The latest criminal justice news from The Texas Tribune.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White today called on GOP Gov. Rick Perry to remove claims on his public and campaign Web sites that crime on the Texas border has dropped 65 percent. Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner defended the claims. He said Perry's claim refers to temporary crime drops in discreet areas during so-called "border surge" operations. Full Story
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Hank Skinner was set to die Wednesday for the 1993 murders of his live-in girlfriend and her two mentally disabled adult sons — a crime he insists he did not commit. About an hour before he was to have poison pushed through his veins, the U.S. Supreme Court spared his life. Full Story
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The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay this evening of the execution of death row inmate Hank Skinner, who was scheduled to die today. Full Story
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Senior leaders from the United States and Mexico agreed the two countries will begin swapping intelligence on suspected terrorists and Mexican felons following discussions in Mexico City on Tuesday. Full Story
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State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and state Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, wrote Gov. Rick Perry letters today urging him to grant a 30-day reprieve for death-row inmate Hank Skinner, who is scheduled for execution tomorrow. Full Story
President Barack Obama signed the health care reform bill into law this morning. Texas and 12 other states promptly filed a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. Read that lawsuit here. Full Story
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Listen to Attorney General Greg Abbott explain why he and other attorneys general are suing the federal government over the just-passed health care reform bill. Full Story
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The seven-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles today unanimously rejected death-row inmate Hank Skinner's request for a reprieve from his execution, which is scheduled for Wednesday. Full Story
We've added 14 school districts (from Aldine to San Antonio) and five counties (Bexar, Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Travis) to our government payroll app — an addition of 140,000 public employees earning roughly $6 billion. Full Story
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"It's just a question of whether to file our own lawsuit or join a multistate effort," says Attorney General Greg Abbott. Full Story
Lawmakers from both sides of the US/Mexico border were in Mexico City this week working on plans to combat growing border drug violence. Violence that has grabbed headlines in Texas in recent days. KUT’s Ben Philpott reports on the plans to curb border violence. Full Story
Grissom on the 1.2 million Texans who've lost their licenses under the Driver Responsibility Act and the impenetrable black box that is the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Ramshaw and Kraft on nurses with substance abuse problems and rehabilitation that can get them back to work, M. Smith finds it's not easy being Rick Green, Stiles on counting Texans (and everybody else), Rapoport on the State Board of Education's war with itself and the runoff in SBOE District 10, Thevenot's revealing interview with a big-city superintendent on closing bad schools, Aguilar on the tensions over water on the Texas-Mexico border, Hamilton on the new Coffee Party, Hu on Kesha Rogers and why her party doesn't want her, Philpott on the runoff in HD-47, Ramsey on Bill White and the politics of taxes, and E. Smith's conversation with Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heleimann: The best of our best from March 15 to 19. Full Story
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Barring the intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles is Hank Skinner’s last hope for reprieve from the poison-filled syringe he is set to meet on Wednesday. The board makes life-or-death decisions, recommending to the governor whether an execution should be delayed, called off or carried out, yet it’s one of the least transparent agencies in state government. Full Story
State agencies have received nearly one million requests under the Texas Public Information Act since September. Full Story
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Chromosal Laboratories, a DNA testing lab in Phoenix, Ariz., told Gov. Rick Perry that it will test evidence in the Hank Skinner case for free and within 30 days if he grants a reprieve of the convicted murderer's March 24 execution date. Full Story
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It’s not just Gov. Rick Perry who wants the President to make a trip south. Full Story
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Ever since his narrow March 2 win set off a collective grumble from the legal establishment, there’s been a movement afoot to shore up support for his runoff opponent. Now the fruits of those efforts have ripened. Full Story
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"There's really no e-mail to send you my questions?" Nope, she said, you'll have to fax them. Fax?! No e-mail?!? Full Story
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The governor's political radar is characteristically fine-tuned here, at least for the short term. Full Story
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Thevenot on the non-stop wonder that is the State Board of Education and its latest efforts to set curriculum standards, E. Smith's post-election sit-down interview with Bill White at TribLive made some news and got the November pugilism started, Ramshaw on whether it makes sense for the state to call patients and remind them to take their pills, and on the state's botched attempt to save baby blood samples for medical research, Hamilton's interview with Steve Murdock on the state's demographic destiny, M. Smith on whooping cranes, fresh water, and an effort to use the endangered species act to protect them both, Grissom on potties, pickups, and other equipment purchased with federal homeland security money and Stiles' latest data and map on where that money went, Aguilar on the "voluntary fasting" protesting conditions and treatment at an immigrant detention facility, Kreighbaum on football, the new sport at UTSA, and Philpott on Rick Perry and Bill White retooling their appeals for the general election. The best of our best from March 8 to 12, 2010. Full Story
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