The Motel 6 hotel chain has agreed to a $7.6 million settlement with a group of individuals who sued the company earlier this year for disclosing their personal information to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while they stayed at the hotel. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund sued…
District Attorney Faith Johnson’s silence on her decision to try six teens charged for armed robbery as adults is drawing criticism from organizers working to end mass incarceration. The six teens, all between the ages of 13 and 16, allegedly stole a black Chevy Malibu at gunpoint in the early…
Mary Jane preferred animals to people “10 out of 10 times,” she says. She grew up in southern Louisiana, a place of winding swampland roads where family ties run deep. She studied wildlife management with a focus in aquaculture at Louisiana State University. Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries agents…
In the Muslim community, an imam is someone followers trust, a leader in the community to whom Muslims turn for consolation and counseling. But at one of the largest mosques in North Texas, Imam Zia Ul-Haq Sheikh is accused of breaching that trust when he began an illicit relationship with…
Texas’ system of electing judges has long drawn criticism about the potential influence of campaign donations in the outcome of cases. Plaintiffs’ lawyer John McCraw took those critiques one step further last month when he filed a motion asking two justices on Texas’ 5th Court of Appeals to remove themselves from…
Political donations are behind an appellate court ruling that overturned a jury’s verdict requiring an apartment company to pay $1 million to two women raped by a man who entered their Garland home through a window with a broken latch, the women’s attorney claims in a motion filed this week…
After eight hours of deliberation, a Dallas County jury said Thursday afternoon they could not reach a verdict in the case against former Mesquite Police Department Officer Derick Wiley, charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for shooting an unarmed man who was trying to quiet the alarm on his…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, apparently, has an iron deficiency. Tuesday, the former state representative and current securities-fraud indictee decided to take a bite of the reddest of conservative red meat — the Pledge of Allegiance. Paxton is intervening in a lawsuit between a Houston-area high school student, India Landry,…
Last year, Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson promised that anyone caught with less than 4 ounces of marijuana would no longer be arrested on the spot, spend a night in jail and a pay an expensive bond to get out. But so far, not much has changed. In 2017,…
Over the last two decades, the Dallas Mavericks organization has suffered from a culture of sexual harassment, misconduct and intimidation, according to the results of an independent investigation into team culture released Wednesday. Team owner Mark Cuban will donate $10 million to women’s groups because of what the NBA calls…
While investigators are still collecting facts for the manslaughter case filed against Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger and the outcome is unknowable, one thing is almost certain: Someone will be called upon to pay for the death of Botham Jean, if not in criminal court, then in a civil case…
Sunday night’s protests before and during the Cowboys’ home opener in Arlington against the Giants and the demonstrations’ aftermath are like a Rorschach test for how one feels about the current state of policing in North Texas. If one is inclined to take the side of those protesting the recent…
Texas’ fetal burial law is out, pending appeal, but, oh boy, will there be appeals. U.S. District Judge David Ezra ruled Wednesday afternoon that the Texas Legislature’s requirement that all tissue resulting from an abortion, miscarriage, still birth or ectopic pregnancy be buried or cremated, rather than disposed of as…
Last Friday morning, volunteers arrived at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center, prepared to hand over cashier’s checks to post bail for 16 low-income prisoners. They have done this every Friday in August, lending a hand to inmates accused of minor offenses who can’t afford cash bail or bondsmen’s fees. This…
Former Balch Springs cop Roy Oliver’s murder trial began, finally, on Thursday. Oliver’s trial, the most anticipated of a Dallas County police officer in decades, will close the loop on more than a year of investigations, protests and delays. On April 29, 2017, Oliver shot and killed Jordan Edwards as…
After allegedly attacking his wife with a hammer after a night out, Dallas venture capitalist Stephen Hays might land him in prison for 20 years.
Texas voter turnout is abysmal at every level. It doesn’t matter if you’re voting in a school board election, for your next mayor, for your favored presidential nominee or for the president; you’re among the minority in the Lone Star State to show up and make your voice heard. The…
Some people in a Lake Highlands were dismayed earlier this summer when a Hustler sex shop raised its “COMING SOON” banner at a property near the LBJ service road and Abrams Road. A middle-class neighborhood in Dallas protesting an adult store isn’t exactly shocking. More surprising is that the Dallas…
Despite finding himself in the midst of an unprecedented run of good fortune, Ken Paxton, Texas’ still-indicted attorney general, insists on making trouble for himself. If there’s litigation to be filed or glommed onto related to conservatives’ pet causes, the attorney general will be there, leading the charge against a…
Justin Nelson hit three bars on a short pub crawl Thursday night. It wasn’t a big task. The attorney, University of Texas law school professor and Democratic candidate for Texas attorney general traversed less than half a mile visiting Shangri-la, Ah Sing Den and the Easy Tiger on East Sixth…
Texas reproductive rights groups and their legal allies made a major move earlier this month. In attempt to reclaim the abortion rights that Texas Legislature has slowly chipped away over the last decade, the groups sued the state. Two weeks after the lawsuit was filed on June 14, however, the…
Just like that, Texas years-long fight over its congressional and state legislative districts is over, thanks to a Monday morning decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. The GOP-led Texas Legislature, the court ruled, did not intentionally discriminate against minorities when it approved the state’s electoral map. By a 5-4 partisan…
