Year: 2015
A damning report into the way crime is handled in Ferguson, MO., has confirmed that not all local criminal justice systems are equal and some are riddled with bad practices. This month the Justice Department called on Ferguson, Mo., to “overhaul its criminal justice system, declaring that the city had engaged in so many constitutional…
A police operation of an alleged stolen car and monster truck ring has illustrated how a criminal investigation can quickly spiral. On Feb. 26, the Dallas Morning News reported how David Campbell, 57, from Hutchins in Dallas County was accused of stealing a monster truck from a Plano parking lot. Police say he reported the…
Recently the Dallas Morning News reported on how some police office relish the chance to arrest scofflaws during the Great Texas Warrant Roundup “as if it were spring break.” The round-up targets offenders who have evaded low-level violations such as traffic citations. Although these violations do not carry heavy sentences if they are quickly processed,…
Attacks on university campuses have made lurid headlines over the last few months, but they should not always be taken at face value. Recently, a UT-Arlington student who made a police report claiming she was threatened at gunpoint on campus admitted that she’d lied, a university spokeswoman said. The Dallas Morning News reported the UT-Arlington…
NFL players seem to spend a lot of time in the national spotlight over crimes they are alleged to have committed. Now Dallas Cowboys running back Joseph Randle has made the headlines after an ex-girlfriend issued a protective order against him. The ex-girlfriend of Randle has been granted a temporary protective order against him after…
Violent crime is seen as one of the biggest menaces to society, which is why rates for violent offenses make the most prominent headlines. Recently, FBI data was released for 2013 that revealed Odessa had the highest violent crime rate out of 24 metropolitan areas in Texas last year. The West Texas city with a…
The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a first appeal of the conviction of a Texas man against his verdict and death sentence over the killing of a grandmother. Mark Anthony Soliz is on death row for killing a 61-year-old grandmother at her Johnson County home nearly five years ago. The Fort Worth Star Telegram reported…
Rick Perry has been Texas’s longest serving governor. In 14 years in office he has changed the criminal justice system in a way that was not predicted when he first took office in 2001, according to commentators. Writing in the Texas Tribune, Terri Langford said Perry’s first budget as governor in 2001 “could have come…
Child pornography charges are taken very seriously and dealt with by the federal authorities. We wrote about the difficulty of defending child pornography cases here. Recently, the Dallas Morning News reported on how a 38-year-old man from Little Elm was sentenced to federal prison on child pornography violations, according to a press release from the…