A capital felony is the most severe felony you can face in Texas. While carrying out death sentences has actually decreased in recent years, the federal government under the Trump administration, led by outgoing Attorney General William Barr, has accelerated…
Author: John Floyd
2020
The past four years, particularly the November 3rd presidential election and its ensuing debris, have made one fact clear and convincing: America is now two nations—Whites and Non-Whites, Red and Blue, Us and Them, and These People and Them People.…
2020
Category: Uncategorized
Indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton has long been a political embarrassment to the State of Texas. Paxton, a self-described Trump Republican, has served as Texas’ top law enforcement officer for the last five(5) years while on bond for Felony Securities…
2020
America’s incarceration systems, both jails, and prisons are in dire need of reform. This past year, we have addressed many wide-ranging need for reform throughout the nation’s criminal justice system from arrest through incarceration (here, here, and here). We would…
2020
Category: Criminal Law | Probation
Criminal justice in Texas includes community supervision—a form of criminal sentencing frequently employed when mitigating factors exist.
Community supervision is more commonly referred to as probation. The essence of this sort of sentencing is that an offender will serve…
2020
Most people associate sexual assault with rape. Under the Texas law, however, sexual assault covers both non-consensual sexual acts and consensual ones.
That means a person can be charged with sexual assault even if they have what they believe…
2020
Category: Capital Crimes | Corruption | Death Penalty
For nearly a hundred years, Mitchell Palmer was considered one of the worst U.S. Attorney Generals in American history. He was appointed and confirmed as A.G. in March 1919. The author of the nation’s first Red Scare, Palmer’s nearly two-year…
2020
Category: Criminal Justice Reform
The current American criminal justice system has four key components: arrest, prosecution, sentencing, and incarceration.
On September 15, 2020, the Brennan Center released a report (“BC Report”) titled, “Conviction, Imprisonment, and Lost Earnings: How Involvement With The Criminal Justice System…
2020
Category: Drug Crime | Drug Smuggling | Drug Trafficking
Law enforcement officers have broad discretion and legal responsibility to uphold the law. That doesn’t make them above the law, however.
Unfortunately, investigations like Operation Blue Shame reveal that some officers abuse their law enforcement discretion to a point…
2020
Category: Criminal Law | Due Process
Many rights are enshrined in the United States Constitution that Americans hold dear. One is the time-honored right to due process under the law..
Why this particular right?
Because it’s a right that can easily be taken by…