Entries tagged with “Texas Defender Service

Policy Issues

Innocence

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Victims' Families

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Aug 12, 2024

New York Times Video Op-eds Highlight Systemic Flaws in the Capital Punishment System, Including Mistakes from Junk Science and Lack of Closure for Victims’ Families

In the sec­ond and third videos of The New York Times’ three-part series, The Fallibility of Justice,” Brett Malone, whose mother’s killer remains on Louisiana death row, and Texas death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Charles Don Flores pro­vide their per­spec­tives on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The New York Times has con­sis­tent­ly called for abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, describ­ing it as full of bias and error, moral­ly abhor­rent, [and] futile in deter­ring crime.”…

Policy Issues

Innocence

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Aug 05, 2024

New Report Reveals Texas Junk Science Statute Fails to Adequately Provide Relief for Innocent Prisoners, Including Robert Roberson

A July 2024 report from the Texas Defender Service (TDS), An Unfulfilled Promise: Assessing the Efficacy of 11.073, the first-ever com­pre­hen­sive review of Texas’ junk sci­ence writ, revealed that the law sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly fails to pro­vide relief to inno­cent peo­ple con­vict­ed based on false foren­sic evi­dence.” In 2013, the Texas Legislature passed a first-of-its-kind law, Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 11.073, cre­at­ing a pro­ce­dur­al path­way for con­vict­ed indi­vid­u­als to seek new…

Facts & Research

New Voices

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Mar 21, 2024

Discussions with DPIC Podcast: Retired Judge Elsa Alcala on the Death Penalty in Texas

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Judge Elsa Alcala, who served on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals from 2011 to 2018. In addi­tion to serv­ing as a judge at the appeals and tri­al lev­el, she worked as a pros­e­cu­tor, crim­i­nal defense attor­ney, and most recent­ly as a jus­tice-reform lob­by­ist dur­ing her three-decade career in crim­i­nal law. She shares how these expe­ri­ences have informed her per­spec­tive on the death penal­ty and…

Policy Issues

Race

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Feb 28, 2024

New Report from Texas Defender Service Examines Ongoing Racial Disparities in Harris County Death Penalty Practices and Recommends Reforms

A new report from the Texas Defender Service (TDS) titled Arbitrary and Capricious: Examining Racial Disparities in Harris County’s Pursuit of Death Sentences” was pub­lished on February 22, 2024 and is the lat­est in series of TDS reports on use of the death penal­ty in Texas. The report focus­es on Harris County’s out­lier death penal­ty prac­tices, both with­in the state and nation­al­ly. While more than half of the 254 coun­ties in Texas have nev­er imposed a death sen­tence, Harris County is…