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Texas turns away from criminal truancy courts for students
Topics |
2015/06/18 21:47
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A long-standing Texas law that has sent about 100,000 students a year to criminal court — and some to jail — for missing school is off the books, though a Justice Department investigation into one county's truancy courts continues.
Gov. Greg Abbott has signed into law a measure to decriminalize unexcused absences and require school districts to implement preventive measures. It will take effect Sept. 1.
Reform advocates say the threat of a heavy fine — up to $500 plus court costs — and a criminal record wasn't keeping children in school and was sending those who couldn't pay into a criminal justice system spiral. Under the old law, students as young as 12 could be ordered to court for three unexcused absences in four weeks. Schools were required to file a misdemeanor failure to attend school charge against students with more than 10 unexcused absences in six months. And unpaid fines landed some students behind bars when they turned 17.
"Most of the truancy issues involve hardships," state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said. "To criminalize the hardships just doesn't solve anything. It costs largely low-income families. It doesn't address the root causes."
Only two states in the U.S. — Texas and Wyoming — send truants to adult criminal court. In 2013, Texas prosecuted about 115,000 cases, more than twice the number of truancy cases filed in juvenile courts of all other states, according to a report from the nonprofit advocacy group Texas Appleseed. An estimated $10 million was collected from court costs and fines from students for truancy in fiscal year 2014 alone, the Texas Office of Court Administration said.
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Man pleads guilty to charge over noose on Ole Miss statue
Legal Opinions |
2015/06/18 21:47
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A federal prosecutor said in court Thursday that Graeme Phillip Harris hatched a plan, after a night of drinking at a University of Mississippi fraternity house, to hang a noose on a campus statue of James Meredith, the first black student at Ole Miss.
Harris, who is white, pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor charge of threatening force to intimidate African-American students and employees at the university. Prosecutors agreed to drop a stiffer felony charge in exchange for the plea arising from the incident last year.
The 20-year-old Harris faces up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $100,000. U.S. District Judge Michael Mills said sentencing will be within 60 to 90 days, and he allowed Harris to remain free on a $10,000 bond.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Norman told Mills that Harris, who had a history of using racist language and saying African Americans were inferior to whites, proposed the plan to two fellow freshmen while at the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house on the night of Feb 15, 2014.
That led to the plan to hang the noose and a former Georgia state flag that features the Confederate battle flag on the statue of Meredith, in a jab at Ole Miss' thorny racial history.
When a federal court ordered the university to admit Meredith in 1962, the African-American student had to be escorted onto campus by armed federal agents. The agents were attacked during an all-night riot that claimed two lives and was ultimately quelled by federal troops.
After the noose and flag were placed on the statue, Norman said Harris and one of the other freshmen returned at sunrise on Feb. 16 to observe and were filmed by a video camera at the Ole Miss student union. |
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600 court cases under review in California corruption probe
Legal Network |
2015/06/16 00:21
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Hundreds of Orange County court cases are being scrutinized amid suspicions that someone was paid to fix DUI and other traffic violations by falsifying court records.
The FBI and county prosecutors are investigating, and about 600 Superior Court cases, some dating to 2006, are going before a judge this month to determine whether they should be reheard, the Orange County Register reported.
The probe involves suspicions that some employees recorded fake sentence reductions and dismissals for drunken driving and misdemeanor traffic cases and in at least one case, falsely made it appear a defendant had served jail time, the Register reported.
No arrests have been made. Representatives for the FBI, the court and the county district attorney's office declined to comment.
On Friday, 110 attorneys and former criminal defendants were summoned to the courtroom of Judge Thomas Borris and told there were errors in the court records. "You are here to convince me there is not a mistake in your case," Borris said.
"There has been a clerk somewhere that was entering false information ... getting cash in exchange for making stuff disappear," said Sheny Gutierrez, one of the attorneys who appeared.
Ramon Vasquez said he was given a work program in 2012 after pleading guilty to driving on a suspended license. The judge said the case would be undone unless he produced documents, the Register said.
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US appeals court upholds key parts of Texas abortion law
Court Watch |
2015/06/15 00:22
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A federal appeals court upheld key parts of Texas's strict anti-abortion law on Tuesday, a decision that could leave as few as seven abortion clinics in the nation's second largest state.
The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds requirements that abortion clinics meet hospital-level operating standards, which owners of small clinics say demand millions of dollars in upgrades they can't afford and will leave many women hundreds of miles away from an abortion provider. But the court said abortion clinics failed to prove that the restrictions would unduly burden a "large fraction" of women.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other conservatives say the standards protect women's health. But abortion-rights supports say the law is a thinly veiled attempt to block access to abortions in Texas, and they promised to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which temporarily sidelined the law last year.
"Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale," said Nancy Northrop, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Texas will be able to start enforcing the restrictions in about three weeks unless the Supreme Court steps in and temporarily halts the decision, said Stephanie Toti, an attorney for the center. Only seven abortion facilities in Texas, including four operated by Planned Parenthood, meet the more robust requirements.
The ruling, made by a three-judge panel, is the 5th Circuit's latest decision in a lawsuit challenging some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country.
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