Category: News
Hypnosis conjures up images of magicians and pendulums but it is used to secure convictions in Texas. Now two Dallas defendants who believe the technique landed them on Death Row are challenging the state’s use of hypnosis. The Dallas Morning News reported how Texas has one of the most well-used forensic hypnosis programs in the…
A secretive federal surveillance program led to the arrest of a black activist in Dallas who was jailed for five months over his Facebook posts, a new report claims. The ordeal faced by Rakem Balogun was detailed by The Guardian last week. The black activist described how he was picked up in an FBI operation…
Texas is on the frontline of illegal immigration with its border of more than 1,200 miles with Mexico. The state has also seen the enactment of a controversial ‘sanctuary cities’ law that allows police officers to inquire about a suspect’s nationality. Despite an intense national debate about immigration and crime, four new academic studies suggest…
Revenge porn has made headlines in recent years. It’s the practice of posting nude or semi-nude pictures of a former partner on the internet without his or her permission. Texas has criminalized the practice. However, a court has struck down the Texas revenge porn law for being too broad and in violation of the First…
Dallas Criminal Attorney Educates – What Is a Grand Jury? Just about everyone is familiar with the concept of a jury. Generally speaking, a jury consists of a group of people from the community who consider all the evidence in a case and, using jury instructions from the court, determine whether the prosecutor has proved…
Hate crimes have been spiking across the United States in recent years. Police believe deadly explosions that killed two African-Americans in Austin may be hate crimes. Packages containing bombs exploded in the city over a 10-day period. One detonated on March 2 and two 10 days later killing two people and injuring two others. Then…
Texas has reduced its prison population due to reforms, but that only tells half of the story, according to a new report. While the number of male prisoners has fallen the female prison population is growing. The concerns were raised by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition in a report released last week. The report suggests…
Threats to schools on social media are taken extremely seriously in Texas. At the end of last month, a 14-year-old was arrested in Pearland near Houston for an alleged Snapchat threat made against a school. Police officers visited a home in the area after a parent claimed her children received disturbing messages via the popular…
Small samples of DNA are often used to clear up cold cases. Police recently revealed a discarded cigarette butt helped them charge a Texas man over the murder of a 50-year-old woman on Mother’s Day 2016. Byron Lloyd Collins, 29, was recently picked up by authorities at the same complex in Baytown where Natalia Shal…
It’s unusual for a judge to seek to influence the verdict of a jury, but this appears to have happened in Texas, according to a recent report. A state district judge in Comal County is said to have told the jury God told him to intervene and the jury should return a not guilty verdict…