the first county in Texas to make legal representation available at all hearings where bail is set.

Sandra Bland’s suicide in the Waller County Jail on July 13 was the 140th time that detainees in Texas county jails have taken their own lives since authorities began compiling jail suicide statistics six years ago.

Read the rest of this article at San Antonio Express-News.

After decades of America's incarceration mania, U.S. Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer recently told a congressional committee in Washington that America's criminal justice system is broken and that long, mandatory minimum sentences in correctional institutions that don't correct is a terrible idea.

Read the rest of this article at the Houston Chronicle.

A half-century ago this week, Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers voted to join Larry Itliong and Filipino farmworkers’ in commencing the Delano Grape Strike.

Read the rest of this article at the Drug Policy Alliance.