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Texas 82nd Regular Legislative Session Ends, with Mixed Results

Thank you for contacting your State Representatives and Senators during the 82nd Texas Regular Legislative Session, which concluded on May 30, 2011.   It is clear from our conversations with […]

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Four Texas Executions Scheduled for June

Four individuals are scheduled to be executed by the State of Texas this month. Tonight, June 1, Gayland Bradford is scheduled to be executed.  Last October, he received a temporary […]

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New Death Sentence in Travis County

On Friday, May 20, 2011, a Travis County jury sentenced Areli Carbajal Escobar to death for the murder and sexual assault of Bianca Maldonado in 2009.  According to the Austin American-Statesman (“Escobar […]

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Texas Legislative Updates

Yesterday, the Texas Senate gave final approval to legislation that requires police departments to adopt written guidelines for how they conduct eyewitness identification procedures.    Mistaken eyewitness identification is the […]

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Crime Victim Calls for Forgiveness

Texas death row inmate Mark Stroman faces a July 20 execution date for the racially-motivated killing of Vasudev Patel, an Indian of the Hindu faith who owned a gas station and […]

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More on Discredited Expert Testimony

Over the weekend, the Houston Chronicle published an editorial  calling for a review of the cases involving death row inmates who were evaluated for evidence of mental retardation by psychologist […]

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Texas Executes Cary Kerr Using New Protocol

Last night, May 3, 2011, the State of Texas carried out the execution of Cary Kerr under a new lethal injection protocol that uses  pentobarbital rather than sodium thiopental as […]

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death penalty forensic science incompetency intellectual disabilities Texas

Texas Psychologist Banned from Criminal Cases

Last week, the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists reprimanded psychologist George Denkowski for his unscientific testing methods in evaluating whether certain defendants in capital murder cases were intellectually […]