In The New York Times today is a piece about how Los Angeles’ attempt to crack down on gangs and gang-related crime just ain’t working. Turns out, that city’s myriad laws — among them, ones that “prohibit public gatherings of two or more people suspected of being gang members; establish…
This week, the so-called “Leprechaun Bandit,” 27-year-old Richard Earl Kemp of Fort Worth, pleaded guilty in federal court to two counts of bank robbery. He faces up to 40 years in prison, where he’s sure to get plenty of ridicule from bank robbers who thought ahead and ended up with…
Since we’re all degenerate hippies — well, most of us — we’re known to thumb the occasional copy of In These Times, where this week there appears a story headlined “The Counterproductive War on Gangs.” Turns out, most of the info from the piece — which insists increased law enforcement…
As of today, Greg Wallis is suing everyone he believes responsible for his wrongful imprisonment. For the second time in two weeks, a Dallas County man exonerated with DNA evidence has filed a federal civil rights and malicious prosecution lawsuit. And this one has a couple of twists. Greg Wallis,…
Even The Dallas Morning News yesterday called for the governor to stop Thursday’s scheduled execution of Kenneth Foster. The September issue of Texas Monthly features a long story by Michael Hall on Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who is “rethinking the concept of guilt and innocence.” (The story deals,…
After we posted Avi Adelman’s much-commented-on short film yesterday, we got an e-mail from Allen Gwinn, who wanted to know whether we’d seen the video he posted to Dallas.org on Saturday. Not at the time, but we have now: It’s a clip from some surveillance footage provided by a woman…
If I was taking a poll right now for most bizarre story in Dallas in 2007, I would have to go with the tale of two Muslim women who keep drawing attention to themselves by acting as if they have jihad on their minds. It started after midnight on Monday…
Sandra Bridewell’s never been convicted of murder. But now she’s got federal forgery charges pending, which makes her like, what, Al Capone? It’s been, what, six days since our last item on the Black Widow; we’re due an update, right? Especially when it turns out to be this interesting: Yesterday,…
Emily Dowdy and her father Charlie, at home in Hillsboro Exactly two years ago in the paper version of Unfair Park, we wrote about Hillsboro native Emily Dowdy, a former University of Oklahoma student who, in May 1999, was driving a car that rammed into one driven by Ryan Brewer,…
Hell of a morning to wake and find this in the paper. Only thing I took out of The Dallas Morning News’ pieces on how Dallas isn’t really No. 1 in crime is because we report too many of ’em, because, see, “the data can’t account for the willingness of…
Dallas jury consultant Robert Hirschhorn says things ain’t looking good for Phil Spector, seen here back when people were far less creeped out by the musical genius. Dallas jury consultant Robert Hirschhorn, who has been following the murder trial of music producer Phil Spector for the Los Angeles Times, says…
At this very moment, closing arguments are being made in the case of Harold D. Burns v. Grand Prairie Ford. They’re taking place in Judge Carl Ginsberg’s courtroom, the 193rd Civil District Court at the George Allen. And what’s the case about? Well, you really oughta read the complaint for…
It’s a nightmare that has provided rich fodder for a host of myths, stories and movies (think Shawshank Redemption) — rotting in prison for a crime you did not commit. Which is why, a couple years ago, when Dallas Blues Society Records’ Chuck Nevitt saw a lawyer he knew on…
If you can do this in family court, more or less, why not for those awaiting jury duty? Just got another summons for jury duty, this time for Dallas Municipal Court. Alas, often summoned, never chosen. Seems no one likes my answers on juror questionnaires. But after writing about Judge…
More than three decades ago, a then-21-year-old Ronald “Buffalo” Chambers was sentenced to die. Today, he got yet another reprieve — this time, from the Supreme Court. On April 10, 1975, Ronald “Buffalo” Chambers and another man kidnapped 22-year-old Texas Tech student Mike McMahan and 20-year-old Deia Sutton, drove them…
I love stories about stupid criminals — you know, the guy who gets stuck in a chimney while trying to steal Christmas presents and the thief who hands a stick-’em-up note to a bank teller written on a deposit slip for his own bank account. But I have noticed a…
Knock on wood, somebody, quick! It’s been three months since my car was broken into (for the second time) in my little corner of Junius Heights in East Dallas. I do miss my friendly stereo thieves, who brought excitement to otherwise lame Friday and Sunday nights last winter. And I…
James Curtis Giles At 11 this morning, a law student from Chicago named Lauren Kaeseberg will be standing alongside Barry Scheck — and other attorneys with The Innocence Project — in the court of Judge Robert Francis. They will be presenting new evidence in an exoneration hearing in the case…
Charles Anthony Nealy, who was executed on March 20 On March 2o, a man from Michigan came down to Texas to witness the execution of Charles Anthony Nealy, who was sentenced to death in 1998 for robbing and killing two convenience-store clerks in South Dallas in August 1997. That man…
Because the Friend of Unfair Park loves reading ACLU-generated reports so close to closing time, we thought we’d direct your attention to the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas’ just-released study about the prison population in Texas titled Texas: Tougher than Ever. Specifically, the report compares how Texas and New…
The Dallas County Commissioners Court has just agreed to settle the the James Mims lawsuit that sparked a series of investigations into the troubled Dallas County Jail. Voting unanimously, the commissioners agreed to pay the families of three county inmates $950,000, an extraordinary sum for this type of litigation. Typically,…
A hearty Monday-morning “mazel tov” to a couple of local(ish) legal blogs: Unfair Park faves Grits for Breakfast, Scott Henson’s statewide crime-and-punishment round-up, and Dallas public defender Mike Howard’s The Wretched of the Earth, which deals specifically with the Dallas criminal justice system’s treatment of the indigent. Both were honored…
