Is Texas still racist enough to warrant hand-holding by the federal government? That’s the essence of where the voter ID debate stands now and where it’s headed. Though it may seem like a straightforward question, and one that many politicos have reduced to a “yes” or “no” sound bite, the…
We realize you’re probably too busy side-stepping puddles of green puke to give much of a shit about what’s going on in Austin. Nonetheless, we feel obliged to note that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a lawsuit late yesterday against the federal government over its decision to withdraw federal…
As long as we’re on the general theme of “unpleasant events that are somehow related to the Medicaid Women’s Health Program,” let’s throw this one in there too: Abby Johnson, who was until a couple of years ago the director of a clinic that was part of Planned Parenthood of…
Kerry Max Cook, a former Texas death row inmate who was released in 1999, resumed his quest to be declared innocent when he filed motions in Smith County District Court at the end of February. Tuesday, the criminal justice blog Grits for Breakfast published a letter by Cook in which…
Who’s judging the guys who judge the judges? Well, nobody, really. That’s because the legislative agency charged with evaluating other state agencies’ functionality and raison d’être, the Sunset Advisory Commission, got shut out of their meetings and denied access to confidential documents. Now, it’s easy to understand the juggling act…
The city stopped dancing around how to handle Municipal Judge Phyllis Lister Brown’s employment and sent her a clear message on Friday: It’s over. The city stopped paying her and denied her access to her computer and her office, effectively ending her employment because she filed her candidacy for the…
Not sure if it’s Ask the Lawyer with Tom Corea or Ask a Lawyer with Tom Corea — the lawsuit has it one way, virtual listings the other. But one thing’s certain: The call-infomercial, featuring the downtown attorney and former local-TV-newser Brenda Teele-Jackson, is at the center of a suit…
Tiffiney Barfield-Cottledge, formerly a criminal justice professor at UNT Dallas, filed a handwritten, pro se civil rights suit against the University of North Texas in 2010 for discrimination and retaliation after she didn’t get picked for a few faculty positions, allegedly because she’s black. Chief Judge Sidney Fitzwater gave the…
Noticed on PACER this morning something that’s gone unnoticed since its filing at the end of last week: That heated lawsuit pitting Dallas County constables against the Dallas County Commissioners Court — the one involving allegations of retaliation and corruption, the one that dragged everyone in and out of federal…
Calvin Beckton, a former band teacher at Boude Storey Middle School, is serving a 10-year stint in the TDCJ’s Fort Stockton Unit for the 2008 sexual assault of a 14-year-old female student to whom he’d often given rides home in the past. He was sentenced in September, after prosecutors proved…
Speaking of the assassination of John F. Kennedy …For a long while now we’ve written about the ongoing fight between the city of Dallas and Jane Bryant, owner of the decaying apartment complex on 600 Elsbeth near Bishop Arts where, in 1962, Lee Harvey Oswald and wife Marina briefly lived…
Love Field-based Southwest makes it easy to check in early: Pay the carrier an extra $20 for a round-trip flight, and as soon as the early-bird check-in line opens, some 36 hours before take-off, you’ll get a boarding pass in the much-coveted Group A. Which isn’t guaranteed, mind you, but…
Peter Burks, as you can see here, was the very model of The American Hero: a Trinity Christian Academy and Texas A&M graduate (he was also president of Pi Kappa Phi) who, after stints working for, among others, the Dallas Desperados and FC Dallas, decided to join the U.S. Army…
Decades after my sports card-collecting prime I’ve become familiar once more with the doings of that particular industry, thanks to my 8-year-old son’s obsession with cards — baseball, mostly, and Houston-made Obaks when he’s feeling particularly old-school, though any Topps’ll do. But he’s got a couple of binders filled with…
The ever-expanding and always sharply dressed brotherhood of Dallas County exonerees once again lined the courtroom at the Frank Crowley Courts Building for an exoneration hearing this morning, this time in support of Richard Miles, who they already know quite well. After 14 years behind bars for a murder and…
North Central Expressway-based Hotels.com promises, right here, that if you book a room through its website and then find “a lower publicly available rate online for the same dates, hotel, and room category,” then, heck, they’ll happily “match the price and refund you the difference.” Not only that, but Hotels.com…
Danny Cantu, a diesel mechanic, sued the city of Dallas and a small army of Dallas Police officers back in January, claiming he was making a sandwich in the kitchen when they tossed a flash-bang grenade through his window. As the deafening explosion rang in the kitchen, he alleged that…
Mark Samuels, a captain in the Navy, and Jennifer, his wife, never imagined their first time in court would be fighting for healthcare benefits for their daughter Kaitlyn. The 15-year-old was born with an uncommon brain condition similar to cerebral palsy. She cannot communicate verbally and functions at the level…
Digging through the federal filings this morning I came across this item of some intrigue: TriStar Investors, Inc., v American Tower Corporation, filed yesterday at the Earle Cabell and a surprisingly insightful and riveting read. Neither company’s actually based in Dallas, but their dispute is: TriStar’s claiming that American Tower,…
Lubbock personal injury attorney Kevin Glasheen, who represented a number of Dallas exonerees and successfully lobbied the state legislature to more than triple the amount paid for each year spent wrongfully imprisoned, was found innocent Thursday of professional misconduct charges brought by the State Bar of Texas. Three of his…
Free for two years, Richard Miles has nevertheless waited and waited for today — the official acknowledgement that he did not commit the murder and attempted murder at a Texaco near Bachman Lake in 1994 for which he was sent to prison. The detailed 52-page opinion handed down from the Texas…
Spent the better part of the morning virtually touring Historic Auto Attractions in Roscoe, Illinois, where, per Roadside America’s rave, “the fireplace mantle on which President Truman signed the order to bomb Hiroshima is only a few feet from a pickup truck used on Sanford and Son” and “Colonel Klink’s…
