The latest criminal justice news from The Texas Tribune.
A growing number of asylum-seekers are asking for safe haven based on a factor that isn't usually associated with a need to flee one's homeland: gender identity. In the days before the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark gay marriage case, immigrant rights groups were drawing attention to the plight of LGBT immigrants. Full Story
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Texas' Republican leaders suffered a historic loss on Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court held that state bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional. But social conservatives vowed not to go down without a fight over religious liberty. Full Story
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The Texas Supreme Court on Friday ruled it has no authority or jurisdiction to intervene in its sister court's ban of prominent death penalty lawyer David Dow. Full Story
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Elated couples across Texas hurried into county clerks' offices Friday to apply for marriage licenses following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. Full Story
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Handing gay rights advocates a monumental victory, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled that marriages between couples of the same sex cannot be prohibited by states, a decision that overrides Texas’ ban on gay marriage. Full Story
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It was a mostly new cast of characters in the Texas Senate, a chamber historically ruled by seniority, that flexed its political muscle to stop a statewide texting-while-driving ban this year. Full Story
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In an interview with the Tribune, Carlos González Gutiérrez, Mexico's newest general consul in Austin, discussed the challenges of reaching out to the state's diverse communities of Mexican nationals, and how he interacts with state leaders at the Capitol. Full Story
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The number of inmates on Texas’ death row is falling. At its peak in 1999, 460 men and women were living with a death sentence in Texas, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. Today, there are 260. Full Story
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Texas lawmakers may be reluctant to ease up on punishing small-time pot smokers, but local prosecutors across the state are increasingly looking for ways to keep two-bit toking cases from clogging court dockets. Full Story
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As Texas waits on the U.S. Supreme Court to rule, the state highest civil court ruled Friday that the Texas attorney general's office tried too late to stop a divorce between a couple married in Massachusetts. Full Story
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A case against Attorney General Ken Paxton is heading to a grand jury next month, according to one of the special prosecutors investigating him. Full Story
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The home address listed on a Texas driver's license used to be one of the best tools police had to track people down, serve warrants or notify next-of-kin when someone died. But no more in this job-hopping, mobile culture. Full Story
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Since 2000, the Texas prison system has referred nearly 400 cases of staff sex crimes against inmates to prosecutors. Prosecutors refused to pursue almost half of those cases. Of 126 prison workers convicted, just nine were sentenced to serve time. Full Story
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The backlog of immigration cases from Texas has grown almost 60 percent in two years. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, is trying to get Congress to cough up funding for 55 more immigration judges and staff to help overloaded courts across the country. Full Story
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During the 84th legislative session, lawmakers passed open carry and campus carry legislation and voted to make cannabis oil available to epilepsy patients. Find more details on these and other law and order issues on the Texas Legislative Guide. Full Story
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Gov. Greg Abbott has signed legislation that could make it tougher for local governments to sue big-time polluters – an effort that largely targets Harris County prosecutors. Full Story
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Houston appeals court judge Michael Massengale said Tuesday he will challenge Texas Supreme Court Justice Debra Lehrmann in next year’s Republican primary. Full Story
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The Texas Oil and Gas Association and the state’s General Land Office have expanded the scope of their lawsuits against Denton. Both are taking aim at the city’s moratorium on new gas drilling in addition to the toothless fracking ban still on its books. Full Story
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There are currently 261 inmates living on death row in Texas, the state with the most active execution chamber by far. Use this interactive to search through these men and women by the length of their stay, race, age and sex. Full Story
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To add transparency to the state's capital punishment system, the Tribune is unveiling a new tool for readers: Faces of Death Row. It profiles all 261 inmates facing execution, summarizes their crimes and allows filtering by race, age, sex and years spent on death row. Full Story
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