Good news! If this whole “lawyer thing” goes south, we now have enough hours behind a chainsaw in the wake of the recent “Arborgeddon” to consider lumberjacking as a second career.

Budget news

The substantive action at the capitol right now is on budget and funding matters, so we’ll lead with that.

Judicial pay raise bill gets filed
State Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) filed SB 802 this week to increase the starting benchmark salary of a district judge from $140,000 to $172,494 as of September 1, 2023. We expect a similar companion bill to be filed in the House by State Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano), but that version may break out the same increase into two annual 11-percent bumps. (That’s the actual math that results in the uneven new figure.) These bills will be the enabling legislation for the most recent recommendations by the Judicial Compensation Commission.

Funding for these proposals has not been included in the base budgets of either the House or the Senate, but Chief Justice Hecht will no doubt make that request to the Senate Finance Committee next Thursday when it takes up that part of the state budget.

Senate Finance Committee hearings
Last Friday’s Senate Finance hearing included a review of the initial budget proposals for various executive branch agencies, including the Office of Attorney General (OAG). In laying out his budget presentation, Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-McKinney) pointed out the challenges OAG faces in recruiting and retaining quality lawyers, noting their average annual salary of around $97,000 pales in comparison to the average law firm salary of about $150,000 in Texas (and some firms start new lawyers at even higher salaries). The state’s baseline budget currently includes two annual 5-percent raises for those lawyers and other agency staff—something the budget writers are doing for many state agencies—but OAG is requesting $26+ million in additional funding for more targeted salary increases as well as 30 additional law enforcement positions (at a cost of $10.5 million). Many of you may find yourselves facing similar challenges in recruiting and retaining good help, so the fate of those OAG funding requests may shed light on how the legislature feels about similar asks related to local prosecution later this session.

Other highlights of that OAG presentation last week included the following:

• In response to a question from State Sen. Pete Flores (R-Pleasanton) about helping rural prosecutors with human trafficking and border prosecutions, AG Paxton bragged on his office’s willingness to help any prosecutor who asks for help and then pivoted into an attack on unnamed DAs who “have nullified Texas law on certain types of crimes,” and he recommended that the legislature “give some kind of concurrent jurisdiction either to us or to some other entity that could actually be a back-up if certain district attorneys decide not to prosecute certain crimes that you all have said are crimes” (starting at the 01:23:45 mark of the video link below).
• When asked by State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) why OAG failed to help several small counties sued in federal court over the new state anti-abortion laws, First Assistant AG Brent Webster said OAG cannot do that without specific statutory authority, so Sen. Kolkhorst said she will file a bill to give OAG that civil authority (starting at 01:33:13).

The archived video of this entire hearing is available HERE, with the OAG agency testimony beginning at the 01:11:45 mark for those interested.

Next week we hope to have an update for you on how the Senate Finance Committee feels about possible judicial branch funding increases, plus potential news on the status of more prosecutor-specific funding ideas. Stay tuned!

House committees named

The Speaker released his committee assignments on Wednesday (full list available HERE). This is the final organizational step necessary for the legislature to begin its committee work, which is where the rubber meets the road for most lawmaking. Relevant committees for most of you will include the following (* = new role or new committee assignment for that member; (F) = freshman):
            Appropriations (R chair, 14R/12D): Bonnen (R-Friendswood), chair; M. Gonzalez (D-Clint), vice-chair; *Allison (R-San Antonio), C. Bell (R-Magnolia), *Bryant (D-Dallas), *DeAyala (F) (D-Houston), Gates (R-Richmond), *Gervin-Hawkins (D-San Antonio), Howard (D-Austin), *Isaac (F) (R-Dripping Springs), *Jetton (R-Richmond), Ja. Johnson (D-Houston), *Martinez (D-Weslaco), *Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio), Morrison (R-Victoria), *Orr (F) (R-Itasca), *Ortega (D-El Paso), Rose (D-Dallas), *Spiller (R-Jacksboro), *Tepper (F) (R-Lubbock), *Thimesch (F) (R-Lewisville), E. Thompson (R-Pearland), Toth (R-The Woodlands), VanDeaver (R-New Boston), Walle (D-Houston), Wu (D-Houston).
            Calendars (R chair, 7R/4D): Burrows (R-Lubbock), chair; Rose (D-Dallas), *vice-chair; *Cook (R-Mansfield), *Geren (R-Fort Worth), Hefner (R-Mt. Pleasant), Hernandez (D-Houston), *A. Johnson (D-Houston), Patterson (R-Frisco), Slawson (R-Stephenville), Talarico (D-Round Rock, *E. Thompson (R-Pearland).
            Corrections  (D chair, 4R/5D): *Herrero (D-Robstown), chair; *Kacal (R-College Station), vice-chair; Allen (D-Houston), *V. Jones (F) (D-Houston), *R. Lopez (D-San Antonio), Murr (R-Junction), Sherman (D-Dallas), *Swanson (R-Spring), *Toth (R-The Woodlands).
            Criminal Jurisprudence (D chair, 5R/4D): *Moody (D-El Paso), chair; Cook (R-Mansfield), *vice-chair; *Bhojani (F) (D-Euless), *Bowers (D-Rowlett), *Darby (R-San Angelo), *Harrison (F) (R-Waxahachie), *Leach (R-Plano), *C. Morales (D-Houston), *Schatzline (F) (R-Fort Worth). (Note: Eight of nine members are new to this committee, although two—Moody and Leach—have served on it in the past.)
            Homeland Security & Public Safety (R chair, 5R/4D): *Guillen (R-Rio Grande City), chair; Bowers (D-Rowlett), vice-chair; *Canales (D-Edinburg), *Dorazio (F) (R-San Antonio), Goodwin (D-Austin), Harless (R-Spring), *Holland (R-Rockwall), *Ja. Johnson (D-Houston), *Troxclair (F) (R-Austin).
            Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence (R chair, 5R/4D): Leach (R-Plano), chair; Ju. Johnson (D-Farmers Branch), *vice-chair; Y. Davis (D-Dallas), *Flores (F) (D-Austin), Moody (D-El Paso), *Murr (R-Junction), Schofield (R-Katy), *Slawson (R-Stephenville), *Vasut (R-Angleton).
            Juvenile Justice & Family Issues (D chair, 5R/4D): *Dutton (D-Houston), chair; *Lujan (R-San Antonio), vice-chair; Cook (R-Mansfield), *Leo-Wilson (F) (R-Galveston), *J. Lopez (F) (R-San Benito), *Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio), *Smithee (R-Amarillo), *Talarico (D-Round Rock), Wu (D-Houston).
            State Affairs (R chair, 8R/5D): *Hunter, chair; Hernandez, vice-chair; *Anchia (D-Dallas), *Dean, *Geren (R-Fort Worth), *Guillen (R-Rio Grande City), Metcalf, Raymond, Slawson, Smithee (R-Amarillo), *Spiller (R-Jacksboro), *S. Thompson (D-Houston), *Turner (D-Arlington).
There are more House committees and assignments than we can recount here, so if you are curious about another committee or what assignments your local House member(s) received, check the House website.

Looking ahead

The governor has announced that he will give his State of the State Address next Thursday evening (Feb. 16) from San Marcos in a made-for-TV event. That address is likely to include his designation of what legislative issues he will deem “emergencies,” a status that allows the legislature to debate and vote on those issues or bills before the 60-day “quiet period” imposed by the state constitution. Look for more information in this space next week on whether those emergencies involve you or your jobs.

Bill filing deadlines approaching

In addition to making the legislature wait 60 days before voting on any legislation, the state constitution also establishes the 60th day of a session as the deadline for filing general legislation. That puts this session’s Deadline Day on Friday, March 10, a mere four weeks from today. But in reality, the effective deadline is even earlier than that because the Office of Legislative Council (which drafts bills for legislators) already has a huge backlog of work to complete, so it has given legislators a deadline for requesting the drafting of non-local bills as the end of business on Friday, February 17. (As in, next Friday.) So, if you’ve been toying with the idea of requesting that a bill be filed on a particular topic but haven’t pulled the trigger yet, you are now on notice. In addition, the naming of committee members gives you the final piece of information necessary to identify good (or not-so-good) potential authors for those ideas. If you need help with any of that, feel free to contact Shannon.

Many of the bills relevant to your work that have been filed to date can be accessed on our Legislative webpage under our Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure tracks. We also have a list of other “Bills to Watch” that includes these nine new additions this week:

• HB 1874 by Noble relating to the award of attorney’s fees in a civil asset forfeiture proceeding
• HB 2038 by Allison requiring forfeiture proceeds be awarded to certain property owners
• HB 2043 by Bowers creating a statewide pretrial and sentencing database
• HB 2117 by Oliverson creating a new cause of action against judges who wrongfully release offenders on personal bond
• SB 740 by Huffman requiring an election to reduce or reallocate funding or resources for certain county prosecutors’ offices
• SB 787 by Huffman imposing a 10-year minimum sentence for 3g offenses involving a firearm
• SB 793 by Hinojosa applying the exclusionary rule to civil asset forfeitures and raising the State’s burden of proof in those civil cases
• SB 802 by Hughes increasing the annual base salary of a district court judge
• SB 819 by Perry allowing crime victims to enforce rights by mandamus, injunction, etc.

To read these or any other bills, visit https://capitol.texas.gov/ and enter “HB ___” or “SB ___” in the “Search Legislation” box, then click on the “text” tab and click on the format you wish to read it in (PDF, html, or Word).

Austin-bound?

If you are ready to clear your calendar and come to Austin for a specific time in late February, March, April, or early May, please call or email Shannon to reserve that week ahead of time. Ditto for any questions you might have—call or email Rob or Shannon to get the scoop before you make plans.

Scattershooting

Here are some recent stories you might’ve missed:

• “Texas veterans vow to protect the state’s hemp market as one state lawmaker hopes to crack down” (Texas Tribune)
• “Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan defies GOP pressure, taps Democrats to lead committees” (Dallas Morning News)
• “Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns” (Texas Tribune)
• “Texas AG Ken Paxton’s office, whistleblowers reach $3.3M settlement in retaliation lawsuit” (Dallas Morning News)

Quotes of the Week

“There is zero excuse for driving under the influence and putting lives in danger, in particular by a member of the legislature whose conduct should be held to a higher standard.”
            —Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-Houston), publicly commenting upon the DWI arrest of State Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown) in Austin earlier this week.

“We have a really good team. We have, I think, the best team to prosecute human trafficking in the state. … We would like to step in and help in those cases. We think we can save lives. … I’m really passionate about this issue. … It is at the heart of, like, what I care about. And I’m very sad … that there was opposition, I guess, from the district attorneys who didn’t want to share any kind of jurisdiction. We don’t care. We want you to prosecute. But if you’re not going to, please let us prosecute these people who are doing great harm to a lot of young women in our state.”
            —Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, commenting at last week’s Senate Finance Committee hearing upon a bill he pushed four years ago to grant his office original criminal jurisdiction in human trafficking cases because too many local prosecutors either don’t care about them or lack the resources or expertise to properly handle them (according to his testimony again this session).

“Prosecutors play an absolutely critical role in the criminal justice system as they are charged with obtaining justice for victims of crime. Prosecutors with criminal jurisdiction should be treated no differently than law enforcement, and I hope that this bill delivers that message.”
            —State Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston), in her press release announcing the filing of SB 740 to prevent counties with a population exceeding one million from defunding their prosecutor offices.

###

Not much work took place in Austin this past week unless you were a tow truck driver, power line technician, or chainsaw merchant, so this will be a shorter update than usual.

Somebody call the Lorax

Two years ago, “Snowpocalypse 2021” wiped out a week of the session. Now we have just survived “Austin Oakpocalyse 2023,” which may have a similar effect. Parts of Austin have been (or still are) without electricity for days due to downed trees and power lines, but even the neighborhoods of those with power look like a war zone with bowed or broken trees everywhere. Things are likely to return to normal next week—which would mean little overt action other than perhaps the publication of House committee assignments—but at this point, any return to normalcy is welcome.

“Flooding the zone”

American politics is rife with colorful expressions taken from our rich sports heritage. One of those is “flooding the zone.” In football, this is used to describe a passing game strategy in which an offense purposely directs multiple receivers into one area of the field in an effort to overwhelm the opponent(s) tasked with defending that zone. In politics and policymaking, it has also come to denote a strategy or situation in which multiple options are thrown at a problem—sometimes purposely, but other times not—in the hopes that something gets passed to address it, even if there is no clear consensus at the outset on what that solution should be.

We’re experiencing a little bit of zone-flooding on the so-called “rogue prosecutor” front right now. Depending on how you define that “problem,” there are anywhere from five to as many as nine bills already filed to “solve” it (either broadly or in narrower respects). And guess what? More bills are coming. You can bank on that.

This week’s addition to the list is SB 648 by Mayes Middleton (R-Wallisville), which would create new removal procedures for prosecutors who don’t enforce certain laws (including the death penalty) or who adopt policies or make statements saying they won’t enforce certain laws. If we were to analogize this bill to a pass pattern, it would probably fall under the “Hail Mary pass” category, but read it for yourself and see what you think.

Thoughts? Questions? We’d love to know what y’all think about all this.

Knowledge is good

In reading some of the social media chatter surrounding the prosecutor accountability bills filed to date, it is obvious that many people—including policymakers and other “influencers”—are not always up to speed on how prosecution works in Texas or how prosecutors are currently held accountable when they allegedly step out of line.

To address the former problem, we updated and released a new version of “Texas Prosecution 101” last year in the wake of the Stephens opinion that clarified and confirmed local prosecutors’ constitutional authority over criminal prosecutions. Don’t assume that people making or commenting upon public policy in this area know as much about this topic as you do, so please feel free to use that information to educate others.

As to the specific issue of prosecutor accountability, it’s been more than a decade since TDCAA issued a September 2012 report entitled “Setting the Record Straight on Prosecutorial Misconduct” in specific response to a deeply flawed “study” attacking prosecutors in Texas for being unaccountable. While the findings in the TDCAA report are still valid, we thought the portion on prosecutorial accountability might be worth dusting off and re-issuing in a more bite-sized format. You can find that updated excerpt here. This is information suitable for sharing with policymakers who are being asked to support legislation affecting prosecutors in a vacuum, without any context or knowledge of what checks and balances already exist in Texas law. (Or worse, getting misinformation about it, whether purposeful or not.) The reality is that prosecutors are probably the most highly-regulated lawyers or public officials in the entire state, but that is probably news to people in the capitol until you educate them about it.

Budget

The Senate Finance Committee tried to kick off its initial budget overview hearings before Mother Nature postponed the proceedings. These broad reviews of the initial baseline budget are traditionally the first foray into live committee hearings at the Lege. That committee won’t get to the judicial branch budget until the week after next, so we’ll give you a more detailed run-down of what that looks like then. Meanwhile, for a peek at some of the goodies in the proposed appropriations bills, check out this handy summary prepared by our friends at TAC, including details on new funding proposals for mental health facilities, TJJD facilities, rural law enforcement personnel, and more.

New bills to watch

Many of the 650+ bills we are tracking so far can be accessed on our Legislative webpage under our Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure tracks. We also have a curated list of other “Bills to Watch.” The closure of the capitol resulted in few bills being filed this week, but we still added a couple to that latter list:

HJR 98 by Tinderholt proposing a constitutional amendment authorizing the attorney general to enforce election law crimes
SB 648 by Middleton relating to the removal of prosecutors for failure to enforce laws
SB 665 by N. Johnson creating an online trackable database of civil asset forfeiture cases
SB 677 by N. Johnson authorizing defense lawyers to appear before grand juries in certain cases

You can click on the underlined hyperlinks to access the content of those bills and related details. Along with these bill tracks, we are currently tracking roughly one out of every four bills filed at the Lege. That is a higher percentage than normal. Congratulations, you and your work are popular.

Counties at the Capitol Day

Our good friends at TAC are hosting a “Counties at the Capitol” Day on Tuesday (February 7). For more details—including an agenda and online registration—please visit the TAC website.

Austin-bound?

If you are ready to clear your calendar and come to Austin for a specific time in late February, March, April, or early May, please call or email Shannon to reserve that week ahead of time. Ditto for any questions you might have—call or email Rob or Shannon to get the scoop before you make plans. We are here to help you work smarter, not harder.

Scattershooting

Here are some recent stories you might’ve missed:

• “FBI Reportedly Investigates Fentanyl Distribution on Snapchat” (Yahoo News)
• “Texas lawmakers want to address the fentanyl overdose crisis. Here’s what they propose.” (Austin American-Statesman)
• “Lack of Rural Lawyers Leaves Much of America Without Support” (Pew Stateline)
• “It’s Not Just a Police Problem, Americans Are Opting Out of Government Jobs” (The Marshall Project)
• “Biden names Dallas prosecutor Damien Diggs first Black U.S. attorney for East Texas” (Dallas Morning News)

Quotes of the Week

“People want to work from home and you can’t prosecute from home. … [New law school graduates] are just generally not interested in trying cases, being in a courtroom, being more specifically in an office. They want to do remote work, and that’s just not an option as a prosecutor.”
            —McLean County (IL) State’s Attorney Erika Reynolds, in an article seeking to explain why prosecutor offices in Central Illinois are struggling to fill open positions.

“We know that George Soros’ many organizations pump millions into getting these lawless prosecutors elected. The least we can do is hold them accountable.”
            —“Rick Perry,” commenting on a story on “rogue prosecutor” legislation run in the Texas Scorecard—the media arm of the conservative advocacy group formerly known as Empower Texans. (But is it *the* Rick Perry? Or maybe “the other Rick Perry”? Who knows?!?)

“[… District attorneys] do not have the constitutional authority to choose which classes of offenses to prosecute. George-Soros-backed DAs are endangering our communities with policies of non-prosecution. … Our justice system cannot function when DAs are allowed to cafeteria-style pick-and-choose which laws to follow and which to ignore. It is up to the legislature to pass laws and for district attorneys to enforce them, period.”
            —State Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Wallisville), in his press release announcing the filing of SB 648 “to hold rogue district attorneys accountable for their dangerous policies of not enforcing our laws and prosecuting criminals.”

“The power given to district and county attorneys includes the power not only to prosecute cases but also to decide which cases should not be prosecuted. When the district or county attorney chooses not to prosecute a case, they are permissibly exercising their prosecutorial discretion; it is their prerogative to file or not file charges.”
            —Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Scott Walker, in his concurrence to that court’s refusal to reconsider its prior opinion in State v. Stephens. For a refresher on that debate over rehearing, see our September 2022 Interim Update.

###

There are “only” 122 days left in the 88^th Regular Session.
If you want to pass a bill … get to work! The clock is ticking.
If you don’t want a bill to pass … get to work! The clock is not ticking fast enough.

What’s old is new again

As we reported two weeks ago, one of the bills that has been filed to reign in “rogue prosecutors” is SB 404 by Senator Phil King (R-Weatherford). Yesterday, the identical House companion was filed as HB 1732 by Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano). These bills would re-establish the defunct Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council (PACC) that was first established in 1977 and subsequently abolished in 1985. To better understand the implications of resurrecting this state agency—and to see how the new agency created by these new bills might differ from the original agency—we hopped in our DeLorean and took a trip back in time (with the help of the Texas State Archives) to learn just what that agency accomplished in its short prior life.  

History
Unlike the new bills, the original PACC was not strictly focused on disciplining prosecutors; it was more of a centralized agency that could deliver technical assistance, education, and professional development to Texas prosecutors. In its day, the original PACC partnered with TDCAA to produce training and assist prosecutors in various ways, and certain wizened former prosecutors tell us that some prosecutors viewed the PACC as a prosecutor-generated effort to advance professionalism.

On the flip side, the agency also accepted and investigated complaints alleging incompetence or misconduct by elected prosecutors (which is the sole focus of the new bills). These duties were carried out by a staff that grew to as many as eight employees operating under the direction of a council consisted of nine members: the presiding officer was the president of TDCAA, four additional members were elected prosecutors appointed by TDCAA, and four members were non-lawyer citizens appointed by the governor.

The PACC was slow to get off the ground because it wasn’t funded by the state when it was created; instead, it subsisted on grants from the governor’s office for the first two years of its existence. We were unable to discover how many complaints it received, but from what we can tell, in that initial two-year period the PACC appears to have filed two public reprimands, one private reprimand, and three removal actions (outcomes unknown) against elected prosecutors. Once the PACC started receiving regular state funding in 1981, it produced more robust reports of its activities, but the number of disciplinary outcomes remained the same or declined.

From 1981–1984 the agency received 187 formal complaints. The vast majority of the complaints were from dissatisfied crime victims (87) or defendants (44). There were also complaints from the general public (24), law enforcement (9), state and local agencies (6), judges and commissioners (5), grand jury foremen (3), and even an assistant prosecutor (1). In their annual reports, PACC members noted that most of these complaints showed a lack of knowledge about the role of an elected prosecutor and/or prosecutorial discretion and thus failed on the merits. Specifically, most complaints were dismissed based on lack of substantiation (92) or a proper use of prosecutorial discretion (60). In another 44 cases the PACC concluded that it did not have jurisdiction over the questioned conduct (for instance, because the conduct occurred in open court and was reviewed by an appellate court, or because the conduct related to the prosecutor’s private civil practice). Ultimately, during this funded period of 1981–1984, the PACC issued three public reprimands and one private reprimand and initiated only one additional removal action against elected prosecutors.

When the PACC came up for sunset review in 1984, duplications of effort and inefficiencies in agency operations caught the Sunset Commission’s attention. As attorneys, elected prosecutors were already subject to discipline for misbehavior through the State Bar, and there was a general lack of oversight on how certain funds were spent by the PACC staff. Rather than engage in a major overhaul of the agency’s statute to narrow its focus and firm up its budgetary restrictions, the legislature allowed the agency to expire in 1985 with the knowledge that elected prosecutors would still be subject to accountability through the ballot box, State Bar discipline, removal from office statutes, courts of inquiry, criminal and/or civil liability, and contempt of court actions. (All of these accountability options are still in effect, by the way.)

Finally, it is worth noting that the 2023 bills are not the first time legislators have considered reconstituting the PACC to discipline elected prosecutors. Such bills were filed in 1991 and again in 1993 but failed both times. Oddly enough, those bills were proposed 30 years ago as responses to alleged overzealous prosecutions—specifically, the then-Travis County DA indicting the sitting House Speaker. But in 2023, this idea is being resurrected for the opposite reason: non-prosecution, rather than over-prosecution. That is just one of several differences that may be relevant to how you might want to engage the legislature on this issue today.

Then and now
So, how does the original PACC law compare to the 2023 proposal? On one hand, the language relating to the basis for disciplining an elected prosecutor in the original PACC statute is similar (although not identical) to both the proposed new language and the current removal statute for local officials that already applies to elected prosecutors (see Local Gov’t Code Ch. 87). All purport to sanction elected prosecutors’ incompetency or official misconduct, the latter of which generally includes a failure or neglect to perform a duty imposed by law (although interestingly, SB 404 and HB 1732 do not overtly address a prosecutor’s publicly-stated refusal to enforce a specific law, which seems to be the crux of this issue in 2023). But there are important differences between the original PACC and the newly proposed agency.

One significant difference is the composition of each council. The 1977 PACC’s nine members had a 5–4 majority of elected prosecutors and the presiding officer was an elected prosecutor. But under SB 404/HB 1732, a proposed council of seven members would consist of only two elected prosecutors—one county attorney and one district attorney selected according to a process devised by the Supreme Court—along with one sheriff or chief of police appointed by the governor, a criminal judge appointed by the Supreme Court, and two non-lawyers appointed by the Speaker of the House and Lieutenant Governor, respectively. Furthermore, the bill gives the governor carte blanche to appoint whomever he wishes to the seventh position, that of presiding officer.

Another significant difference between the original PACC and the new proposal is the times in which we live. From 1977 through 1984, if someone wanted to complain about a prosecutor, they would need to open a phone book (remember those?), find out who to call at the PACC, learn from them how to file a complaint, then sit down in front of a typewriter (remember THOSE?!?) and compose a complaint, which would have to be addressed, stamped, and sent to Austin by snail-mail. Thus, it should not be a surprise that the few hundred phone calls logged in by the PACC during its existence morphed into fewer than 50 formal complaints per year during its funded period. Now fast-forward to today’s online world, in which the State Commission on Judicial Conduct received more than 1,700 complaints last year alone. Based on that indicator, were a new PACC to be created, one might reasonably expect that resulting agency to receive hundreds, if not thousands, of complaints every year against elected prosecutors based on technological advances alone, even if the vast, vast majority ended up being unfounded. You don’t need us to tell you what kind of negative impact that could have on your office’s limited resources in this post-pandemic time of case backlogs and unfilled positions.

In that same vein, prosecution in 2023 is not the same as prosecution in the 1970s and ’80s. Technology has combined with new discovery laws and other new legal obligations in a way that, when added to the explosion of new crimes and punishments passed over the intervening decades, has made your job busier and more complex than prosecutors from the Carter Administration era could have ever imagined. Similarly, the Texas Legislature of 2023 is not the Texas Legislature of the 1970s and ’80s. The partisan divides were different, the politics were different, and the “rogue prosecutors” narrative was not a narrative at all, much less a nationalized one. So, while SB 404 and HB 1732 propose resurrecting a disciplinary agency that was sunsetted once before for being ineffective and duplicative, the times have changed so much that the coming debate over it will be largely new to everyone involved.

Conclusion
In sum, there is only so much from the state’s experience with the original PACC (and its eventual abolishment) that can give you a well-formed opinion about how such an entity might work today. The fact that the original PACC was one of the few agencies to ever be moth-balled by the legislature due to lack of effectiveness is no guarantee that the idea won’t be re-considered now. And we’ve probably already spent too much of your time looking backwards, so we won’t even begin to ask how this specific new disciplinary system might work in today’s more complicated world. For now, what we can tell you with certainty is that many members of the legislature are serious about this issue, so it deserves your full attention. And keep in mind that there are more solutions to the alleged “rogue prosecutor” problem yet to be filed, so this is something that you will want to continue to follow during the bill-filing period that expires in mid-March.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Let us hear ’em. We’d love to know what y’all think about all this.

Senate committees take shape

This was yet another “ducks on the water” week: Most legislators and staffers looked calm on the surface but were paddling like mad underneath. Don’t mistake lack of hard news for lack of action.

The little news we do have is that the Lite Guv released new Senate committee assignments this week. Here’s a run-down of the committees most relevant to your jobs, with partisan breakdowns in parentheses (R/D) and new assignments from the last regular session in bold:

Border Security (3/2): Birdwell, chair; Flores, vice-chair; Blanco, Hinojosa, King.
Criminal Justice (4/3): Whitmire, chair; Flores, vice-chair; Bettencourt, Hinojosa, Huffman, King, Miles.
Finance (13/4): Huffman, chair; Hinojosa, vice-chair; Bettencourt, Campbell, Creighton, Flores, Hall, Hancock, Hughes, Kolkhorst, Nichols, Paxton, Perry, Schwertner, West, Whitmire, Zaffirini.
Jurisprudence (3/2): Hughes, chair; Johnson, vice-chair; Creighton, Hinojosa, Middleton.
State Affairs (8/3): Hughes, chair; Paxton, vice-chair; Bettencourt, Birdwell, LaMantia, Menendez, Middleton, Parker, Perry, Schwertner, Zaffirini.

We expect another relatively quiet week or two before House committees are assigned, and then the real fun begins another week or two after that as those committees assemble and get to work. Meanwhile, anywhere from 50 to 250 new bills will be filed every weekday. Good times.

New bills to watch

Many of the 600+ bills we are tracking so far can be accessed on our Legislative webpage under our Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure tracks. (Look on the right-hand side of that webpage on your desktop or the bottom of the page on mobile devices.) We have a curated list of other “Bills to Watch” for you as well. Bills recently added to that list include:

HB 1603 by Guillen governing the appointment of pro tem prosecutors in JP courts
HB 1618 by Moody awarding good conduct time credits for certain violent offenders
HB 1627 by Hernandez mandating implicit bias training for judges and lawyers
HB 1714 by Canales changing certain civil asset forfeiture practices and procedures
HB 1732 by Leach creating a Prosecuting Attorney Coordinating Council
SB 571 by West aka “the George Floyd Law Enforcement Accountability Act”

You can click on the underlined hyperlinks to access the content of those bills and related details.

Capitol “Days”

One way to get involved in Austin is to take part in one of the many “Day at the Capitol” events that local cities and counties hold during every session. In addition, our friends at TAC are hosting a “Counties at the Capitol” Day on Tuesday, February 7. For more details—including an agenda and online registration—please visit the TAC website.

Austin-bound?

If you are ready to clear your calendar and come to Austin for a specific time in late February, March, April, or early May, please call or email Shannon to reserve that week ahead of time. Ditto for any questions you might have—call or email Rob or Shannon to get the scoop before you make plans. We are here to help you work smarter, not harder.

Scattershooting

Here are some recent stories you might’ve missed:

• “Petition filed seeking removal of Nueces County District Attorney Mark Gonzalez” (KRIS 6 News)
• “East Texas lawmaker files bill targeting prosecutors who decline taking on election crimes” (KLTV-Tyler)
• “Texas DPS stops enforcing handgun age limits for young adults” (Dallas Morning News)
• “Dallas County informs state it plans to sue over slow jail transfers” (Dallas Morning News)
• “Three Texas counties are suing the attorney general to get clarity on when the public can access post-election ballots” (Texas Tribune)
• “Poker house lawsuits: Dallas OKs spending at least $550,000 in legal fees” (Dallas Morning News)

Quotes of the Week

“Unfortunately, nothing will happen to most of these rioters because of the Marxist prosecutors who have seized control of the justice system in Atlanta … just like they have in other places. … When I’m president again, if Marxist prosecutors betray their oaths and refuse to protect our citizens, I will not hesitate to send in federal law enforcement to restore peace and public safety. We will restore law and order in America.”
            —Former President Donald Trump (R-NY), in an excerpt from his video comments about last night’s rioting in Atlanta related to some kind of craziness that we haven’t even had time to process because we are too immersed in legislative happenings.

“District attorneys are appropriately investigating fraud, as far as we know. There’s not cases where election fraud is happening and district attorneys just refuse to move forward. There’s just not evidence of these things being problems.”
            —Matt Simpson, with the ACLU of Texas, in an article discussing several election-related bills filed so far this session.

“I don’t want people to think that I have a grudge against the [capitol] because I don’t. It’s a wonderful place. And it can be wonderful and terrible all at once. All of that was me, not the place. And I think that place will change anyone—it’s just what you let it do to you.”
            —Former State Rep. Poncho Nevárez (D-Eagle Pass), in a Houston Chronicle article about his road to recovery following a drug possession arrest that short-circuited his political career at the legislature.

“Governor” = small; “Senate” = medium; “House” = large.
            —Drink sizes at the Capitol Café, a new coffee shop across the street from the state capitol that was opened this week by former state legislator Dan Huberty (R-Kingwood). Can you guess in which chamber Mr. Huberty served?  😉

###

We are a mere 11/140ths (8 percent) of the way through the 88^th Regular Session.

Echoes of shots

On the heels of last week’s filing of SB 378 by Parker (R-Flower Mound) (fines and removal from office for non-prosecution) comes the filing of a House companion: HB 1350 by Cook (R-Mansfield). “Companion” means the language of each bill is identical, and the bills can move independently through the process on each side. Double the fun!

Regarding SB 404 by King (R-Weatherford), (prosecutor disciplinary council), we are continuing to research the history of its predecessor agency that was abolished in the 1980s as well as the background behind several failed legislative attempts to reconstitute such a council in the early 1990s in retaliation for then-Travis County DA Ronnie Earle indicting a sitting House speaker. While we work on that, you might gain greater context on this proposed change by asking your local judiciary how they like being under the purview of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, an analogous disciplinary body that received more than 1,700 complaints against Texas judges in FY2022. We’ve never paid that much attention to it, but maybe that is about to change?

By the way, if these preceding paragraphs are Greek to you, then feel free to rewind back to last week’s Legislative Update. (That will also help you make more sense of some quotes of the week at the end of this update.) We recognize that all of you have busy day jobs and may not have a chance to read our updates, but if you haven’t read both of those bills yet, you might move that task to the top of your to-do list. Bills that could result in you being sued, publicly reprimanded, and/or removed from office deserve your full attention. Even if we all know these bills are directed at a select few prosecutors in certain jurisdictions, there is nothing limiting their scope to only those prosecutors. As we’ve said before, the legislature tends to solve problems not with a scalpel, but with a sledgehammer. So read the texts of those bills for yourself and let us—and even more importantly, your legislators—know what you think. Inquiring minds want to know.

More formalities

The second week of session was dominated by the inauguration of the governor and lieutenant governor, the roll-out of each chamber’s baseline budget (more on that below), and a visit from the World Champion Houston Astros. (Sorry, Rangers fans.) Behind the scenes, legislators are jockeying for their preferred committee positions and/or chairmanships. Senate assignments will likely come out next week and House assignments the following week.

Committee assignments are key events in any legislative session because historically, at least three-quarters of all the bills filed in a session go into a committee but never come out (and are therefore dead). On a related note, the chair of each committee historically has the best bill passage rate out of that committee, so if you wait until those positions are named and then succeed in having the chair file a bill that is likely to be referred to that committee, that bill is in very good shape indeed.

Interim committee reports

House and Senate committees meet sporadically during the interims between legislative sessions, and their output varies. Most (but not all) committees produce interim reports recommending future action to the next incoming legislature; some of those recommendations become future legislation, while others serve more as a glimpse into some legislators’ priorities. Interim reports from 2022 are still trickling in, but recommendations you might find interesting include the following:

House Interim Study Committee on Criminal Justice Reform

• Increase transparency and accountability for peace officer disciplinary actions
• Increase reporting and transparency requirements for civil asset forfeiture
• Require transcription of grand jury proceedings and prohibit re-presentations absent new evidence
• Raise the lower age of juvenile jurisdiction from 10 to 13 years of age
• Grant “second look” early parole eligibility to youthful violent offenders
• Automatic sealing of criminal records for certain adult offenders

House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence

• Increase the benchmark judicial salary and consider automatic cost-of-living increases
• Increase juror pay, enact wage protections for those who serve on juries, and narrow the current exemptions for jury service to provide a wider pool of jurors

Senate Committee on Finance

• Further restrict personal bonds for certain offenses and allow judges to deny bail in more situations
• Reduce wait times for inpatient forensic mental health services while increasing the availability of mental health services in local communities

Budgets news

The state’s budgeting process for the FY 2024–25 biennium officially began this week with the filing of the two chambers’ dueling General Appropriations bills: HB 1 by Bonnen (R-Friendswood) and SB 1 by Huffman (R-Houston). As you know, the comptroller has projected a historic budget surplus of $32.7 billion at the end of the current biennium, and revenue estimates project that the state will have $188.2 billion available to spend in the 2024-2025 biennium. All of that translated into a lack of drama when the initial “baseline” budget bills were filed this week—no one’s ox appears to have been gored in these bills.

Some big-ticket promises were included in the bills, like $15 billion in property tax relief, $1.8 billion for state employee pay raises, and $4.6 billion to support Operation Lone Star. Without going into too much detail at this early point in the process, both bills also greatly increase spending for the Juvenile Justice Department, add resources to beef up the DPS crime lab, and promise (without a specific number) to air-condition TDCJ units. Funding for the judiciary and prosecutors begins at 2022–2023 levels, so at the very least no one sees a cut from the get-go (as has sometimes happened in past baseline budgets).

Now the fun begins. These appropriation bills are the starting point for discussion, and the final product may look much different after the pork barrel politicking is done. In down budget years, legislators have it a little easier in a way—they can say “no” to new funding requests because the money just isn’t there, and almost everyone with a new funding request leaves the table empty-handed. This year, however, there will be both winners and losers in the race to secure additional funding, and the difference may fall more squarely upon the personal whims of legislators.

For a detailed summary of the filed version of HB 1, click here. For a detailed summary of the filed version of SB 1, click here. Questions about specific items? Email Rob at [email protected].

Other bills to watch

We are already tracking more than 500 bills this session (with eight weeks of bill filing still to go!). Many of them you can access on our Legislative webpage under our Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure tracks. (Look on the right-hand side of that webpage on your desktop or the bottom of the page on mobile devices.) We also have a curated list of “Bills to Watch” that you can access on that same webpage. Bills recently added to that list include:

HB 1258 by S. Thompson revising grand jury procedures
HB 1332 by Herrero exempting firefighters and peace officers from jury service
HB 1350 by Cook sanctioning prosecutors for failing to enforce laws
SB 372 by Huffman criminalizing the disclosure of certain judicial opinions and work product

You can click on the underlined hyperlinks to access the content of those bills and related details.

Austin-bound?

If you are ready to clear your calendar and come to Austin for a specific week in February, March, or April, please call or email Shannon to reserve that week ahead of time. Ditto for any questions you might have—call or email Rob or Shannon to get the scoop before you make plans. We are here to help you work smarter, not harder.

Capitol “Days”

Another way to get involved in Austin is to participate in one of the many “Day at the Capitol” events that local cities and counties hold during every session. In addition, our friends at TAC are hosting a “Counties at the Capitol” Day on Tuesday, February 7. For more details—including an agenda and online registration—please visit the TAC website.

Scattershooting

Here are some stories from this past week that you might’ve missed:

• “Texas Republicans want to rein in ‘rogue prosecutors’ like Dallas County DA John Creuzot” (Dallas Morning News)
• “Texas Republicans vow to crack down on ‘rogue’ prosecutors—here’s why” (Austin American-Statesman)
• “Ken Paxton wants more power to prosecute election crimes. These bills in the Texas Legislature would give it to him.” (Texas Tribune)
• “Can Texas Prosecute Providers of Medical Treatments Legal in Other States But Criminalized in Texas?” (Texas Civil Justice League)
• “Texas Legislature’s state budget proposals leave more than $50 billion in state funds up for grabs” (Texas Tribune)

Quotes of the Week

“We cannot attract new prosecutor talent at the wages that are being offered.”
            —Kurt Klomberg, Dodge County (WI) DA, who announced his resignation from office last week due to an inability to fund the basic level of practice needed to assure safety in his community.

“You can’t just take a bill over there and expect it to pass the first time. You got to kind of build your case. And you can’t quit. It’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon.”
            —Scott Stephens, a father who successfully pushed legislation requiring more student-athletes to be screened for heart issues after the death of this son, as quoted in a Texas Tribune article on civic engagement with the legislature.

“If you count up all of the ideas, all the money—the $32.7 [billion surplus]—is spent over like five times. There’s just a lot of requests. … Some ideas are better than others. So, they are going to have to prioritize.”
            —Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar (R-Katy), in an interview on the current budget surplus and how the legislature is being asked to spend it.

“Last session, we passed a law that defunds any city that defunds their police. This session, we must end the easy bail policies that let dangerous criminals back on our streets. We must impose mandatory sentences on criminals caught with guns and on anyone caught smuggling illegal immigrants.”
            —Governor Greg Abbott (R-Houston), in his speech delivered at his inauguration this week.

“Carte blanche public pronouncements by district attorneys that laws we have on the books will be ignored renders the authority of the Legislature to determine what is and isn’t a crime, moot. … Rather than adopt politically-motivated virtue signaling and blanket immunity for criminals, district attorneys have a duty to evaluate the merits of each alleged crime on a case-by-case basis to ensure the public safety of Texans.”
            —State Rep. David Cook (R-Mansfield), in a press release announcing his filing of HB 1350 “to rein in renegade district attorneys.” The bill is an identical companion to SB 378 by Parker (R-Flower Mound).

“Prosecutors have absolute discretion to determine who it is that they want to investigate and prosecute. And the Stephens decision makes that clear. There’s simply not some legislative run-around [of] the court ruling.”
            —Chad Dunn, Austin lawyer who prevailed in the Stephens appeals, as quoted in a Texas Tribune article about legislation filed this session to roll back parts of that decision.

“Prosecutors swear a solemn oath to uphold and defend the laws of the state of Texas, as passed by the duly elected Texas Legislature. For prosecutors to knowingly and willingly refuse to enforce state laws—and even further, publicly announce their refusal to follow and enforce state laws—is a violation of their oath and greatly jeopardizes the entire justice system and weakens the rule of law. The foundational principle of prosecutorial discretion on a case-by-case basis must be protected. But state laws must be enforced. Any prosecutor who refuses to do so must be held to account.”
            —Recommendation of the House Interim Study Committee on Criminal Justice Reform on the charge of “prosecutorial discretion.”

“In short, the controlling motivations for the suspension were the interest in bringing down a reform prosecutor—a prosecutor whose performance did not match the Governor’s law-and-order agenda—and the political benefit that would result. The actual facts—whether Mr. Warren actually had any blanket nonprosecution policies—did not matter. All that was needed was a pretext to justify the suspension under the Florida Constitution.”
            —Conclusion of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida issued this morning in Warren v. DeSantis, finding that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ removal of a local Florida prosecutor was arguably illegal under Florida law, but in a way not cognizable under federal law and therefore denying relief. (Click on the link to the full opinion for a behind-the-scenes look at how that governor and his staff went about that removal decision—it’s a fascinating reminder of how and why these issues have become nationalized.)

###

Let’s hope the first week of the new legislature ending on Friday the 13th is not an omen for the rest of the session.

Shots across the bow

Well, that didn’t take long.

Mere hours after newly re-elected Speaker Phelan mentioned during his acceptance speech a need to “rein in rogue prosecutors” (see “Quotes of the Week” below), State Sen. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound) filed SB 378 relating to “the enforcement of criminal offenses by district attorneys, criminal district attorneys, and county attorneys.” The bill is essentially a slimmed-down version of the anti-sanctuary cities bill passed in 2017 (Senate Bill 4 by Perry (85RS)) which could expose elected prosecutors to civil fines and a potential quo warranto removal action for … well … it’s not quite clear what, exactly. But that doesn’t sound like fun, does it?

Those of you who attended our legislative preview at last month’s Elected Prosecutor Conference may remember our discussion of HB 125 by Slaton (R-Royse City), which would apply civil fines and a potential quo warranto removal from office to any prosecutor who “prohibits or materially limits the enforcement of any criminal offense prescribed by the election laws of this state.” In the same vein, SB 378 applies those sanctions to (the alleged mishandling of) any criminal offense. And before you ask: No, we don’t know what “prohibits or materially limits enforcement” means, and neither do the courts. While SB 4 has been on the books since 2017, there are no court opinions shedding light on what that phrase does or does not include; see City of El Cenizo v. Texas, 890 F.3d 164, 190–191 (5th Cir. 2018) (declining to grant a pre-enforcement challenge that SB 4’s ban on a “policy” or “practice” that “prohibits or materially limits” the enforcement of immigration laws is unconstitutionally vague on its face). Perhaps you can read the text of the bill for yourself here and let us know what you think it means.

Once you are done with that, you can move on to reading SB 404 by King (R-Weatherford) relating to “the reestablishment of the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council.” Some of you old-timers might remember the Texas Prosecutor Council, which was in existence from 1977–1985 before being abolished. It functioned as an oversight body for elected prosecutors, not unlike a much smaller version of the Judicial Conduct Commission, with the authority to accept and investigate complaints against elected prosecutors and issue reprimands or refer claims on to a separate judicial proceeding that could result in the removal from office of an elected prosecutor. The text of SB 404 was only made available late yesterday and we are still processing it, but tune in next week for more history and background on that topic. Meanwhile, read the bill for yourself and let us know what you think.

Going forward, we will track bills of this ilk under the “Bills to Watch” track you can access on our Legislative webpage (right-hand side for desktop access, bottom of the page on mobile devices), along with tracks for all bills amending the Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure.

One final note before moving on: In light of the apparent alignment among the Big Three (governor, lt. governor, and speaker) on the need to crack down on “rogue prosecutors”—a narrative that has apparently become part of the partisan culture war at the national level—it is possible that one or more bills like these could be tabbed by the governor as “emergency items” in the coming weeks. Such a designation frees the legislature to vote on those bills ASAP (rather than the usual 60-day delay imposed by the state constitution), so if you are interested in this topic and intend to participate in those legislative discussions, your preparations should begin now.

Sidebar: Format of these updates

We purposely started this update with some news we thought would grab your attention, but please don’t assume everything of importance will be on the first page of every update. Instead, they will usually follow a similar format:

• an overview of what happened last week;
• some deeper dives on specific issues of note;
• a preview of what (we think) might happen next week;
• some news clips of interest; and
• quotes of the week (some will make you laugh, others … not so much).

The length of these weekly updates will grow with the length of our workdays at the capitol. We know it can be hard to get through all of this information when you have a busy day job to manage, but we encourage you to try. At the capitol, information is power. If you don’t have the latest information, you’re going to be firing blanks when you try to advocate for or against something at the legislature. Please consider actively reading these missives with that in mind.

OK, now back to our regularly-scheduled programming …

Formalities

The first week of the new session was spent dealing with formalities like moving in, hiring staff, getting sworn in, adopting rules, and selecting a speaker for the house.

No Washington, D.C.-type drama was exhibited on that last account (thankfully); as expected, State Rep. Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) was comfortably re-elected to that leadership role on Tuesday by a vote of 145-3. The next day was spent adopting rules governing the legislative process this session. Other than a new rule designed to deter future quorum-busters by imposing fines and other potential sanctions on those members, not much of significance changed.

Across the rotunda in the upper chamber, things were even more sedate (as usual). State Sen. Kelly Hancock (R-North Richland Hills) was chosen to serve as president pro tem of the Senate, a largely ceremonial position awarded by length of tenure in that chamber. On the following day, the senators engaged in the “staggered term lottery” that follows every redistricting election, drawing lots to determine which of them get four-year terms now and which have to run again in two years to start their next four-year term. (For the curious, those senators who must run again in 2024 are Senators Alvarado, Bettencourt, Blanco, Campbell, Eckhardt, Hinojosa, Huffman, Johnson, King, LaMantia, Parker, Paxton, Springer, West, and Whitmire). The bad news for those who drew two-year terms is they have to run again next year; the good news is that any of them who get re-elected yet have higher aspirations can take a free run at a statewide office in 2026 because the legislature somehow forgot to apply the resign-to-run rules to themselves. And finally, the Senate adopted its rules with minimal discussion or change from last session, the most interesting difference being the splitting of the former Committee on Veterans Affairs & Border Security into two separate committees.

On tap next week: A holiday on Monday, followed on Tuesday by the inauguration of the governor and lt. governor, speeches by the governor and lt. governor, parties to celebrate the governor and lt. governor, and then not a few hangovers. These festivities will limit the amount of work done in the open, but behind the scenes, legislators and their staff will kick their bill filings into higher gear and start internally lobbying for their preferred committee assignments and/or chairmanships, which could be announced before the end of the month. Then the real work begins.

All you need to know about the state budget

The Texas Legislature is going to have more money to play with than it has ever had in the history of this great state. The projected FY 2024–2025 revenue and savings surplus alone is larger than the annual budgets of most other, lesser states. Don’t bother worrying about the specific numbers—those are important to people inside the capitol who have to make everything balance, but to the rest of the world, the figures all end in “billions” (with a “B”) so we can’t comprehend them anyway. Just know that even with all that money to work with, demand will still outstrip supply, so anyone advocating for, oh, for instance, additional funding to help recruit and retain prosecutors in local offices, will need to come to Austin prepared to answer tough questions and justify that need. Stated another way: There are still no free lunches at the capitol.

When in Rome Babylon Austin

If you have never found a reason to be interested in the legislative process until recently—even if that was only a few minutes ago when you started reading this update—it can be a daunting process to understand. You might find this recent primer from the Texas Tribune to be a good place to start: Texas Legislature 101: Understanding the state government and how it passes laws. (Yes, we could quibble with its accuracy on some points or what it includes or fails to include, but like we said, it’s a good introduction.)

One challenge in engaging with the legislature on a specific issue is that the legislature provides limited notice of upcoming events, even going as far as to suspend its own notice rules when it sees fit. As a result, we may not be able to give you much notice of when particular bills may be considered. Instead, we recommend to anyone interested in seeing the process first-hand—either to learn or to engage—that you clear some room on your schedule so you can come to Austin for a few days during the session and see what is what. Preference will be given to elected prosecutors, but assistants are also welcome to volunteer (with their boss’s permission, of course). But remember, you are coming here to work on your issues; TDCAA will generally not take positions on bills at the legislature. We are here to be your eyes and ears at the capitol and help point you in the right direction when needed, but what you do with that help is up to you.

If you are ready to clear your calendar and come to Austin for a specific week in February, March, or April, please call or email Shannon to reserve that week ahead of time. Ditto for any questions you might have—call or email Rob or Shannon to get the skinny before you make plans. We are here to help you work smarter, not harder.

Capitol “Days”

Another way to get involved in Austin is to participate in one of the many “Day at the Capitol” events that local cities and counties hold during every session. In addition, our friends at TAC are hosting a “Counties at the Capitol” Day on Tuesday, February 7. For more details about that—including an agenda and online registration—please visit the TAC website.

Scattershooting

Here are some stories from the holiday break and this past week that you might’ve missed:

• “Tarrant County’s new DA stands before a mountain of work. How is he scaling the slope?” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
• “Wade Jackson to step down as District Attorney of 110th District Court” (Lubbock Avalanche-Journal)
• “Ample Jan. 6 Evidence Helps Secure High Conviction Rate in Capitol Riot” (Wall Street Journal)
• “Six Reasons the Murder Clearance Rate Is at an All-Time Low” (The Atlantic)
• “Legislature could eliminate police dishonorable discharges, create officer database” (KXAN)
• “The fringe ideology of ‘constitutional sheriffs’ is attracting believers within Texas law enforcement” (Texas Tribune)

Quotes of the Week

“Well, I have happy political consultants.”
            —State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston), finding a silver lining upon learning that he drew a two-year senate term this week and has to run for re-election again in 2024.

“It’s always easiest to spend other people’s money, so everyone is going to try to get their pet projects done.”
            — Brian Smith, political scientist at St. Edward’s University, quoted in a Texas Tribune article in reference to the state’s record $32.7 billion revenue surplus this session.

“We have proven you can be tough on violent criminals while also making the criminal justice system work better for nonviolent offenders. And that is what we will continue to do. We can work all day on these issues, but if rogue district attorneys will not uphold the law, what progress are we really making? It is time to rein them in.”
            — House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont), listing off his priorities for this session during his acceptance speech.

“Thankful that Speaker @DadePhelan mentioned a priority for this session is addressing rogue District Attorneys who are publicly picking & choosing which laws they will enforce. We’ve seen this with #prolife laws in the last year & the #txlege must address this threat to Life.”
            — Tweet by Dr. John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life.

“REINING IN ROGUE PROSECUTORS: Prosecutors are elected to enforce Texas law and to pursue and hold accountable Texas lawbreakers. The practice of District Attorneys publicly and proudly thumbing their nose at the legislature and refusing to enforce entire classes of Texas crimes is an affront to the rule of law itself. This must end—and Prosecutors who continue to do so must be held to account.”
            — State Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano), current chairman of the House Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence Committee, in a press release announcing his upcoming legislative priorities.

“We know that certain policies adopted by some district attorneys in our state have hindered the enforcement of criminal offenses, thereby placing the public at risk. This is unacceptable, and action must be taken to ensure that district attorneys are held accountable for their actions and carry out their duties by enforcing the laws we have on our books.”
            — State Sen. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound), in a press release announcing the filing of SB 378.

<OK, we’ll stop there, you get the drift. Look for another update in this same space next Friday!>

###

*This being Texas, we know we can’t go wrong if we include a nod to football in our reading material. Special h/t to the NCAA and the UIL for the “Week Zero” concept. Also … #GoFrogs on Monday night!

When in Austin

The Texas Legislature’s 88^th Regular Session convenes on Tuesday, January 10, which means more of you than normal might be visiting our capital city between now and Memorial Day. One of the many benefits TDCAA provides for its members during a legislative session is an office that serves as a home away from home for you when you are in town. We have free parking, free Wi-Fi, open workspaces, and a stocked kitchen waiting for anyone who comes by, and we are located a short 10-minute walk from door to door for those doing business in the Big Pink Building. So please, come by and take advantage of our prime location and open door when you come to town!

As for the upcoming schedule this month … not much else of note will happen for several weeks after Tuesday’s Opening Day ceremonies. Legislators and their staff will spend most of this month attending swearing-in ceremonies (and parties), inauguration ceremonies (and parties), and other getting-to-know-each-other functions (and parties) while filing lots of bills. (Lots and lots and lots of bills, to be honest.) This traditionally slow start gives those of you who want to come to Austin to work on legislation plenty of time to get your ducks in a row at home and work before heading this way. If you have questions, or if you are ready to clear the decks and come to Austin for a specific week in February, March, or April, please call or email Shannon. Preference will be given to elected prosecutors, but assistants are also welcome to volunteer (with their boss’s permission, of course).

Prosecutor recruitment and retention

The Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center at SMU’s Dedman School of Law just released a policy brief entitled “Greening Criminal Legal Deserts in Rural Texas” that some of you might find interesting. (Translation for those who don’t speak academician: Pony Law put out suggestions on how to entice more lawyers to do criminal work in rural Texas.) Most of the paper focuses on problems with criminal defense and a need for rural public defenders, but there is a good plug on pp.10–13 for funding the rural prosecutor loan repayment assistance program that has been on the books in Texas for two decades but has never been funded. That’s not something the Lege has on its To Do list for this session either, but the loan repayment concept is related to some ideas they are considering this session, so consider this yet another argument for improving prosecutor recruitment and retention. And on that front, the more, the merrier! But give the report a look-see if you are so inclined, and share it as needed with your legislators and local policymakers if you think it will be helpful.

Remote proceedings

The Texas Supreme Court’s 59th (!) Emergency Order Regarding the COVID-19 State of Disaster took effect with the new year and continues to include provisions authorizing a court to allow or require anyone—lawyer, party/defendant, juror, or witness—to appear for a non-jury proceeding remotely, regardless of consent or objection. That’s been the state of things for about a year as we continue to live and work in a society in which almost everyone seems to have moved on from COVID—everyone, that is, but the governor and Texas Supreme Court, which both continue to issue edicts granting themselves various supernumerary powers due to the emergency they have self-declared. However, at some point this must surely end—and indeed, this latest emergency order extends only until the end of this month, which is much shorter than previous emergency orders from the court. So, what gives?

One of the unresolved issues from the recent pandemic is to what extent the courts should be able to perform their duties using remote technology without certain lawyers, parties, or witnesses physically appearing in court. The Lege took a crack at codifying new laws on that topic in 2021, but that legislation—which was proposed by the judiciary and largely granted judges the unilateral authority to make most remote-versus-in-person decisions—failed to pass over the various objections of lawyers on all sides of the bar (civil, criminal, plaintiff, defendant, and prosecutor). Over the interim, however, the judiciary has resorted to its rulemaking authority to draft new rules of civil procedure for remote proceedings in the impending post-emergency-order world. They include the new Texas Rules of Civil Procedure 21d and 500.10 (plus related conforming changes to other rules) which would grant the courts some of the same powers they could not obtain from the legislature last session. Specifically, the two rules would give trial and appellate judges the general authority to allow or require remote participation in civil proceedings, while also:

• requiring good cause or agreement of the parties before a court can allow or require remote participation by a party or lawyer at a proceeding in which oral testimony is heard;
• requiring agreement of the parties before a court can allow or order a lawyer, party, or juror appear remotely for a jury trial; and
• laying out notice and recording provisions and a range of factors for determining “good cause” in such cases.

Those new and amended rules, which can be read in their proposed form as Misc. Docket No. 22-9091 (posted on October 14, 2022), will soon be published in final form and take effect on February 1, 2023. Anyone who practices in civil courts should familiarize yourselves with whatever changes are set to take effect on that date, keeping in mind that the legislature can always override the judiciary’s procedural rules by legislation. Note also that Chief Justice Hecht has publicly stated that after the new civil rules become effective, the judiciary may turn to rulemaking related to criminal procedure next.

Bill tracking

Of the 1,605 bills filed through yesterday, we are tracking 405 (~25 percent). To see bills that would amend the Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, or other “Bills to Watch” (a curated list of 18 other bills that you might care about), use the links on our Legislative webpage (right-hand side for desktop access, bottom of the page on mobile devices). We maintain more than 40 different bill tracks for various policy subjects, but those three tracks available for viewing on our website will give you a good idea of what has been filed so far.

Also, if you or someone in your office has proposed a bill that gets filed by a legislator, please drop Shannon a note so he can track it as such. Legislative offices often seek information from us about bills, but we can only forward them to you to pitch your bill if you let us know which bill is yours!

Free CLE: Mandatory Brady training

The 2022 version of TDCAA’s free Mandatory Brady Training is now available online. Click the link above for more details and be sure the other prosecutors in your office are clicking it too!

PVAC recognition

TDCAA’s Professional Victim Assistance Coordinator (PVAC) recognizes professionalism in prosecutor-based victim assistance. If you know of a VAC who might merit such recognition, a list of the requirements and an application can be found here. The deadline for this year’s applications is January 31, 2023. For questions, contact [email protected].

Scattershooting

Here are some stories from the holiday break and this past week that you might’ve missed:

• “‘It destroyed our family’: Why Dallas DA is trying a new strategy in deadly driving crimes” (Dallas Morning News)
• “Josh Tetens inheriting district attorney’s office plagued with vacancies, staggering backlog of felony cases” (KWTX News (Waco))
• “Rodriguez steps in as DA” (Port Lavaca Wave)
• “Texas AG must determine whether a popular form of animal control constitutes cruelty” (Dallas Morning News)
• “How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart” (Washington Post)
• “Property tax revision, judicial branch expansion among new Texas laws that took effect Jan. 1” (Texas Tribune)
• “Texas criminal justice employees disciplined after Dallas parolees jailed in murder cases” (Dallas Morning News)
• “Abbott says legislative action needed for ankle monitor violations” (Tyler Morning-Telegraph)

Quotes of the Week

“[T]he upcoming revenue estimate is my most challenging yet. On one hand, our growth in the coming years will be hampered by a slowing economy, so caution is needed. On the other hand, people will be shocked when I announce that the cash carry-over balance in the treasury is greater than the $27 billion originally forecasted. We will never have a surplus of discretionary funds like this again.”
            —Glenn Hegar (R-Katy), Texas Comptroller, in a recent Austin American-Statesman column prefacing his impending official revenue estimate announcement later this month.

“He is at the apex of his power since he’s been lieutenant governor, with a 19-seat majority of which all 19 of those Republicans are on the Patrick team.”
            —Mark. Jones, political scientist at Rice University, describing in a recent Dallas Morning News article the political dynamics in the state senate under Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick heading into the 88^th Regular Session.

“Some of us at the Capitol have joked that we need to have Miami Herald subscriptions so that we can read today what Greg Abbott is going to do three days from now.”
            —Scott Braddock, editor of the Quorum Report, cracking wise about how a potential presidential primary contest pitting Texas governor Greg Abbott against Florida governor Ron DeSantis may impact the policy debates at the Texas legislature in 2023.

“This bill is designed to stop these radical DAs and reinstate the constitutionally guaranteed rights of law enforcement officers. I’m proud to work with my local law enforcement officials as well as pro-law enforcement organizations across the state to put an end to this abusive practice.”
            —State Rep. Cody Harris (R-Palestine), as quoted in a Palestine Herald-Press story about HB 799, his CLEAT-proposed bill “relating to a limitation on the use of certain unsubstantiated information relating to peace officer misconduct” that would restrict prosecutors’ ability to disclose certain impeachment evidence to the defense (and thereby likely jeopardize the finality of any cases they’ve worked).

TDCAA will deliver these legislative updates by email every Friday afternoon during the regular legislative session. If you would prefer these updates be delivered to a different email address, please reply to this email with that new contact information.

###

Hello, autumn. Hello, interim. We’ve missed you both.

El fin?

Your Texas Legislature adjourned its third called session sine die in the wee hours of this morning after passing around a dozen bills all told, several of which will be the subject of litigation for years to come. However, most of those bills don’t directly impact your day job, so we’ll leave the summarizing of those new laws to your news source of choice.

There were really only three pieces of legislation in play related to your bailiwick this third special session. The first was SJR 1 by Huffman/Kacal, which would have placed a constitutional proposition to allow judges to deny bail in certain cases on a future ballot. As in past sessions, a party-line vote resulted in that measure falling two dozen votes shy of the two-thirds approval required to send it to the voters. Chalk that up to further proof that Texas Rs and Texas Ds are still not playing each other’s reindeer games during this year of Washington, D.C.-style partisan politics.

The second measure was SB 5 by Lucio/Patterson, the anti-tethering dog bill, a previous version of which was vetoed by the governor during the regular session. After some minor face-saving tweaks, the governor appears ready to sign this version and put an end the #AbbottHatesDogs hashtag that went viral on social media after the earlier veto.

The final piece of this puzzle was SB 8 by Nelson/Bonnen, the bill to spend the billions of federal dollars coming to the state as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). These one-time expenditures ended up being spread among a variety of different articles in the state budget. Of relevance to your office are the funds dedicated to crime victims compensation, services, and related grants; increased mental health treatment options; and visiting judges and indigent costs related to working on local docket backlogs. What that will look like in action remains to be seen, but most of the state agencies you deal with got at least a little sumpin’-sumpin’ to help them address pandemic-related issues.

Now we wait to see whether the governor will call a fourth special session. Rumors abound about another special session in January to take up as-yet-unnamed issues, but frankly, we don’t care enough to try to run those to ground right now. The 87th Legislature is leaving town, and we are going to take our wins where we can find them. Full stop.

November conference

Registration is open for TDCAA’s Key Personnel & Victim Assistance Coordinator Seminar to be held in Kerrville on November 10–12, 2021, at the Inn of the Hills Hotel. The TDCAA Key Personnel-Victim Services Board has planned outstanding workshops for Texas prosecutor staff and victim assistance personnel, so if you wish to send any of your office staff to this excellent training, CLICK HERE for hotel and registration information. 

Scattershooting

Some articles that you might find interesting:

• “Texas law says jury panels must be chosen randomly. A Brazoria County official had a different idea.” (Texas Monthly)
• “Texans will decide eight proposed amendments to the state Constitution on Nov. 2. Here’s what you need to know.” (Texas Tribune)
• “Analysis: An election slogan you won’t hear in Texas in 2022” (Texas Tribune)

Quote of the Week

“I think my campaign has had a dramatic impact on his policies.”
            —Don Huffines, Republican candidate for governor, when asked about various recent actions taken by the current governor.

“Have a nice day.”
            —Gov. Greg Abbott, when asked by a reporter about the prospects for a fourth called session in the near future.

[This will (hopefully) be the last legislative update from Austin for a while.
These messages will continue only as needed depending upon whether there is another special session or other interim business.]

###

It was great to see so many of you in Galveston for our 2021 Annual Conference last month! We hosted almost 900 attendees and speakers, and to date, we haven’t heard of a single COVID-19 case arising from that gathering. (Knock on wood!) #GoodJobGoodEffortPeople

Drawing lines

We are past the halfway point of this third called session and there is still precious little to report in the way of changes that would directly affect your business. But that doesn’t mean legislators aren’t working hard. They are. Picking your voters can be very hard work. And it may take more than one special session—especially regarding congressional maps, which are important, but not as important to legislators as their own districts. Legislators will take care of themselves first, then move on to the partisan battle over who goes to Washington, D.C. Whether that can be completed before the clock runs out on this third special session is anyone’s guess, but the main fireworks are set to go off next Tuesday when the new Texas House map gets debated on the floor of that chamber. Prepare your popcorn flavor of choice.

We aren’t going to get into the nitty-gritty of the redistricting process or outcomes here, but some of you may find yourselves with unfamiliar legislators after the new maps are adopted, so if you have questions about where things stand, feel free to contact Shannon with those inquiries.

Writing checks

The other big lift of this third special session is deciding how to spend $16 billion of federal pandemic largesse. Those funds are separate from the money sent to local cities and counties and will be appropriated to state agencies for various purposes—some associated with the pandemic, others not so much. Initial drafts of those expenditures include money for crime victims’ compensation, crime victim-related grants, visiting judges, and indigent defense, but the final versions are yet to be hashed out.

SCOTUS and COVID

While we were in Galveston for our Annual Conference, the Texas Supreme Court issued yet another pandemic edict. The court’s Emergency Order No. 43 took effect on October 1, 2021, and will expire on December 1 (unless extended yet again). The order is mostly more of the same ol’ same ol’, but a new wrinkle exists in regard to the extension of deadlines; read this blog post from the Texas Municipal Courts Education Center (TMCEC) for more on that.

November conference

Registration is open for TDCAA’s Key Personnel & Victim Assistance Coordinator Seminar to be held in Kerrville on November 10–12, 2021, at the Inn of the Hills Hotel. The TDCAA Key Personnel-Victim Services Board has planned outstanding workshops for Texas prosecutor staff and victim assistance personnel, so if you wish to send any of your office staff to this excellent training, CLICK HERE for hotel and registration information. 

Scattershooting

Some articles that you might find interesting:

• “Student-loan forgiveness to include more public-sector workers” (Wall Street Journal)
• “Houston is ‘ground zero’ for fake temporary license tags, and a loophole in Texas law is to blame” (Houston Chronicle)
• “Analysis: When Texas legislators admit they don’t know what they’re doing” (Texas Tribune)
• “Police Officers Resist Getting Vaccinated for COVID-19, Now Their No. 1 Killer” (Wall Street Journal)

Quote of the Week

“Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security.”
            —Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, former justice minister during the Taliban’s previous rule over Afghanistan, on what punishments might be returning following the Taliban’s re-establishment of sharia law in that country.

###

The Lege is coming back for a third 30-day special session on Monday, September 20, 2021. We will be in Galveston all of next week for our 2021 Annual Conference, so there won’t be any legislative updates from us next Friday. Consider this your primer until we can get caught up in two weeks.

Why?

After a two week break to allow the participants to retreat to their respective sides and get fixed up by their corner teams, legislators will answer the bell and return to Austin to take up a new slate of issues put on their plates by the governor. Those are:

• state and federal redistricting;
• how to spend ~$16 billion in one-time federal pandemic relief funds;
• weighing in on whether state or local governments can impose COVID-19 vaccine mandates; and
• re-considering past bills on dog tethering and transgender school athletes.

While several of these issues are controversial, none of the heat they bring is likely to match that of redistricting, that decennial exercise of political muscle in which legislators get to pick their voters. Redistricting happens at both a micro (by district) and macro (state and federal delegation) level. While the latter gets much of the ink, that big picture battle is decided by a relatively small group of chamber, committee, and caucus leaders. It’s at the micro level where the real hand-to-hand nastiness occurs among individual members who are fighting for their political lives. Bring your popcorn.

New House committee

The Speaker has created a new House Select Committee on Youth Health & Safety to address issues like coordination between the state’s child protective services, youth mental health services, and juvenile justice system. The committee will be chaired by State Rep. J.M. Lozano (R-Kingsville), vice-chaired by Rep. Ann Johnson (D-Houston), and will include as members Reps. Steve Allison (R-San Antonio), David Cook (R-Mansfield), Harold Dutton (D-Houston), James Frank (R-Wichita Falls), Stephanie Klick (R-Fort Worth), Jeff Leach (R-Plano), Eddie Morales (D-Eagle Pass), Victoria Neave (D-Dallas), and Toni Rose (D-Dallas). No word yet on how this committee work will mesh with that of other committees that traditionally address those issues.

Hurricane Ida relief effort

In the wake of Hurricane Ida, Louisiana has once again been dealt a hard hand. To help support Louisiana prosecutors and their families who have been adversely affected, our good neighbors at the Louisiana District Attorneys Association are partnering with their training foundation (LDATF) to raise funds for their benefit. Anyone interested in helping can CLICK HERE to donate. Any contribution—no matter the amount—will make a difference and is greatly appreciated. All donations are TAX DEDUCTIBLE under existing IRS rules.

Scattershooting

Some articles that you might find interesting (including a few from earlier this year that we are only just getting to read now that the legislature has left town):

• “Who killed criminal justice reform in Texas?” (Texas Monthly)
• “Life without parole is replacing the death penalty—but the legal defense system hasn’t kept up” (The Marshall Project)
• “CSI Houston: How a Texas lab has remade the science of forensics” (Christian Science Monitor)
• “How Elizabeth Loftus Changed the Meaning of Memory” (The New Yorker)

Quotes of the Week

“It’s the most personal thing that a legislator will do. … There will be some votes that probably look partisan and probably are partisan, but there’s going to be a lot of votes that are really personal.” 
           —Former State Rep. Burt Solomons (R-Carrollton), who chaired the House Redistricting Committee in 2011, as quoted in an article on the impending drama facing legislators next week.

“Merrick Garland has an interesting job. He gets up, goes to the office, sues the state of Texas and then goes home.”
            —Ross Ramsey, executive editor of the Texas Tribune, in a column on the new nature of national litigation on several hot-button political issues.

“In any other location with permitless carry, we have no idea whether people have had a background check and if they are legally carrying. There are legitimate questions why you and I on the street, out in public, don’t have that same protection, and we would support having the same protection because permitless carry is dangerous.”
            —Gyl Switzer, executive director of Texas Gun Sense, questioning why non-LTC visitors who enter the state capitol with a handgun are being detained for the purposes of running a criminal history check to determine their eligibility to carry without a license in the wake of the new constitutional carry law.

“It felt like a scene out of ‘Scooby-Doo’ after they handcuffed me and pulled the mask off, like, ‘I would have gotten away with it if wasn’t for those meddling Karens,’ you know?”
            —Mark Metzger, criminal defense attorney in Galveston, as quoted in a story about his recent arrest for disorderly conduct after he was filmed walking the beaches during Tropical Storm Nicholas in a Michael Myers costume and (fake) bloody knife.

[Our next special session update will be in two weeks.
We’re looking forward to seeing many of you in Galveston!]

###

It’s over! But consider this not so much a “good-bye” as a “see you later.”

Adios (for now)

This second called session was to conclude on Sunday, September 5, but the legislature has adjourned sine die before then. Having passed what red meat it can push through the sausage grinder this session, both chambers adjourned last night, giving the governor bills on most (but not all) of the subjects he requested while also giving themselves a true Labor Day holiday weekend.

Next up? Well, there is still redistricting to tackle. The conventional wisdom in Austin is that the governor will let legislators go home for a week or two to let tempers cool a bit, then call them back in late September or early October to start drawing lines on maps. The governor might also add to the call of that third special session some of the items that still have not passed this year, but that is speculation at this point.

Bail bond reform crosses the finish line

Fifth try is the charm, eh? The Lege finally delivered Governor Abbott the “bail bond reform” bill that he asked for. Senate Bill 6 by Huffman/Smith has been delivered for his final approval after some last-minute tweaks in the House. Among its many provisions, the bill:

• prohibits certain violent offenders being released on personal bond;
• requires magistrates to review a Public Safety Report (PSR) and criminal history on each arrestee prior to setting a bail amount;
• adds new factors—such as citizenship status and past court involvement—to the list of things to be considered before setting bail;
• imposes new requirements on judges setting bail for arrestees with pending cases;
• requires bond conditions to be entered into TLETS; and
• increases the bail-related training requirements for magistrates.

Different parts of the bill will be phased into effect from December 2021 through April 2022. Look for a complete PDF text and review of the new law to be offered for free on TDCAA’s Publications web page before those new changes take effect.

Meanwhile, the other prong of bail bond “reform”—SJR 3, the constitutional proposal to allow outright denial of bail for certain violent or sexual offenses—fell a dozen votes short of the two-thirds approval needed for it to appear on the ballot next spring, so that idea is dead (again).

Dolla dolla billz, y’all

The Lege also passed two supplemental appropriations bills related to border security. House Bill 5 by Bonnen/Nelson included a late House floor amendment that will direct $180 million to Texas Anti-Gang Center programs in the state’s largest cities, while HB 9 by Bonnen/Nelson appropriates almost $2 billion to border-related purposes, including:

• almost $3.8 million to the Border Prosecutor Unit (for hiring and training more prosecutors);
• $14 million to border counties for law enforcement expenses; and
• more than $32 million to the Office of Court Administration (to provide indigent defense funds, visiting judges, and related assistance to counties along the border).

These bills take effect immediately.

TDCAA training update

We’re up to 962 registered attendees for the 2021 Annual Conference in Galveston later this month; check out the details and register HERE if you’d like to join us. We will also be offering an in-person Legislative Update the day before the Annual at that same location. We’ve received 510 registrations for that course, but it will be held in the same cavernous convention space as the main course, so you can sign up HERE if you’d prefer that socially-distanced in-person experience to our online version, which appears to be a huge hit based on the positive evaluations rolling in. The online course will be open for several more months and can be accessed HERE.

Free training

The National Computer Forensics Institute (NCFI) will start offering its five-day prosecutor courses on digital evidence, computer forensics, and social networks in 2022. All costs associated with the course (including travel) are covered by the United States Secret Service. Eligible dates and application instructions for their Digital Evidence for Prosecutors (DEP) and Advanced Digital Evidence for Prosecutors (ADEP) courses can be accessed at HERE. The deadline to apply for these free courses is September 28, 2021. Additional information on the NCFI can be found at www.ncfi.usss.gov. 

Scattershooting

Some articles that you might find interesting:

• “What Philadelphia Reveals About America’s Homicide Surge” (ProPublica)
• “2022 election dates hinge on how fast Texas lawmakers get redistricting bill to Gov. Greg Abbott” (Dallas Morning News)
• “Thanks to local politics and a railroad, rural Kinney County accounts for most of Texas’ migrant arrests” (Texas Tribune)

Quotes of the Week

“I want to see if [the lieutenant governor] has his big boy pants on. This meeting is adjourned.”
            —House Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston), chairman of the House Public Education Committee, explaining why he adjourned that committee on Monday without a vote on two hot button education issues—critical race theory and transgender athletes. (Ultimately, the former passed but the latter did not.)

“Health care workers have been dealing with this for years, and it’s become more pronounced with the COVID pandemic.”
            —Karen Garvey, vice president of patient safety at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, as quoted in an article about verbal abuse and physical assaults against health care workers by hospital patients and visitors.

[With the conclusion of this second called session, these weekly updates will become monthly updates—at least until the next called session.
Happy Labor Day Weekend!]

###