Why Do People Keep Dying in Harris County Jail?
The Texas jail is bursting at the seams as officials push for more pretrial incarceration.
The Texas jail is bursting at the seams as officials push for more pretrial incarceration.
Prosecutors who have championed criminal justice reforms are still seeking death sentences, opposing appeals, and, in some cases, have even petitioned for execution dates.
With few exceptions, news outlets in Harris County, Texas, spotlight singular instances of crime to allege that legal reform policy is a threat to the public.
She withstood challenges from two of her former assistant district attorneys who wanted to reform the office and reduce prosecutions of low-level offenses.
The attitude behind the Harris County district attorney’s message to ‘put down your gun and pick up an employment application’ is outdated.
Jones is challenging incumbent Kim Ogg in the 2020 election.
A Texas judge approved a Batson motion, then overruled it. But a transcript shows that a Black man was struck unfairly, the attorney said.
The incumbent in the race, Jones’s former boss Kim Ogg, will not support a blanket refusal to prosecute sex workers, her office says.
Climate activists in Houston are charged under a new law aimed at criminalizing protest
Kim Ogg ran as a reform-minded district attorney candidate, but her office has sought two death warrants for Dexter Johnson, whose lawyer says cannot name everyday objects and has an IQ of 70.
In California, Texas and Florida, advocates sent letters to district attorneys, demanding that they refuse to work with officers with histories of misconduct.
Records show Kim Ogg’s office appeared to misrepresent felony prosecutor caseloads in its $21 million budget request.
In 2000, Lamar Burks was convicted of murder and given a 70-year sentence. But the federal indictment of a DEA agent and witnesses who say Burks is innocent have raised new questions about his case.
Audia Jones pledges to tackle ‘brokenness in the system’ by unseating Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.
‘How are we making sure that we’re not just building and building a system that we know is not necessarily effective?’
An email obtained by The Appeal shows Kim Ogg’s office is intentionally asking for unaffordable bail amounts to hold certain people in jail in Texas.