Texas Capital May Direct Police to Stop Low Level Marijuana Enforcement
The decision of Texas lawmakers to legalize hemp last year had wide-ranging and unforeseen consequences. Although the legislation did not address marijuana, prosecutors started to drop hundreds of low-level marijuana possession charges. Now the City of Austin is considering its own solution by effectively decriminalizing possession of small amounts of pot altogether. The Austin City...Read More
Making Spoof Phone Calls Can be a Criminal Offense in Texas
Scammers who use false numbers to make calls are a daily annoyance for many people in Texas. Making spoof calls can now be an offense after two new bills were enacted in 2019. One of the new, little-known laws imposed civil penalties on telemarketers who violate the rules while the other imposed criminal penalties. State...Read More
Texas Death Row Inmate’s Sentence Is Tossed for Faulty Jury Instructions
Cesar Fierro spent four decades on death row in Texas. The threat of the death penalty was abruptly removed in late December when Texas’ highest ranking court decided he was given faulty jury instructions at his trial. Judges at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the Mexican national’s death sentence in December, citing incorrect...Read More
What Is the Difference Between Aggravated and Non Aggravated Sexual Assault
Any crime that involves sexual assault is considered a serious offense by the Texas judicial system. As a felony charge, sexual assault can carry severe penalties, including lengthy periods of incarceration and significant fines. When a person is convicted of sexual assault, how they are sentenced will depend on several factors, one of the most...Read More
Dallas Sex Assault Lawyer Explains – Consent in Criminal Sexual Assault
Sexual assault is a category of crimes that involves performing sexual activities with another person without their consent. Each state has their own consent laws, with very few variances among them. In recent years, we’ve seen a greater awareness being brought to the topic of consent, in a large part due to media coverage of...Read More
Dallas Recorded More Hate Crimes than Other Texas Cities, Report Reveals
Hate crimes are rising in Texas and Dallas saw more than any other city in the state in 2018, according to recently-released figures. The Federal Bureau of Investigations’ statistics for 2018 showed the number of hate crimes committed in Texas rose by nearly 240% from 2017 to 2018. The figures in the Uniform Crime Prevention...Read More
Are White Collar Crime Whistleblowers Protected by Law?
Whistleblowers play a tremendously important role in white-collar crime. Understand more about what a whistleblower is, and if they’re protected. Whistleblowers play an incredibly important role in the fight against white-collar crime. Because corporate crimes can be difficult to detect initially, whistleblowers help corporations protect their assets and spark investigations into possible illegal misconduct. The...Read More
Students with Vaping Pens in their Backpacks Face Felony Charges in Texas
A few years ago, teens vaping was an alarming trend. Now vaping at their Texas schools could leave students facing felony charges. Schools are resorting to Draconian measures to deal with a dramatic rise in teen vaping. Some are using the criminal law to its full force. It’s an alarming development that could land some...Read More
Removing Yourself from the Texas Sex Offender Registry
How to Get Removed from the Texas Sex Offender Registry According to the Marshall Project, about 800,000 Americans are required to register as a sex offender. While society tends to think of people on the sex offender registry as serial predators or violent criminals, the reality is that about half are on the registry for...Read More
White Collar Crime Prosecutions Hit a 33-Year Low
Texas has seen some high-profile white collar crime cases in recent years. However, new data suggests prosecutions brought for corporate corruption is falling. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research center at Syracuse University that tracks federal data, white collar prosecutions fell under the Trump administration. They are down 8.5% from a year...Read More