CRIMINAL JUSTICE

For more than a decade, Texas has been trying to slim down its youth prison system, which has been plagued by years of abuse scandals. This Legislature is reversing that course.

Seven Republicans and five Democrats make up the board of managers who will handle the prosecution in the trial, which has yet to be scheduled.

The GOP priority legislation could remove prosecutors from office if they don’t pursue certain crimes. The bill gained traction after some Democratic district attorneys said they would not prosecute abortion-related crimes.

A failure to compromise on school choice, border security and, for now, property taxes all but assures the governor will call lawmakers back for a special legislative session.

The embattled attorney general has criticized a Republican-led push that could remove him from office. The Texas House is set to debate 20 articles of impeachment at 1 p.m.

Paxton said House members were showing “contempt for the electoral process” and accused them of sabotaging his work challenging the Biden administration.

Stifling heat has killed inmates and exacerbated employee turnover in Texas prisons. But funding for air conditioning was whittled down in the draft budget released Thursday.

The Texas Legislature has never removed an attorney general. If the House votes to impeach, the Senate will hold a trial.

Chris Hilton, head of litigation in the attorney general’s office, told reporters that lawmakers can’t oust Paxton. His comments came as a House committee met behind closed doors about its investigation into the state’s top lawyer.

Less than a year into his first term, Paxton was charged with felony securities fraud. The Justice Department is currently investigating bribery allegations against him as a Texas House committee conducts its own probe into his behavior.

Wednesday marks exactly a year since a mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde. The community continues to grapple with the trauma and pain, and for those who lost someone that day, they’re determined to keep the memories of their loved ones alive.

The two chambers have been at odds over property tax relief and school choice, but on Tuesday night, those divisions spilled over into priorities the bodies had previously agreed upon.

The idea appeared to die in the Texas House over the weekend, but senators kept it alive by grafting the proposal on to another piece of legislation.

Despite its tendency to distort memories, hypnosis has been used on witnesses in numerous investigations, including death penalty cases. Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a similar bill in 2021.

Emotions often ran high over a proposal to limit young adults’ access to some firearms. Lawmakers have largely prioritized school safety measures, but there was still progress for some gun-related legislation.

The film, “After Uvalde: Guns, Grief and Texas Politics,” will be broadcast nationally on PBS and also available for streaming.

Evadulia Orta’s son, Rojélio Torres, died in the school shooting in Uvalde last year. Her other children still collect Pokémon cards to add to his collection, and his cousins play with his football.

Priority bills that died include a 10-year minimum sentencing for gun-related crimes, a ban on “critical race theory” at public universities and LGBTQ-related legislation. While the bills may be dead, lawmakers have a limited time to attach their ideas to legislation that are still alive.

The bill would allow for the removal of prosecutors who adopt any policy to not pursue certain crimes, including some low-level theft and drug charges. The Senate’s version will need to be reconciled with the House, which had carved out some exemptions.

Despite no major influx in border crossings, state troopers will be relocated to border cities. Austin and the Texas Department of Public Safety faced criticism for the racial disparities in state trooper arrests in the capital.

In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas’ law banning sodomy in 2003. It took almost 20 years for Democrats to get a bill to repeal the defunct ban on the House calendar.

A Texas lawmaker introduced an amendment that would have revived a proposal to raise the minimum age to buy certain semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21 before it was ultimately withdrawn.

Perry’s case has become an explosive political stew of arguments over gun rights, self-defense and racist social media posts. The governor dived in early, saying he would pardon Perry even before a judge handed down the sentence.

The rate of firearm-related deaths in Texas has reached a level not seen since the 1990s. Texas lawmakers have approved more than 100 bills that loosened gun restrictions since 2000.

A day after a committee unexpectedly advanced a bill that would raise the minimum age to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles, the legislation faces another make-or-break deadline.

A mass shooting at this suburb’s community hub — the outlet mall — has punctured the sense of security that drew many to Allen. “That could have been me and my boys,” one local woman said.

Local, state and federal authorities say they are trying to determine a motive behind the fatal shooting of eight people in North Texas on Saturday.

Texas authorities released the names of the eight victims killed this weekend. Their ages range from 3 to 37.

The shooter’s “RWDS” patch offers troubling clues about his potential ideology — and how it might connect to views that are common among white supremacist groups.

The legislation would raise the age requirement for purchasing certain firearms, but likely wouldn’t have been a hindrance to the Allen gunman obtaining a weapon. The bill still faces an uphill climb in the Legislature.

Police said it’s still not known if the driver intentionally struck the crowd of immigrants waiting at a bus stop.

Abbott announced the deployment of new “Texas Tactical Border Force” units to El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley on Monday and Tuesday.

After mall shooting, residents of the Dallas suburb are experiencing familiar rituals: mourning, anger and despair.

President Joe Biden confirmed Sunday that the shooter used an AR-15 in the attack.

The driver has been detained, but authorities say it is unclear what caused the fatal crash at a Brownsville bus stop.

The shooter was also killed by a police officer after he opened fire in Allen. Gov. Greg Abbott called the shooting “an unspeakable tragedy.”

San Antonio voters rejected by wide margins an effort to decriminalize abortion and require police to issue citations rather than make arrests for some nonviolent offenses. In El Paso, an effort to wean the city from fossil fuels fared similarly poorly.

Officials did not specify the location of his arrest on Tuesday night, but they said the suspect was being held at the Montgomery County jail where he was initially taken.

A month after the Texas Department of Public Safety began patrolling Austin streets, city officials have both praised a drop in violent crime and condemned the operation’s disparate impact on Latino and Black residents. In 2019, Dallas faced the same challenges.

In today’s episode, we discuss the problems in the Texas state agency intended to rehabilitate children who have committed crimes — and whether the Legislature is eyeing any solutions.

The governor’s focus on immigration status, not the loss of life, draws rebukes from across the country.

In the face of mass shootings in Texas, state leaders have made it easier to access guns.

“They didn’t try to fix the brokenness,” his mother says. “They just broke him more.”

Moving the most violent and troubled youths to adult prison makes it easier to help others in juvenile facilities, some prosecutors and lawmakers say. Youth justice advocates say Texas is giving up on the children who most need help.

The legislation is in response to elected prosecutors in Texas’ large, left-leaning counties who have said they will not prosecute abortion cases.

Stuck in committee, the test-strip legislation has support from Gov. Greg Abbott and bipartisan lawmakers, who see it as a way to save lives.

During a Texas Tribune event marking one year since the shooting at Robb Elementary School, parents, mental health experts and faith leaders talked about how the path to recovery isn’t the same for everybody.

Joshua Keith Beasley Jr. had been transferred from a Texas youth facility to an adult prison despite a long history of suicidal behavior. Five guards and two supervisors allegedly failed to check on him.

Wasi and his brother pray for their family’s safety as the holy month of Ramadan ends and the Taliban continues to rule Afghanistan.

Two jurors from Cantu’s 2001 double-murder trial now support his appeals, which claim prosecutors relied on false testimony and withheld crucial evidence.

Proposition A on the May 6 ballot will test the city’s political climate and progressives’ ability to advance a controversial agenda.

Reed has long said he was wrongfully convicted for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites. His lawyers will now be able to renew their legal fight for testing of crucial crime scene evidence.

The families of Uvalde shooting victims waited hours to testify at a House committee hearing in support of House Bill 2744, which would raise the minimum age to purchase semi-automatic guns from 18 to 21.

The House Select Committee on Community Safety is scheduled to hear testimony on bills that would change how people buy firearms and how authorities report those purchases. One of these bills would raise the minimum age to 21 years old to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles.

Many bills that would limit access to firearms or ammunition likely won’t become law anytime soon. But people who advocate at the Texas Capitol see emerging signs that there’s appetite for finding some middle ground.

The Texas Department of Public Safety did a sweep of Capitol grounds with K-9 dogs and found no explosive devices.

Gov. Greg Abbott has said he wants to pardon Perry, who was convicted by a Travis County jury last week.

Michael Prado, with the grassroots organization West Texas Harm Reduction, is on a mission to distribute fentanyl test strips, syringes and overdose-reversing drugs like naloxone to his community.

Texas lawmakers want tougher criminal penalties for possession of delta-8 and fentanyl. But that would mean much more work for the crime labs handling most of the drug testing for the state’s 254 counties.

Sweltering heat has killed inmates, driven away prison workers and cost taxpayers millions in lawsuits. The House budget would provide air conditioning for 46 prisons, but it’s unclear if the Senate will sign on.

The bill would take fentanyl test strips off the state’s “drug paraphernalia” list, meaning it would no longer be a crime to carry them.

Sen. Joan Huffman said the bill was in response to increased violent crime since 2019. Legislative researchers could not determine how the bill would affect the state’s prison population.

Trump became the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges, in his case over alleged hush money payments made to an adult film star. Many of his fellow Republicans in Texas lambasted the legal development.

The chamber has repeatedly passed legislation in recent sessions eliminating the death penalty in cases of severe mental illness, but hardline conservatives are now pushing back.

Some local district and county attorneys have said they will not pursue abortion-related cases, or prioritize certain drug, property and election crimes.

The Senate Finance Committee’s proposals won’t be voted on and sent to the full chamber until April.

In this week’s episode, we discuss the weapon used by the school shooter in Uvalde and new details that highlight how fear of the gun contributed to the botched police response.

A two-tiered system gives less populated counties more time to provide court-appointed lawyers, requiring creative responses to a long-standing problem.

Under Senate Bill 23, all felonies involving a gun would incur a mandatory 10-year prison sentence. It’s meant to curb crime, despite the lack of correlation between harsher sentences and crime rates.

Plagued by decades of scandals over sexual and physical abuse of children, the Texas Juvenile Justice Department is at a crossroads.

Brown’s appeals ran out after almost 30 years on death row. Defense attorneys claim Harris County prosecutors hid evidence pointing to another suspect in the 1992 shooting deaths of four people in a Houston drug house.

Lawyers for four former employees who accused the attorney general of firing them for reporting alleged crimes to authorities say Paxton won’t agree to finalizing the deadline by the end of this legislative session.

In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a right to a lawyer applies to criminal defendants. Together with the Texas Indigent Defense Commission, The Texas Tribune hosted a series of conversations Friday on public defense in Texas.

The bill, introduced months after the Uvalde school shooting, also allocates more funds to the state’s school safety allotment, which is money given to districts to improve campus security.

A Chinese crime operation bypassed the password clues of Texas.gov by using stolen identity information to fraudulently obtain replacement driver’s licenses.

During a recent street racing incident, Austin residents faced long 911 wait times. City officials say they need to increase staffing for 911 call takers, but state license and background check requirements make it difficult to fill positions.

Lawmakers lowered the penalty to a misdemeanor in 2021, but then almost immediately began discussing raising it back.

Police often can’t tell if a cannabis vape pen is derived from marijuana or legal hemp, like the delta-8 products on display in gas stations across Texas. That doesn’t stop them from from making felony arrests in high schools.

At issue is whether Thomas, who gouged out his eyes after confessing the 2004 murders of his estranged wife, their son and her daughter, is competent to be executed in April.

Many relatives of Uvalde victims back bills that state Rep. Tracy King and Sen. Roland Gutierrez are pushing in the Legislature. But limits on gun access don’t fare well at the Capitol.

Since Jacoby Pillow’s death last month, at least three others have died at Harris County Jail. And the year before, the jail hit a record-high of 27 in-custody deaths.

The families say they were shut out of discussions over the deal between the federal government and Boeing. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor said courts don’t have authority to override it.

The Texas Department of Public Safety is instead asking lawmakers for $381.5 million to upgrade its current facilities with better technology, dormitories and cafeteria for trainees from across the state.

Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions.

Schwertner, a Georgetown Republican, was booked into the Travis County jail at 2:12 a.m.

Ruiz was convicted in the 2007 shooting death of Dallas police Senior Cpl. Mark Nix after a high-speed chase.

After 21 days, the last of many Texas prisoners to consistently refuse food ended his hunger strike. In letters to The Texas Tribune, two prisoners spoke out on the dire solitary confinement conditions that led them to starve themselves.

In this week’s episode, Matthew speaks with Jolie about a hunger strike in Texas prisons and a lawsuit seeking to reform the use of solitary confinement on death row.

The airplane manufacturer was accused of fraud for misleading federal regulators about the safety of its jets, but stayed out of court by making a deal with prosecutors. Victims’ families say they were cut out of the process.

Men sentenced to death in Texas are held in isolation until their execution dates, with little human contact, medical care or legal help, according to a lawsuit filed to improve treatment of the condemned.

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a San Antonio Democrat, introduced a package of legislation that includes a bill that would end qualified immunity, which shields government officials from liability for constitutional violations.

Although the number of men refusing food has steadily declined, 38 are still starving themselves to protest Texas policies that often keep prisoners in isolation for years or even decades.

Two girls in the care of Child Protective Services were allegedly sexually assaulted in October after sneaking out of a facility run by the state agency. Advocates say it’s a symptom of the Texas foster care systems’ problems.

One year later, there have been no arrests or charges filed related to the case. Cuellar maintains that he was never the target of the investigation and will ultimately be cleared of wrongdoing.

Spurred by reports of inhumane conditions at Texas Juvenile Justice Department facilities, Austin-area teenagers are lobbying the Legislature to reform the system.

The federal government has largely avoided pursuing the death penalty under President Biden.

Prisoners have refused food to protest practices that have kept more than 500 people in isolation for more than a decade.

Some 50 Texas sheriffs and numerous elected officials have attended trainings on the unsupported notion that sheriffs can single-handedly overrule state and federal law. The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, which offered state peace officers credit for the seminars, is now investigating.

Robert Roberson was sentenced to death for killing his 2-year-old daughter. Experts have since backtracked on the science used in part to win his conviction.

The preliminary report has not been made public by either the district attorney’s office or the state. The Texas Rangers are conducting a criminal investigation into the shooting at Robb Elementary.