Judge denies Texas inmate's request to stop execution over claims that fire damaged injection drugs
A federal judge has denied a request to stop the execution of a Texas inmate who had alleged in a lawsuit the drugs he's to be injected with next week were exposed to extreme heat and smoke during a recent fire, making them unsafe.
Texas inmate killed by cellmate during a statewide prison lockdown
The killing of inmate Billy Chemirmir in the Coffield Unit occurred during a statewide lockdown of prisons, promoted by a rise in inmate homicides. A day before the lockdown, another incident at the same prison resulted in the firings of seven correctional officers and the resignations of another six.
A prison guard says she was forced to stay at her post during labor pains. Texas is fighting compensation for her stillbirth.
The seven-months-pregnant officer reported contraction-like pains at work, but said she wasn’t allowed to leave for hours. The anti-abortion state is fighting her lawsuit, in part by saying her fetus didn’t clearly have rights.
“A way to throw kids away”: Texas’ troubled juvenile justice department is sending more children to adult prisons
Moving the most violent and troubled youths to adult prison makes it easier to help others in juvenile facilities, some prosecutors and lawmakers say. Youth justice advocates say Texas is giving up on the children who most need help.
Former Cut and Shoot assistant police chief receives 20-year prison sentence for sexual assaulting child multiple times, DA says
A former assistant chief for the Cut and Shoot Police Department who was arrested and charged for sexually assaulting a child multiple times in 2021 has been sentenced to 20 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.
Texas death row prisoners spend decades in solitary confinement. A lawsuit wants to end that “cruel” treatment.
Men sentenced to death in Texas are held in isolation until their execution dates, with little human contact, medical care or legal help, according to a lawsuit filed to improve treatment of the condemned.
Judge orders Texas to stop using expired lethal injection drugs, throwing Tuesday’s execution of Robert Fratta in doubt
Fratta was convicted in the 1994 murder-for-hire of his wife. Lawyers are challenging Texas’ routine of extending the expiration dates of its lethal drugs, a practice begun when many pharmacies began refusing to provide doses for executions.
Gov. Abbott directs investigation into murders committed by 2 paroled inmates wearing ankle monitors, release says
Gov. Greg Abbott has directed the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles (BPP) and Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to investigate any lapses in the release and parole supervision of two men who were reportedly wearing ankle monitors while they committed murders, a news release from the governor’s office said.
Chronically understaffed Texas prisons set stage for prison bus escape and massacre of family
Investigative reviews by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and independent consultants found the severely short-staffed prison routinely bypassed crucial security checks, leading to a convicted murderer’s escape.
Woman visiting parole office arrested, charged in cold case murder of Liberty County couple; $1M bond set
DNA has connected a Freeport woman to the 2005 double homicide of a couple who was found dead by their daughter inside the family’s Liberty County home, Texas Department of Public Safety officials said.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick calls on Texas Rangers to investigate how Gonzalo Lopez escaped TDCJ custody, killed family of 5
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called for the Texas Rangers to investigate how Gonzalo Lopez, a convicted murderer, was able to escape Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) custody, elude capture for 21 days, and perpetuate the brutal murder of Mark Collins and his four grandsons on June 2.
TDCJ to resume bus transportation after inmate escaped custody before killing family of 5
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) will resume inmate transportation starting Monday, June 13 after temporarily stopping it to investigate how a convicted murderer escaped from a bus last month and allegedly killed a man and his four grandsons.
Escaped inmate shot, killed during foot chase after possibly killing 1 adult, 4 children from the Houston-area, TDCJ says
Officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety say that five people were found dead in Leon County near the area where escaped inmate Gonzalo Lopez was last seen in May. Lopez is believed to be tied to the murders, according to TxDPS.
Gov. Greg Abbott redirects $500 million from other agencies to fund border security mission through end of fiscal year
Abbott said the money would be taken from the budgets of other Texas agencies, including nearly $210 million from the state’s Health and Human Services Commission over two years and about $160 million from the Texas Department of Public Safety.
U.S. Supreme Court justices appear reluctant to loosen restrictions on religious advisers during Texas executions
The latest Texas execution protocols forbid spiritual advisers from praying aloud or touching prisoners as the prisoners are killed. Some members of the high court said they feared overturning the rules would lead to a flood of requests for other religious accommodations during executions.
Almost 150 guards are staffing an empty Texas prison as state officials work on Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan to use it for immigrants
While many Texas prisons are understaffed, some dangerously so, the emptied-out Briscoe Unit in Dilley is in "maintenance mode" as officials scramble to implement the governor's plan to increase the state's role in border enforcement.
Gov. Abbott orders TDCJ to clear out prisoners at state prison to house migrants with low-level offenses
Gov. Greg Abbott has directed the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to move prisoners from the Briscoe Unit in Dilley to make room for migrants crossing the border unlawfully and who have committed a state or federal crime.
Experts raise concerns after Texas execution without media
Legal and death penalty experts worry an execution without media watching how Texas officials administered a lethal injection against a condemned inmate is another example of a lack of transparency and competency in how the death penalty is carried out in the U.S. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is continuing their investigation in Wednesday’s execution, but so far are blaming miscommunication.
Texas executes man convicted of killing his great aunt in 1999
A Texas man convicted of fatally beating his 83-year-old great aunt more than two decades ago was executed Wednesday evening without media witnesses present because prison agency officials neglected to notify reporters it was time to carry out the punishment.
Here are the rules spiritual advisors must follow to be present inside Texas execution chamber
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice released its new protocols for allowing spiritual advisors to be present in the execution chamber at the time of an inmate’s death. This reversal comes two years after TDCJ halted the practice.
Texas prisons stopped in-person visits and limited mail. Drugs got in anyway.
Last year, the Texas prison system unwittingly started a controlled experiment. The main source of the drugs, according to more than a dozen people who lived or worked in Texas prisons over the past year: low-paid employees in understaffed facilities. … It’s so easy to get it in.”She asked not to be named for fear of retaliation from the prison agency. Texas prison officers start at a salary of about $36,000; the maximum is less than $45,000. AdA perennial problemFrom shanks to phones to drugs, contraband of all types has been a perennial source of consternation for Texas prison officials.
Texas prisoners started getting vaccinated in February, months after many became eligible
TEXAS – Texas prisoners over the age of 65 and with health conditions started receiving vaccinations in late February, months after many of them were eligible, according to a statement Thursday from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Almost 2,000 vaccine doses have gone to qualifying prisoners as of Thursday, according to the statement. TDCJ did not provide information on the split between first and second doses or how many prisoners have received shots. No vaccines were wasted.”AdEarlier this year, the Texas prison system refused to provide information on when its vulnerable populations would start being immunized, despite receiving thousands of doses. Texas announced that all adults would be eligible for the vaccine starting next Monday.
Texas lifts yearlong ban on prison visitation beginning March 15
Credit: Sergio Flores for The Texas TribuneNeed to stay updated on coronavirus news in Texas? Before entering a state prison or jail, visitors will need to test negative on a rapid results coronavirus test, similar to at the protocol at the Texas Capitol. About 300 TDCJ inmates have died after contracting the virus, according to the Texas Justice Initiative. Recently, the agency has reported a decrease in the number of inmates and staff testing positive for the coronavirus. Those already on visitation lists may begin scheduling visits starting Wednesday by directly calling the prison or jail.
Texas prisons have doled out thousands of COVID-19 vaccines — but none have gone to prisoners who get the virus at high rates
AdOf the 8,900 doses the state has reportedly allocated to 66 TDCJ lockups so far, the prisons’ health care partners had administered 5,562 doses by Monday, an agency spokesperson said. Officials first injected health care workers in the prisons, following guidance from the state health department. Jeff Ormsby, the executive director of Texas prisons’ American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees branch, said correctional employees in hospital settings are starting to be vaccinated. Phase 1A includes front-line health care workers and nursing home residents. “Doing the officers first could help in showing [inmates], ‘Hey, we need to do this,’” said Terra Tucker, the Texas state director at Alliance for Safety and Justice.
Texas hasn’t said when or how inmates will receive the coronavirus vaccine
Texas’ prisons and jails have been coronavirus hot spots throughout the pandemic. At least about 200 Texas inmates have died with COVID-19. But it’s unclear when the still-limited doses of virus vaccines will be made available to the more than 186,000 people detained in Texas prisons and jails. In Texas, health care workers and people in long-term care facilities like nursing homes are at the front of the line to receive the vaccine. She faults the eroded relationships between prison medical staff and inmates and the rumor mill that can spread misinformation as quickly as the virus.
Houston Newsmakers: City Council says no to prison labor
The bid from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was quite a bit lower than the next highest bid and that’s what caught the attention of City Council Members Abbie Kamin and Carolyn Evans-Shabazz. Pandemic places greater strain on Houston Food BankThe need for food from the Houston Food Bank has doubled since the start of the Pandemic from 400-thousand pounds a day to now 800 thousand pounds. Nicole Lander is the Chief Impact Officer for the Houston Food Bank and says the community has stepped up in a big way. “Obviously media literacy is something that can be taught, and based on our own experiment we’ve noticed that people who read about it or even watch videos on it, they actually improve their tendency to notice fake news better.” Helen Bouygues with much on Houston Newsmakers and in this week’s Houston Newsmakers EXTRA! More Information:Abbie Kamin, Houston City Council, District CCarolyn Evans-Shabazz, Houston City Council, District DNicole Lander, Chief Impact Officer, Houston Food BankHelen Lee Bouygues, President, Founder Reboot Foundation
Texas to shutter three more prisons as units face critical staffing shortages
“But that’s the lowest prison population for TDCJ since 1995.”The closure of Scott, Gurney and Neal will bring the Texas prison system down to a total of 101 state lockups, Desel said. Many prison units are short hundreds of officers, and several are less than 50% staffed. For Gurney and Neal, which will be idled, the units are themselves woefully understaffed, and officers are especially needed at neighboring prisons. During the pandemic, understaffed prisons have often rotated employees among multiple units to try to fill shifts, potentially cross-contaminating the lockups where the coronavirus spreads like wildfire. Still, she worried about the virus’ spread as prison units combine.
Incarcerated Texans are dying from COVID-19 at a rate 35% higher than rest of the U.S. prison population, UT study finds
Incarcerated men at the Telford Unit, a prison in New Boston Texas near the Oklahoma border, have suffered 9% of the reported prison COVID-19 deaths in Texas prisons. There are now 629 active cases of the virus there, nearly half of the prison’s population, TDCJ data shows. People older than 55 years old make up over 80% of COVID-19 prison deaths in the state, the report said. Just seven of the more than 100 TDCJ facilities make up 58% of all the prison deaths from COVID-19. In one geriatric prison located two hours northeast of Houston in Angelina County, 19 people or almost 6% of the entire prison population has died.
Texas prisons, jails worst COVID-19 hotspots of any in US
At least 231 inmates and staff members have died of COVID-19 in Texas prisons and jails, according to the report by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. Other states that started off with a higher number of COVID-19 prison deaths have been dramatically more successful in reducing deaths than Texas, the study found. Seven out of the 106 prisons in the Texas system account for over half of the COVID-19 deaths in prison in Texas. Almost 6% of the inmate population at the Duncan Unit geriatric prison near Lufkin in East Texas has died of COVID-19, and more than 80% of the COVID-19 Texas prison fatalities were over age 55, the report states. Twenty-one prison inmates died behind bars with less than two years left to serve on their sentences.
Federal appeals court temporarily halts order to give some Texas geriatric inmates hand sanitizer
Birds fly overhead at the Hilltop prison unit in Gatesville, Texas. A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked a lower court’s order that would require Texas to provide more protective measures against the coronavirus at a geriatric prison, like giving hand sanitizer to inmates who use wheelchairs. Two dozen Texas prison employees have also died with the virus. TDCJ appealed the ruling, having argued that it had many protective measures in place already, and hand sanitizer could be used to drink or start fires. Inmates’ attorneys said the concerns were “disingenuous,” as fires are not a problem at the prison and inmates have plenty of other flammable material, like paper.
Federal court orders Texas prison system to provide hand sanitizer for some geriatric inmates during pandemic
A federal judge ordered the Texas prison system on Tuesday to provide more protective measures against the coronavirus, like hand sanitizer for wheelchair-bound prisoners, at a prison for geriatric inmates. Texas has had more inmate deaths related to the coronavirus than any other prison system in the nation. Its death toll of at least 162 inmates outranks every other state as well as the federal prison system. More than 20 Texas prison employees have also died with the virus. The trial included testimony from several inmates, TDCJ officials and experts on health and prison conditions.
2nd Texas death row inmate declared intellectually disabled
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals changed the death sentence that Guevara had faced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals changed the death sentence that Gilmar Guevara had faced to life in prison. The ruling follows the appeals court's decision last week to resentence another Texas death row inmate, Juan Lizcano, to life in prison because he was also found to be intellectually disabled. The Texas appeals court's decisions in the two cases follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2017 that eventually changed the way Texas determines whether a defendant is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for execution. The Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of intellectually disabled people, but it has given states some discretion to decide how to determine such disabilities.
The coronavirus is keeping Texas prisoners who've been approved for parole behind bars
Texas has seen more state prisoners die with the new coronavirus than any other state prison system in America. During that time, Texas has seen more state prisoners die with the virus than any other state prison system in America. Some of these people were eligible [for release] months and months and months ago, and theyre still there, said Jorge Renaud, southwest regional director of policy and advocacy for LatinoJustice, one of the advocacy groups. At least 94 have died with it, the highest death toll in the country among state prison systems. To try to hasten his homecoming, Boyd informed the parole board that her 41-year-old son had already completed the program months earlier.
Thousands of Texas prisoners still have the coronavirus. More than 25% of inmates at four units are infected
Two Texas prisons each have more than 670 inmates with active coronavirus infections, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the highest counts seen at any state lockup since the pandemic began. At the massive Coffield Unit in East Texas, 753 inmates recently tested positive — 19% of prisoners there, according to TDCJ data. Aside from Stiles, three other state-run prisons and jails had at least 25% of their inmates with active coronavirus infections Monday. Since March, more than 12,000 Texas prisoners and 2,100 TDCJ employees at dozens of prisons have had confirmed infections of the new coronavirus. TDCJ began testing all inmates at dozens of units in mid-May, with more than 100,000 coronavirus tests on inmates completed by June 10, according to agency reports.
He was supposed to be in prison less than a year. Instead, he died after catching the coronavirus.
James Allen Smith, 73, died after contracting the coronavirus in a Texas prison. Instead of coming home to his family after completing a short program, Smith died in prison custody on June 11. But early prison release decisions in Texas fall to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, whose members are appointed by the governor. Deadly prison sentencesAfter entering the state prison system, Smith landed at the Estelle Unit in Huntsville for his rehab program shortly before the coronavirus shut down prison visitation and intake from jails. Of the inmates with COVID-19 who died, Smith was supposed to spend the shortest amount of time in prison.
After 17 youths test positive for the coronavirus, Texas juvenile lockups to begin mass testing
TJJD/Bob DaemmrichAfter 17 young people tested positive for the coronavirus inside Texas state-run juvenile lockups, the Texas Juvenile Justice Department said Wednesday it will test all detainees and staff. Only two employees tested positive in April and May, according to agency news releases. But last month, 28 more employees and the 17 detainees also tested positive for the virus at four of the states juvenile lockups. The youth were all being treated at the lockups, TJJD said in a Tuesday news release. Sean Wilson, 43, worked at the Giddings State School and died on June 28 after testing positive for the virus the week before.
Texas prisons will accept county jail inmates again, three months after the coronavirus halted intake
Shelby Knowles for The Texas TribuneStarting July 1, the Texas prison system will again accept inmates from county jails on a limited basis after halting intake three months ago due to the coronavirus pandemic. As of Monday, TDCJ has completed more than 100,000 coronavirus tests on state prisoners, according to prison data. The state prison system stopped intake of people in county jails who had been sentenced to prison in April, after at least 10 county jails reported the virus in their lockups and Texas prisons had nearly 200 cases. By halting intake from counties, the state prison population dropped from about 140,000 inmates in March to about 131,000 in May, according to state reports. In May, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office asked the state for $468,000 to reimburse jail costs for holding TDCJ-ready inmates, according to KSAT.
Appeals court tosses order that required face masks, hand sanitizer for inmates at geriatric Texas prison
Prison staff and inmates move through the Darrington Unit's main hallway on Wednesday, July 12, 2017. The appeals judges noted that many of the district judges orders had already been met by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. At least five have died from the virus, a states attorney said during a hearing in front of the appeals court judges last week. Inmates countered, and the district judge agreed, that court intervention was needed to protect them from the prison's apparent "deliberate indifference" to inmates' risk. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton applauded the appeals court ruling Friday, saying in a statement that the district court's order reflected "outdated guidance" from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.