It’s starting to look more and more like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is never going to go on trial despite being indicted on felony charges nearly four years ago. Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to reconsider a decision that resulted in the lawyers prosecuting Paxton’s alleged…
Texas’ Driver Responsibility Program, perhaps the most loathed program administered by the state, is no more. Friday afternoon, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill immediately putting the program to the sword, clearing the path for about 1.5 million Texans to regain their driver’s licenses. The program imposed surcharges on…
A Dallas County took less than an hour Friday morning to convict Brenda Delgado of Dallas dentist Kendra Hatcher’s 2015 murder. Delgado will spend the rest of her life in prison without the possibility of parole. According to prosecutors, Delgado paid Kristopher Love and Crystal Cortes to kill Hatcher because…
Just days after advocacy groups filed more than two dozen new sexual harassment charges against the fast-food chain, a group of McDonald’s workers from across the country protested in North Texas on Thursday, demanding better wages, better working conditions and the right to form a union. Fight for $15, a…
Last week, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a piece of anti-abortion legislation that left Texas, one of the pro-life movement’s biggest hotbeds, in the dust. Thanks to Kemp’s signature, Georgia law now bans any abortion occurring more than six weeks into a pregnancy, creating an almost impossible window for women…
The short-term rental industry has become the latest “internet-based service firm” to arouse the ire of citizens and local governments nationwide. Here in North Texas, Arlington has recently joined the growing number of cities to restrict or even ban the practice of renting or operating short-term rentals as offered by…
Two years ago, Texas got in line with many of its conservative sibling states and passed a law addressing one of its most pressing concerns — preventing any companies that participate in the boycott, divest and sanction movement from doing business with the state. This week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott…
Texas House Democrats banded together with some of the chamber’s most conservative members Thursday to pass legislation that would stop Texas juries from sentencing killers with severe mental illnesses to death. Dallas Rep. Toni Rose’s bill would require juries who find that a defendant convicted of capital murder was suffering…
It’s hard to find anyone who likes Texas’ Driver Responsibility Program. Civil rights groups hate it. The Texas Tea Party hates it. The Observer’s readers, judging from the number of emails we’ve received about it, hate it. With a unanimous vote Thursday, the Texas House of Representatives showed that it…
Texas’ law banning government agencies from doing business with people or other businesses that support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel is on hold Thursday night after a federal judge issued an injunction against it, ruling that it is likely unconstitutional. The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement calls for…
To hear Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata tell it, Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot’s new reforms — Creuzot’s office will no longer prosecute certain misdemeanor theft cases or first-time marijuana offenses — stereotype poor people, rather than helping them out. “I take great offense to saying that poor…
Jason Lee Van Dyke sat at a table next to his defense lawyer in a Denton County courtroom, listening as an attorney for the Texas State Bar spoke about how fearful she was when she received his email message threatening her life. At 38, Van Dyke is stocky like a…
U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn sentenced former Dallas City Council member Dwaine Caraway to a little more than four and a half years in federal prison Friday afternoon. In August, Caraway admitted to taking almost $450,000 in bribes and kickbacks related to Dallas County School’s ill-fated stop-arm camera program. Lynn…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is celebrating because a Missouri man might choke to death on his own blood. Paxton led a 16-state coalition last year asking the U.S. Supreme Court to deny Russell Bucklew’s death row appeal and uphold Missouri’s lethal injection procedures, claiming that upholding Bucklew’s appeal would…
Maybe Sen. Ted Cruz is just really hard up for $10,000. Otherwise, it’s hard to figure out what he’s trying to achieve with a Monday lawsuit against the federal elections commission, beyond pure campaign-finance nihilism. Broken down to its simplest terms, Cruz’s suit challenges a federal law that bans candidates…
The hits just keep on coming for acting Texas Secretary of State David Whitley. He remains unconfirmed by the Texas Senate and under federal court scrutiny for his attempted purge of almost 100,000 voters from the state’s registration lists. Now, thanks to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee, he’s…
In August 2018, Texas A&M University-Commerce gave George Hale a choice: 1) Sign a loyalty oath swearing he would never join or support a boycott of Israel, 2) Lose his contract to continue working on an award-winning podcast about unsolved crimes in Texas for the public radio station associated with…
Airbnb is officially on Texas’ list. Not for being a menace to apartment dwellers everywhere or avoiding hotel occupancy taxes, or anything like that. Instead, Airbnb, a home-sharing app that offers an alternative to traditional hotels, is in trouble with the state because it refuses to list Israeli-owned rentals in…
The only thing propping up the veneer of transparency created by the Texas Open Meetings Act is the honor system, thanks to a ruling earlier this week from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Texas’ highest criminal court. Until Wednesday morning, Texas law forbid public officials from knowingly discussing public…
What started as a legal battle between Gearbox Software (Borderlands, Aliens: Colonial Marines) CEO Randy Pitchford and his company’s former legal counsel, Wade Callender, has boiled over into the public sphere thanks to a number of shocking details in a recent lawsuit.
A now-closed Dallas nightclub and former Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Josh Brent bear joint responsibility for the death of Brent’s best friend and former teammate Jerry Brown in a 2012 car accident, a Dallas County jury decided. During a nearly weeklong trial, attorneys for Brown’s family asked the jury to…
The Spunky Squaw, a Stephenville-based online boutique that was ensnared in a controversy in October for their use of what many believe was a racist slur in their business name, recently had their website taken down, causing a collective sigh of relief from American Indian activists who were campaigning against the…
