Monthly Archives: March 2009

American Violet, a Hollywood blockbuster that opens in theaters next week, tells the story of Regina Kelly, one of the people rounded up in a Tulia-style drug bust in Hearne, Texas almost ten years ago. The Hearne tragedy would never … Continue reading →

  This is the third in a trinity of articles from the Fort Worth Star Telegram that I imbibed this morning along with my muffins and grapefruit.   Linda Campbell’s column in the is devoted to the vagaries of eyewitness testimony.  Campbell uses … Continue reading →

Bob Ray Sanders writes a slightly left-of-center column for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  His most recent offering starts off as a simple amen to Hillary Clinton’s recent comments about the relation between Mexican violence and American addiction issues.  But Clinton’s remarks could … Continue reading →

 Senator Jim Webb’s article in Parade suggests that criminal justice reform has gone mainstream.  Webb echoes all the arguments and cites all the statistics reformers have been using for years now.  The fact that a high-profile politician believes he can … Continue reading →

(Background information on this post can be found here.) The federal  justice system is predicated on a simple assumption: reasonable people facing a long stretch in prison without parole will do whatever it takes to stay in the free world.  When the government has a gun to your head … Continue reading →

C. Victor Lander, the lead judge of Dallas’ municipal courts, has come under fire for a comment he recently made in The Dallas Weekly, an independent black publication.  I have pasted an article from the Dallas Weekly below and you can … Continue reading →

Exactly one month ago, Attorney General Eric Holder sparked a maelstrom of white outrage.  As usual in sound-bite America, the media focused on a single phrase: “In things racial we have always been . . . a nation of cowards.” You can … Continue reading →

The Department of Justice spent seven years reeling in the big fish only to toss him back into the lake. For the past year or so I have been arguing that the government’s case against Little Rock attorney Alvin Clay … Continue reading →

A new batch of articles appeared recently recycling data from last year’s Pew study on incarceration.  Depending on how you work the numbers (and which numbers you work) it is possible to conclude that either Louisiana, Georgia or Texas has … Continue reading →

  Crain Watkins                                 Henry Wade I was a bit nervous when I learned that the Dallas-based D-Magazine had just published a feature length article on Craig Watkins the Dallas County District Attorney.   D-Magazine made a valiant attempt to flip the … Continue reading →