Author: Broden & Mickelsen, LLP
Texas Governor Spares The Life of Death Row Inmate Thomas Whitaker It’s extremely rare for the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend a lesser sentence for a death row inmate facing execution but it happened this month. Shortly afterwards, state Governor Greg Abbott accepted the state parole board’s unusual and unanimous recommendation to…
Texas has liberal gun laws but they don’t extend to school campuses. Three students were arrested for gun offenses in North Texas a day after a shooter killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in Florida. The Dallas Morning News reported three North Texas high school students — one each at…
The dozens of allegations of sexual assault against infamous Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men have raised many questions about how society approaches sexual assault and harassment in the workplace. One of the most common questions people have is whether a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) prohibits alleged sexual assault victims from speaking out publicly…
Human trafficking and sexual harassment are on the radar of Texas Governor Greg Abbott who published a new set of policy proposals this month. The Texas Governor proposed a wide-ranging blueprint that includes tackling the backlog of sexual assault kit testing in the state, sex trafficking and sexual harassment at the Texas statehouse. The news…
Threats to schools on social media are taken extremely seriously in Texas. At the end of last month, a 14-year-old was arrested in Pearland near Houston for an alleged Snapchat threat made against a school. Police officers visited a home in the area after a parent claimed her children received disturbing messages via the popular…
Small samples of DNA are often used to clear up cold cases. Police recently revealed a discarded cigarette butt helped them charge a Texas man over the murder of a 50-year-old woman on Mother’s Day 2016. Byron Lloyd Collins, 29, was recently picked up by authorities at the same complex in Baytown where Natalia Shal…
It’s unusual for a judge to seek to influence the verdict of a jury, but this appears to have happened in Texas, according to a recent report. A state district judge in Comal County is said to have told the jury God told him to intervene and the jury should return a not guilty verdict…
Texas executed more people than any other state in 2017, but the number of times inmates were put to death was again at a low in the Lone Star State. Seven men were executed in Texas in 2017. The figure was the same as 2016, a year with the lowest number of executions in two…
White collar crimes in Texas can involve large sums of money and lengthy prison sentences. Recently, two men from Texas were indicted in an alleged $1 million real estate investment scam. Earlier this month, they were indicted in an operation that involved expensive cars, private jets, and religious deception, reported AP. U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy…
Inflammatory statements on social media are part and parcel of political debate in 2017. However, in some circumstances, they can cross a grey area into potential criminality. In Texas, a Fort Worth businessman is accused of possible criminality over a Facebook page that took aim at a local police chief. The Texas Tribune reported how…