Somebody warn the good people of Galveston County because “Tropical Storm TDCAA” is blowing into town soon!
Annual Conference bonus course
Are you one of the 1,000+ people descending upon lovely Galveston for our 2024 Annual Conference in three weeks? If so, don’t miss TDCAA’s pre-conference training on Understanding & Effectively Using DNA Evidence. This free training will be held the afternoon of Tuesday, September 17th at the Moody Gardens Conference Center in Galveston, but it requires separate registration (available here) from the Annual. Check out that link and sign up today if you can make it!
“There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.”
Channeling Billy Crystal’s “Miracle Max” in the Princess Bride is apparently the approach law enforcement advocates intend to take at the Legislature next session as they seek legislative permission to use all less-lethal devices and munitions, regardless of context or result.
As pitched to the House Committee on Homeland Security & Public Safety earlier this month, the as-yet-unwritten legislation would remove those devices from the statutory definition of what constitutes a firearm in an attempt to limit criminal liability for their (mis-)use on the job. (Perhaps related to the reference to firearms in the Deadly Conduct crime? That was not made entirely clear.) And like many ideas at the Lege, there may be a good reason for doing this—but it’s not necessarily the real reason for doing it.
The “good reason” for a legislative fix centers on Axon’s new TASER 10 (“T-10”), which apparently uses technology to increase its reach that may also bring it under the state definition of a firearm in PC §46.01(3). We are not aware of any prosecutors who have expressed an eagerness to treat them as such, but Axon must think a change is needed because that vendor had a representative at the hearing to say as much. And, to the extent a tweak to that definition would encourage the use of that less-lethal device in lieu of traditional firearms, that might be good public policy.
That said, a good deal of the testimony at the hearing was related to complaints about the Dallas and Travis County DAs charging officers during the George Floyd-related protests for using non-Taser less-lethal devices that resulted in serious injuries to some protestors. (Interestingly, one former Dallas PD officer pled guilty and was sentenced for that misconduct earlier this month and the City of Austin just settled a multi-million dollar lawsuit over similar conduct this week.) In that context, early indications are that the preferred law enforcement solution for fixing the “T-10 problem” is to re-define firearms to exclude all less-lethal devices used by peace officers, regardless of what type of projectile is sent downrange.
It seems to us that there could be a simple and easy way to address T-10 re-classification without giving officers carte blanche to (mis-)use all “mostly deadly weapons” (as Miracle Max might call them), but those finer aspects of the potential solution were not discussed because the hearing was limited to only a few invited witnesses. Legislation on this topic will be filed during the regular session starting in January, so if this topic interests or concerns you, start thinking now of what you can and cannot live with because you are likely to be asked come session time.
Interim committee hearings
Here are some relevant interim charges cued up for consideration in September:
Thursday, September 5
Senate Finance, 9:00 a.m., Room E1.036
- Mental health services and inpatient facilities
Tuesday, September 17
House Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence, 9:00 a.m., E2.014
- HB 19 oversight (Texas Business Court)
- HB 841 oversight (judicial statistics and data collected by OCA)
- HB 2384 oversight (court administration and judicial qualifications)
Wednesday, September 18
Senate Transportation, 9:00 a.m., E1.016
- Autonomous vehicle safety
House Select Committee on Youth Health & Safety, 10:00 a.m., E2.014
- HB 3 oversight (public school safety and security)
Thursday, September 19
Senate Border Security, 10:00 a.m., E1.016
- Transnational criminal activity, including organized crime fuel theft
Monday, September 30
House State Affairs, 9:00 a.m., E2.016
- Border security
Many of these postings include more topics that we have listed above, so for more complete information about a specific hearing, click on the link to the committee. For additional questions, contact Shannon.
Now showing: Introduction to Juvenile Law
TDCAA is proud to invite you to our first online juvenile law course! This training covers the fundamentals of juvenile law ranging from terminology to juvenile trials and records confidentiality. Our team of juvenile law experts from across the state give insights for prosecutors practicing in both rural and urban jurisdictions. The course will help prosecutors new to juvenile law as well as veteran prosecutors who would like to learn more about this often overlooked but crucial area of our justice system. Viewers who complete the online course will receive 4 hours of CLE.
Click here to register for this free course.
Ethics rule changes
The Texas Supreme Court has officially adopted most of the changes to the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct and the Texas Rules of Disciplinary Procedure, as previously approved during the State Bar’s Rule Vote in April. As part of TDCAA’s efforts to keep you up to date, we will be releasing an updated version of our Grievances & Prosecutorial Ethics online course that will include a presentation on these new rules and how they may affect prosecutors. That updated course will include 2.75 hours of MCLE Ethics as a paid-member benefit of TDCAA and will be available in early September, well before the new rules officially take effect on October 1, 2024.
If you would like to read the Supreme Court’s announcement on the new rules, please click here.
Key Personnel–Victim Services Board elections
Elections for the 2025 TDCAA Key Personnel–Victim Services Board (Regions 1, 2, 3, and 7) will be held on Thursday, November 14, at our Key Personnel & Victim Assistance Coordinator (KP–VAC) Conference in Sugar Land. This board is important because it helps prepare and develop operational procedures, standards, training, and educational programs for the people that make your office run like a well-oiled machine. To be eligible to serve on this board, each candidate must have the permission of his or her elected prosecutor, attend the election in person, and have paid membership dues prior to the meeting. If you know of people in your office who would be a good fit for this board, please consider sharing this information with them and encouraging them to attend. And if you have any questions, you may direct them to [email protected].
The Round-Up rides on
We have been cranking out weekly “Round-Up” emails all summer with links to interesting news stories on topics that may impact your work. If you aren’t already one of the 600+ subscribers benefitting from those emails, sign up here to start receiving those weekly updates in your inbox every Thursday morning.
Quotes of the Month
“It scares the public that a murder case got dismissed. [But this] was never a murder case. This was always a justified homicide. In fact, we have the investigating officer at the scene saying six or seven times, “Yeah guys, this is a justified homicide here.’”
—Bryan Cantrell, defense attorney for a Houston man recently released from the McLennan County Jail after prosecutors there determined a fatal shooting was justified under state self-defense laws.
“The problem is not [a lack of TJJD staff]. The problem is the model. The problem is putting kids in prisons. It’s never going to work. It’s kind of a deep moral intuition, I think, that we all have—that children don’t belong in prisons.”
—State Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin), during an interim committee hearing on oversight of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department.
“It won’t be long before we will yearn for the days of our homegrown West Texas lunatic billionaires around here.”
—Anonymous Texas GOP operative, quoted by the Quorum Report in reference to Pennsylvania TikTok investor Jeff Yass donating roughly $18 million to pro-school voucher candidates and causes in Texas during the current election cycle.
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