Travis County intends to be one of the first places in Texas that allows video visitation for jail prisoners. Under an agreement with Securus Technologies, Inc. approved by the county commissioners on October 30, 2012, the county jail will soon have a Skype-like video system for prisoner visitation. Installation of ...
In November 2011, the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct (TCJC) temporarily suspended Aransas County judge William Adams after a 2006 video of him viciously beating his then-16-year-old daughter, Hillary Adams, went viral. The Supreme Court of Texas reinstated Adams on November 9, 2012.
The brief, one-page order reinstating Adams contained ...
On August 12, 2012, a Nevada federal court approved a notice of proposed settlement of a class-action civil rights lawsuit brought by a Jewish Nevada state prisoner over the announced intent of the Nevada Department of Corrections (DOC) to cease offering kosher meals to Jewish prisoners. However, 45 of the ...
Four employees of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary (0SP) were fired and two resigned after a prisoner died of smoke inhalation while guards ignored smoke billowing from his cell and a sabotaged smoke alarm system failed to alert anyone to the danger.
No one knows why OSP prisoner Julius Parker, 26, ...
In 2009, all five of the Bexar County Adult Detention Center's (the jail) prisoner deaths were suicides by hanging and a sixth Bexar County prisoner being held in the Crystal City jail due to overcrowding at the jail, committed suicide. That was the year Bexar County Sheriff Amadero Ortiz took ...
The Transactional Records Clearinghouse (TAC) performed an analysis of available data on U.S. district judges' criminal caseloads from October 2006 through July 2012, excluding judges who resigned, retired or were appointed during the analysis period, TRAC found disparities in criminal caseloads among judges assigned to the same courthouse with some ...
In a November 14, 2012 opinion, The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that the prosecution is not required to prove that a probationer was able to pay fees before he was revoked for nonpayment. The court also held that the court of appeals must determine whether the error raised ...
In November 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice statistics published a report on pretrial release of criminal defendants in federal district courts between 2008 and 2010. The report analyzed how many defendants were released, the type of release, the conditions of release and how much misconduct they ...
In October 2012, the bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice published a report on the hiring and retention of state and local law enforcement officers in 2008. The report showed a strong growth in the number of such law enforcement officers--about 25% between 1992 and 2008--resulting ...
On November 16, 2012, Avalon Correctional Services, Donald Smith and Tiffinay Smith agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by Ravenswood Investment Company and Ravenswood Investments III (Ravenswood) over alleged corporate irregularities by the Smiths. The settlement calls for Avalon to purchase all the common shares of stock held by Avalon's ...
