A group of undocumented immigrants is asking a federal judge to declare unconstitutional the use of GPS ankle monitors to track immigrants who pose no threat to society. The suit, filed by Arturo Rodriguez of the Isenberg Center for Immigration Equality, targets the ICE Dallas field office and BI Inc.,…
Officially, Andrew Luck won’t become a pro until Thursday, when he and his golden egg arm are snapped up by the Indianapolis Colts in the NFL Draft. But as a lawsuit filed Friday in Dallas County Court reminds, Luck has been a commodity for years. Courthouse News unearthed the lawsuit,…
In pancake-related news that’s already gone national, four Muslim men of Arab descent are suing IHOP, claiming they were all fired from their managerial positions at DFW-area locations because of their ethnicity and religion. In the suit, filed Tuesday in federal court, Hussein Chamseddine claims that despite receiving consistently positive…
As the always fashionable friends of Unfair Park are surely aware, Nordstrom stands firmly on a reputation as the fairy godmother of customer satisfaction. If you’ve had a dress for a while and it no longer fits, they’ll likely accept the return. If you used lipstick and decided you don’t…
The state Supreme Court is considering developing a uniform, simplified do-it-yourself form for uncontested divorce filings, an effort to increase access to the justice system for people who can’t afford a lawyer. Not surprisingly, some Texas lawyers feel the legal system is too complicated to be boiled down into checked…
The number of convicts being freed after serving prison time for crimes they didn’t commit keeps mounting in Dallas County, with Friday bringing a rare triple exoneration for three men wrongly accused of robbery. On November 17, 1994, five teenagers roamed the parking lot near the Eckerd drugstore at the…
Back in 2009, Michael Scott Page of Mesquite was awaiting trial on an aggravated assault charge. He was reportedly depressed, anxious and eager to get it all over with, but delay after delay pushed his trial back. He allegedly told a longtime friend of his that he felt like “blowing…
Richard Miles was finally, officially exonerated for the crime he didn’t commit. He wants those who put him in prison to pay.
Sure, it goes against everything we learned in elementary school — cut in line and suffer ridicule and a knuckle to the shoulder — but it turns out the city of Dallas has every right to allow compressed natural gas-powered taxis to queue-jump at Love Field to improve air quality,…
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a federal district court’s order forcing the American Cancer Society to return some $240,000 donated by Irving-based Giant Operating, an oil and gas company the Security and Exchange Commission says defrauded investors of more than $13 million. The ACS donations were…
Supporters of Ben Spencer gathered yesterday on the steps of the Frank Crowley Criminal Court Building, where he was convicted for a crime they believe he did not commit. Monday marked 25 years since his arrest for the murder of retail executive Jeffrey Young at a remote industrial complex. Spencer…
After Toni and Ed Allen lost their son, Brien, in May of last year, they decided to mourn him with something called the Bronze Memories Service Package from Restland Funeral Home on St. Paul Street. As funeral packages go, “Bronze Memories Service Package” sounds like the sort of thing that…
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…
