by Matt Clarke
In September 2011, the Texas State Auditor released a report on the Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) used by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). The audit, which covered the period from September 2009 through November 2010, found inaccuracies ...
Texas served its final last meal to condemned prisoner Lawrence Russell Brewer, who, on September 21, 2011, was executed for the infamous racially-motivated 1998 dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. Brewer requested an extensive last meal and then didn’t eat any of it, which prompted state Senator John Whitmire, chairman ...
by Matt Clarke
In 2008, then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo heaped lavish praise on Alisha Smith, a prosecutor in Manhattan who helped secure a $5 billion settlement in a securities fraud case involving Bank of America and other financial firms. The demurely-dressed Assistant State Attorney General spent her workdays ...
by Matt Clarke
The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) has challenged the findings of a state audit of the prisoner health care services it provides. The challenged audit reported that UTMB improperly charged the state for about $40 million in prison medical-related costs while reporting a $95.1 ...
by Matt Clarke
A succession of laws, cumulating in the most generous compensation package for wrongly convicted prisoners in the nation, has left Texas exonerees stuck at different levels of compensation depending on when they were proven innocent. Consequently, some earlier exonerees now claim they should receive compensation at the ...
by Matt Clarke
When Republican Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle scheduled her “Riddle Executive Leadership Summit” at the Lanier Theological Library in August 2011, the agenda mentioned several “esteemed discussion leaders,” a buffet reception and special gifts for large campaign donors. According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, those ...
by Matt Clarke
On October 10, 2011, 14-year-old Jordan Adams was found unconscious on the floor of his isolation cell at the Granbury Regional Juvenile Justice Center (GRJJC) in Granbury, Texas. A sheet was wrapped around his neck. He died six days later at the Cook Children’s Medical Center in ...
by Matt Clarke
On April 13, 2011, a Washington state Court of Appeals held that money paid to Class II prison workers counted as “wages” for purposes of calculating time-loss compensation.
James B. Hill, a former Washington state prisoner, was injured while performing a Class II prison job for which ...
by Matt Clarke
In 2007, when Texas became the last state in the nation to let prisoners make phone calls on a regular basis, the limit on phone usage was 120 minutes a month. [See: PLN, Nov. 2007, p.11]. Two years later the Texas Board of Criminal Justice (TBCJ) responded ...
by Matt Clarke
When 17-year-old Justin Fawcett admitted to having consensual sex with a 14-year-old student at the same high school he attended in West Bloomfield, Michigan, he probably never thought that that youthful dalliance would lead to his death, but it did.
Justin and three other teens who separately ...
