Today is
Tuesday April 01, 2025
AUSTIN – Three weeks after U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turnerâs death and just over a month before the stateâs next uniform election, Gov. Greg Abbott has not yet called a special election to fill the seat representing parts of Houston, a Democratic stronghold, in Congress.
Turner, who previously served in the Texas House for nearly three decades before becoming mayor of Houston, died March 5, two months into his first term representing Texasâ 18th Congressional District. His funeral was held in Houston on March 15.
Turner was elected to Congress last year after his predecessor and political ally, former U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, died in office after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Abbott has the sole authority to call a special election to fill Turner’s seat for the rest of the two-year term. State law does not specify a deadline for the governor to order a special election. If called, the election must happen within two months of the announcement.
But the Republican governor has little incentive to send another Democrat to Congress.
Turnerâs death â in addition to the death this month of an Arizona Democrat, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva â comes at a critical moment for Republicans, who hold a razor-thin majority in the House and can afford few defections on any votes if all Democrats remain united in opposition.
Congressional District 18 is a solidly blue district encompassing downtown Houston and several of the cityâs historic neighborhoods, including Third Ward and parts of The Heights and Acres Homes.
With Turnerâs seat vacant, the House breaks down to 218 Republicans and 213 Democrats, allowing the GOP to lose two votes and still win a majority on the floor. The Republican margin would drop to one vote if the seat were filled, likely by another Democrat.
Democrats blasted Abbott for not calling a special election, arguing that he was depriving Texans of representation in Congress.
âAbbott is leaving 800,000 Texans voiceless at a pivotal moment in our nation’s history,â state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston and Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair, said in a statement. âThe people of Texas need the governor to start doing his job â honor the memory of Sylvester Turner and give the good people of District 18 their constitutional representation back.â
U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader, highlighted the delay on Tuesday. “Why hasnât the Texas Governor called a special election to fill this vacant seat?” he wrote on social media.
âAn announcement on a special election will be made at a later date,â Abbott Press Secretary Andrew Mahaleris said in a statement last week that did not address whether House Republicansâ margin was factoring into the governorâs decision.
The next scheduled election date in Texas is May 3. According to the state election code, Abbott would have to order the special election by March 28 for it to take place in May. But the practical deadline to call a May 3 election may have already passed, due to how much time the state needs to program voting machines and prepare and mail ballots.
The Texas Secretary of Stateâs office did not respond to a question about how much time the state generally requires to carry out an election.
Chad Dunn, a longtime Democratic Party lawyer, argued that there was plenty of time for the state to execute a special election on May 3 if Abbott ordered it.
While Texas law does not set a deadline for the governor to call a special election, Dunn added, âthe assumption of Texas laws is that the state doesnât want to be without representation in Congress.â
Historically, states were âeagerâ to ensure their entire delegation was present in Congress, Dunn said. Extreme partisanship in the broader political climate has changed that.
âRather than pursue the interests of their state,â he argued, âsome partisan governors are not moving expeditiously with replacement elections in these circumstances because they think that benefits their political party.â
In February 2021, after the death of U.S. Rep Ron Wright, R-Arlington, Abbott called a special election to fill Wrightâs seat on the third day after his burial, or just two weeks after his death.
Abbott called a special election to fill Jackson Leeâs seat just over a week after her funeral, and 17 days after her death.
In those cases, however, there were several months before the next uniform election date.
Abbott could also declare an âemergencyâ special election, which allows for an election to take place outside the May or November uniform election dates.
He called for an emergency election on June 30, 2018 to replace former U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, who resigned that April. Then, Abbott pointed to the recovery from Hurricane Harvey as justifying an emergency election.
Democrats in New York are also considering holding off on calling a special election as soon as U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican, leaves her seat to pursue her nomination to be US ambassador to the United Nations. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, ordered a special election to fill Grijalvaâs seat days after his death.
Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.
AUSTIN – Some Jewish Texans on Tuesday supported a measure to address a rise in antisemitism in schools, while others said it would not only stifle free speech but make them less safe.
They testified Tuesday evening on Senate Bill 326 in the Senateâs K-16 Education Committee.
The bill would require public school districts, open-enrollment charter schools and colleges and universities to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Allianceâs working definition and examples of antisemitism in student disciplinary proceedings.
The IHRA defines antisemitism as âa certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.â
A few examples the IHRA provides of antisemitism are âdenying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,â âapplying double standards by requiring of it (Israel) a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation,â and âholding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the state of Israel.â
Oli Hoffman, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, said the IHRA definition encourages âa dangerous conflation of the government of Israel and the Jewish people.â
âI am a proud Longhorn studying education,â Hoffman said, âand I can recall some respectful debates regarding Israel that I was a party to on campus that would be defined as antisemitic come Sept. 1 if this bill is passed.â
Students at UT Austin and universities throughout the country demonstrated support for Palestinians last spring, calling for their universities to divest from manufacturers supplying Israel with weapons in its strikes on Gaza.
UT officials called state police, who responded to the campus and arrested more than 100 people. While some have criticized the university for what they called a heavy-handed response, others have applauded it as necessary to combat protests they saw as antisemitic. Some point to the phrase some protesters chanted, âfrom the river to the sea,â as evidence of this.
âFrom the river to the seaâ refers to a stretch of land between the Jordan River on the eastern flank of Israel and the occupied West Bank to the Mediterranean Sea to the west.
Pro-Palestinian activists have said this is a call for peace and equality in the Middle East, but SB 326âs author, Phil King, R-Weatherford, said he thinks that phrase calls for the killing of Jews.
Sandra Parker, vice chair of the Texas Holocaust, Genocide, and Antisemitism Advisory Commission and Kingâs invited witness, agreed and added that it also calls for the eradication of the Jewish state.
She stressed that the bill would allow school leaders to decide on their own if a student has violated their code of conduct and provides them a tool to determine whether the violation was motivated by antisemitism.
That could help the school determine what discipline is warranted, she said.
âWhy is that necessary? Because you cannot defeat what you are unwilling to define,â Parker said. âWe know the conduct is happening, but why? The answer can only be one of two things. Antisemitism is being tolerated and ignored or people donât know what antisemitism is when they see it.â
Parker added that the bill could address incidents like one at a high school in San Antonio where she said a student who is not Jewish had an Israel flag stolen and destroyed by another student. The school then moved the student who owned the flag to another classroom rather than punish the students who destroyed the flag.
âThis behavior was aimed to silence both Jewish students and those who support them,â Parker said.
But other Jewish Texans disagreed with King and Parker that the phrase âfrom the river to the seaâ is antisemitic.
âWhatever the intentions of this bill, understand that it actually makes Jews in Texas less safe to formally associate us with a foreign government, evoking the longstanding antisemitic charge of dual loyalty thatâs been leveled against Jewish people in the U.S. and Europe for decades, setting us apart from our neighbors and painting us as outsiders,â said Jennifer Margulies, who attends Congregation Beth Israel in Austin, which a man set on fire in 2022.
âI know what antisemitism looks like,â she said. âIt looks like needing to reassure my child that it’s safe to attend Hebrew school when I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I drive by the burnt black sanctuary doors to drop her off, hoping that I am not lying.â
Since protests broke out last spring, lawmakers have heard about an uptick in antisemitic incidents in schools. They heard that again on Tuesday from Jackie Nirenberg, a regional director for the Anti-defamation League.
She said the ADF and Hillel International, a Jewish Campus organization, surveyed Jewish college students at 135 colleges and universities across the U.S. and found that 83% of them have experienced or witnessed antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
SB 326 was left pending in committee.
State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, has filed identical legislation in the House.
Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.
LONGVIEW – Making his mark one mile at a time, our news partner, KETK reports that Kyndal Ray Edwards is taking a journey across America and shining a light on a topic people have a hard time talking about.
A walking testimony, Edwards started his journey in prison, knowing that he wanted to change his life and walk for a cause bigger than himself.
âI want to shed some light on it and let people know that there is hope,â Edwards said.
In order to raise awareness for mental health Edwards will be walking across all four corners of the lower 48 states of America. Read the rest of this entry »
RUSK – Rusk Rural Water Supply issued a boil water notice for customers on 25 roads in Cherokee County on Tuesday.
This boil water notice was issued after a main line leak. Our news partner, KETK, has a complete list of all of the roads affected. Any customers on the roads affected should bring any water to a vigorous rolling boil for at least two minutes. To view the compiled list, click here.
If customers have any questions, contact Rusk Rural Water Supply at 903-683-6178 or visit 1055 N Dickinson Dr. in Rusk.
EL PASO (AP) – The gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history has been offered a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, a Texas prosecutor said Tuesday.
The announcement by El Paso County District Attorney James Montoya is a significant turn in the criminal case of Patrick Crusius, 26, who was already sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences after pleading guilty in 2023 to federal hate crime charges.
Under the Biden administration, federal prosecutors also took the death penalty off the table but did not explain why.
In addition to the federal case, Crusius was also charged in state court with capital murder.
Montoya said he supports the death penalty and believes Crusius deserves it. But he said he met with the families of the victims and there was an overriding desire to conclude the process, though some relatives were willing to wait as long as it took for a death sentence.
âThe vast majority of them want this case over and done with as quickly as possible,â he said.
Montoya also said pursuing the death penalty would mean a long and drawn-out legal battle with many hearings and appeals.
âI could see a worst-case scenario where this would not go to trial until 2028 if we continued to seek the death penalty,â he said.
Montoya, a Democrat, took office in January after defeating a Republican incumbent who was appointed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Montoyaâs predecessors supported sending Crusius to death row.
âIâve heard about it. I think the guy does deserve the death penalty, to be honest,â Abbott said Tuesday about the decision. âAny shooting like that is what capital punishment is for.â
Crusius, who is white, was 21 years old and had dropped out of community college when police say he drove more than 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) from his home near Dallas to target Hispanics in El Paso.
Moments after posting a racist screed online that warned of a Hispanic âinvasionâ of the state, he opened fire with an AK-style rifle inside and outside the store.
Before the shooting, Crusius appears to have been consumed by the immigration debate, posting online in support of building the border wall and other messages praising the hardline border policies of President Donald Trump, who was in his first term at the time. He went further in the rant he posted before the attack, saying Hispanics were going to take over the government and economy.
In the years since the shooting, Republicans have called migrants crossing the southern border an âinvasionâ and dismissed criticism that such rhetoric fuels anti-immigrant views and violence.
In the U.S. governmentâs case, Crusius received a life sentence for each of the 90 charges against him, half of which were classified as hate crimes. Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said after the sentencing that âno one in this country should have to live in fear of hate-fueled violence.â
One of his attorneys told the judge before the sentencing that his client had a âbroken brainâ and his thinking was âat odds with reality.â
Federal prosecutors did not formally explain their decision not to seek the death penalty, but they did acknowledge that Crusius suffered from schizoaffective disorder, which can be marked by hallucinations, delusions and mood swings.
The people who were killed ranged in age from a 15-year-old high school athlete to several grandparents. They included immigrants, a retired city bus driver, teachers, tradesmen including a former iron worker, and several Mexican nationals who had crossed the U.S. border on routine shopping trips.
In 2023, Crusius agreed to pay more than $5 million to his victims. Court records showed that his attorneys and the Justice Department reached an agreement over the restitution amount, which was then approved by a U.S. district judge. There was no indication that he had significant assets.
TYLER – Our news partner, KETK, reports that the Tyler Police Department is warning residents of scammers pretending to be local or federal law enforcement in order to ask victims for money. A victim of a scammer recently reported the incident to the Tyler PD stating that she received a call from somebody claiming to be a U.S. Marshal. The victim was instructed to pay money and received an additional call from someone claiming to be a member of the Tyler PD and told her she would be arrested if she did not pay the money.
The Tyler PD released a statement claiming that they would never ask anyone to pay them money over the phone. Read the rest of this entry »
SMITH COUNTY – Our news partner, KETK, reports that an elderly man has died after falling from a ladder while trimming trees Monday afternoon. According to the Smith County Sheriffâs Office, around 4:30 p.m., deputies responded to a home in the Chapel Hill area off of Highway 64, where they found 76-year-old Bobby Finley dead in his yard.
Officials said Finley was standing on a ladder while trimming a tree in his yard with a chainsaw when a limb he cut fell into the ladder, knocking him to the ground. The sheriffâs office believes Finley hit his head and back area when he fell to the ground, ultimately causing his death.
VAN ZANDT COUNTY – An Edgewood man was arrested after deputies reportedly found illegal narcotics inside his vehicle. According to the Van Zandt County Sheriffâs Office and our news partner KETK, on March 17, a Van Zandt County criminal interdiction deputy saw a vehicle committing multiple moving violations and initiated a traffic stop.
The deputy saw multiple indicators that the people in the vehicle were possibly concealing something illegal. A Wills Point PD K9 unit performed a search around the vehicle, and officers were alerted to the presence of illegal narcotics. During the search, officials said suspected meth was located on Timothy Dwayne Henson of Edgewood. Read the rest of this entry »
ODESSA â The fracking boom that resuscitated the Texas oil fields has also beaten up the infrastructure in the Permian Basin, the stateâs biggest oil and gas drilling region.
More heavy trucks drove through small towns, tearing up roads. Companies built temporary workforce housing, called man camps, which local officials said dramatically increased the population, requiring more public services like garbage pick-up, hospital beds and first responders.
Local leaders say the oil boom has caused strains that their city and county budgets canât keep up with.
Two West Texas lawmakers want to divert 10% of the roughly $8 billion that oil and gas companies pay the state in so-called severance taxes to benefit oil-producing counties. Legislation sponsored by State Reps. Tom Craddick of Midland and Brooks Landgraf of Odessa would redirect a portion of those taxes to 32 eligible counties to be used for infrastructure repairs, emergency services, health care, education and workforce development.
Regulators, industry and environmental policy experts agree that addressing the damage caused by decades of oil and gas production will require significant policy and funding changes.
A report by the House Appropriations Committee on House Bill 2154, which Craddick and Landgraf authored together in 2019 to address the same issues, said that failing to help communities in the oil patch repair their infrastructure could also impede the oil and gas industry.
âIn recent years, the regions of Texas responsible for the growth in the state’s oil and natural gas production have encountered significant challenges that have limited the potential growth of the energy sector and could pose a significant threat to the sustained future growth of oil and natural gas production in the state,â the report said.
Their 2019 bill died in the Senate. And in 2021 and 2023, they tried and failed again.
This time, they introduced two separate proposals. Craddick authored House Bill 265, which is basically identical to the 2019 bill. Landgraf introduced House Bill 188, which would also devote money to oil field cleanup and emissions reduction programs managed by the Texas Railroad Commission and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality â and give property tax relief to homeowners statewide.
Landgraf could not say whether the changes will be enough to finally win support in the upper chamber.
âIt’s a high barrier. I’ve known that since 2018 when I first started looking into this,â Landgraf said. âBut I do think that if it’s a policy that we can put in place, it would have great dividends for every corner of Texas, and that’s why I think it’s a fight that’s still worth fighting.â
The two bills would redirect some oil and gas tax money to certain oil and gas-producing counties, as well as coastal counties where a port authority transports oil and gas. Landgrafâs bill would set aside $500 million, while Craddickâs would collect up to $250 million for all eligible counties.
Under Landgrafâs bill, county governments, school districts, colleges and nonprofits in qualifying counties could apply for the money and spend it on things like road repairs, improving schools, workforce development initiatives and emergency services.
The remaining $300 million would go toward the Property Tax Relief Fund, an account managed by the state comptroller used to reduce maintenance repairs in school districts, which are funded by local property taxes.
If one or both of the bills can get through the Legislature and get Gov. Greg Abbottâs approval, they would still need to go before Texas voters this fall as a constitutional amendment.
Budget writers in both chambers typically donât like being told how to spend money through constitutional amendments, said Sherri Greenberg, a dean of state and local government engagement at the University of Texas at Austin.
The intense pace of oil production in the Permian Basin, which covers 75,000 square miles between Texas and New Mexico, has also inflicted environmental damage.
The Texas Railroad Commission, the state agency that regulates the stateâs oil and gas industry, has said it cannot afford to keep up with the increasing cost of plugging thousands of so-called orphan oil and gas wells, which have no clear owner or were drilled by now-bankrupt companies.
Recently, a number of these wells have unexpectedly erupted with toxic wastewater that apparently migrated from oilfield disposal wells.
Under Landgrafâs bill, 1% of the diverted money would go to the Railroad Commission to help plug orphan wells. An additional 1% would pay for emissions reduction efforts in trucking, farming and construction overseen by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Oil companies, trade groups and environmentalist policy experts have testified in favor of both bills.
Cyrus Reed, a legislative and conservation director for the Sierra Club, which advocates for policies that strengthen environmental protections nationally, said he supports Landgrafâs bill for its environmental propositions.
âWe’re going to support any solution that gets more revenue paid by the oil and gas industry to resolve (environmental) issues,â Reed said. âWe don’t want to rely on ⊠just general revenue from the people of Texas to pay for a problem that industry created.â
Landgraf hopes that expanding the legislation so it has an impact beyond energy-producing regions of Texas will help it gain more support in the Legislature.
âMy position is that what’s good for the Permian Basin is good for all of Texas,â he said âBut sometimes that takes a bit more of a holistic or longer view for people not from the Permian Basin to reach that conclusion.â
Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.
TYLER – Our news partner, KETK, reports that the fourth annual “Sources of Strength” Retreat is expected to host over 200 students from 11 different high schools from all over East Texas this week.
Next Step Community Solutions, a Texas-based nonprofit, will host this retreat on Wednesday at the W.T. Brookshire Conference Center in Tyler. Sources of Strength is a peer-led suicide prevention program. The evidence-based conference-style retreat will feature different groups and adult leaders that will rotate through sessions.
âEach year we are able to bring more students together and celebrate all that theyâve accomplished over the past school year while also teaching them new ways to grow,â Sources of Strength program manager Adriana Gonzalez said. Read the rest of this entry »
RUSK – The Good Samaritan Food Pantry and Thrift Store is used to giving to people but over the past few weeks the nonprofit said theyâve had several thefts from the donation center in Rusk. Our news partner, KETK, reports that the Rusk Police Department has posted several photos of nine different thieves, and seven of them have been identified with assistance from the public.
âThe donations are sold here in the thrift store, and then the proceeds are used to buy food for our food pantry and that feeds the community,â Good Samaritan Public Relations, Lana Z said. âSo, when those donations are being stolen, itâs taking the funds that we are able to buy food for.â Read the rest of this entry »
HENDERSON COUNTY â A $2 million bond has been set for an East Texas man arrested for allegedly killing his sister Monday in Henderson County. According to the Henderson County Sheriffâs Office, deputies responded to the shooting of 30-year-old Samantha Moore in the Bonita Point subdivision just outside of Gun Barrel City. Moore was transported to a local hospital where she later died from her injuries.
According to our news partner KETK, deputies learned Mooreâs brother, John Tyler Clague, 37 of Mabank, had shot her and fled the home. Investigators learned that Clague had been taken to a home in the Harbor Point subdivision. Read the rest of this entry »
EAGLE PASS â Fernando Padron was stuck in a South Texas jail cell. Accused of stealing credit cards that he used to buy diapers, a bike and other goods for his family, he had not been brought into court or spoken to a lawyer.
He did not hear anything about his case for nine months. Finally, in March 2023, prosecutors charged him with a misdemeanor, and he was released. But his ordeal had just begun.
Over the next two years, he would be arrested repeatedly in connection with the theft. He was pressured into a seemingly improper plea deal in one court, only to be charged again in another. At one point, he was in jail for six months before officials involved in his case realized he was there.
Padron, 27, is a U.S. citizen with no prior convictions, and his offense was minor enough that elsewhere in Texas, he might not have been jailed at all. But he was in the dysfunctional Maverick County court system, where basic tenets of American justice often do not apply.
Officials here openly acknowledge that poor defendants accused of minor crimes are rarely provided lawyers. And people regularly spend months behind bars without charges filed against them, much longer than state law allows. Last year alone, at least a dozen people were held too long uncharged after arrests for minor nonviolent crimes, interviews and records reviewed by The New York Times show.
Some defendants seem to have been forgotten in jail. Two men were released after The Times asked about them, half a year after their sentences had been completed.
âThe county is not at the level that it should have been for years,â conceded Maverick County Judge Ramsey English CantĂș, who oversees misdemeanor court. He said he had been trying to ârevampâ and ârebuildâ the local justice system since he was elected in 2022.
âItâs been a challenge for me,â he added. âBut at the end of the day it is unjust.â
Under the U.S. Constitution, people facing jail time are entitled to a lawyer â paid for by the government if they cannot afford their own â and a fair and efficient court process. But these protections are tenuous, especially in rural parts of America, studies have shown. In Texas, one of the states that spend the least on indigent defense, The Times found recent examples of people held beyond deadlines without charges or lawyers in six rural counties.
Maverick County stood out. It is in one of the stateâs poorest regions, and many defendants cannot afford a lawyer; some spend months in jail because they cannot pay a bail bondsman $500 or less. Yet over the past two decades, state auditors have repeatedly noted the county was failing to adequately provide indigent counsel. In 2023, when more than 240 misdemeanor defendants requested representation, the county judge appointed lawyers in only a handful of cases, records show. Nonetheless, the state has imposed no consequences.
With no one to guide them, defendants enter a disjointed justice system where it can be perplexingly difficult to figure out why someone is in jail, if there even is a reason. Misdemeanor court files are almost always missing key documents. Felony court files are often not available until more than a year after a defendantâs arrest. The jail sometimes reported having no record of people despite recently holding them for months.
Defense lawyers and constitutional law scholars, responding to The Timesâs reporting, called the countyâs practices âatrocious,â âKafkaesqueâ and ânot a criminal system at all.â
âThe lack of transparency and the lack of public defenders in this jurisdiction has allowed this completely inept system to persist,â said Rachel Kincaid, an associate law professor at Baylor University in Waco and former federal prosecutor. âThereâs no pressure on them to do anything differently.â
In jailhouse interviews, some defendants said they had no idea what was happening in their cases.
âThey havenât told me anything,â Juan Sanchez, 21, said in Spanish in May, shivering on a jail stool without a shirt or pants in a knee-length suicide prevention vest. He had pleaded guilty in November 2023 to trespassing at the local mall in exchange for his release, but was not let out until June, shortly after The Times asked officials why he was still there.
âThey really donât give you information here,â said David Burckhardt, 36, who had been jailed for five months without charges after being arrested in August 2023 on accusations of vandalizing his neighborâs car. âYou just got to do your time.â
But it is what happened to Padron that best illustrates the repercussions of the countyâs lapses. Told details of his case, four veteran Texas defense lawyers said that in other counties they most likely could have secured a sentence of 30 days or fewer, with some chance he would get no jail time.
Padron has now spent 20 months in jail, missing his sonâs first two birthdays. His case is still not resolved.
âI got out and I was doing things right,â he said at the jail after his third arrest stemming from the theft. âAnd then, all of a sudden, you have an arrest warrant. And I left my girlfriend and son by themselves.â
About half of Maverick Countyâs residents live in the city of Eagle Pass, which is on the Mexican border, about 150 miles southwest of San Antonio. Most residentsâ first language is Spanish, and people who live in the neighboring Mexican city, Piedras Negras, cross often to work, shop or visit relatives.
The county has a history of scandals, including a federal investigation into bribery and contract-rigging a decade ago that sent four of five commissioners to prison. A veteran police officer said locals jokingly call it âthe Free State of Maverickâ because officials tend to do what they want and deal with the ramifications later.
The region is also at the forefront of Americaâs crackdown on immigration. Since 2021, Texas police officers have arrested thousands of migrants in Maverick County for trespassing, in an effort to deter crossings and boost deportations. After legal challenges, the state created a special criminal system to expedite the process by quickly charging migrants and assigning them lawyers.
The justice system for local residents shows far less urgency. It took on about 350 cases last year, a vast majority of them misdemeanors or felony drug possession. The police and the Sheriffâs Department often take weeks or months to report an arrest to prosecutors. The prosecutors then take months to decide whether to go to court, for charges as simple as resisting arrest or trespassing. During this time, prosecutors are not told, and typically do not check, whether a defendant is in jail.
Neither law enforcement agency answered questions about the delays. Jaime Iracheta, the county attorney, said misdemeanors in Maverick County go through layers of vetting. Some other jurisdictions file such charges within days, if not hours.
Although those leading the justice system are all Democrats â a relic of the partyâs historical strength with Hispanic voters â they are divided into rival factions. Iracheta, whose office prosecutes misdemeanors, endorsed English CantĂș in his 2022 run for county judge. Sheriff Tom Schmerber, who has overseen the jail since 2013, is an ally of the judgeâs predecessor, David Saucedo.
When Judge English CantĂș ran against Saucedo, his second cousin, he called Saucedo a âbullyâ who gave his âcroniesâ big salaries ânot to do anything.â Saucedo called his opponent âself-servingâ and accused him of helping spread an âalmost comicalâ rumor that he was a murderer.
In interviews, officials did not dispute that the county had not released some people on time, but blamed one another for the failures.
âThe unfortunate inability of communication between the Sheriffâs Department and the prosecutorâs office, I think, is what has delayed this situation,â English CantĂș said.
He added that misdemeanor court, where he presides about once a month, was held less often under Saucedo. Saucedo said his own predecessors held misdemeanor court even less frequently.
Iracheta said the Sheriffâs Department was the problem. âWe have extreme issues over there, but I canât control who the people elect,â he said.
The sheriff did not respond to interview requests, but the jailâs case manager, Daniella Ramos, criticized the magistrates who set bail. She said she sends them weekly jail rosters so they can order defendants to be released, but they go âinto the abyss.â
Kina Mancha, the countyâs longest-tenured magistrate, countered that the jail had sometimes failed to follow orders to let people go. âTheyâre not doing their job,â she said.
Without public defenders, the county relies on local lawyers to represent poor defendants, paying a few hundred dollars per case. But in felony court, the few willing lawyers are often not appointed until defendants appear before a judge â typically months or years after their arrest.
In misdemeanor court, lawyers are rarely appointed at any time. Often, the only lawyer in the room is the prosecutor. CantĂșâs primary job is serving as the countyâs chief executive, akin to a mayor. Like most Texas county judges, he does not have a law degree.
Born in San Antonio, Padron has spent most of his life in Piedras Negras. He dropped out of school around age 12, when his mother was killed, and in recent years has regularly crossed the international bridge to look for day labor in Eagle Pass.
On the night of his arrest in June 2022, Padron needed diapers for his infant son, Fernandito, but had no money. He recalled telling his girlfriend: âIâm going to go to someone and see what I can do. Iâll take any job right now.â
He entered the United States and saw a house where he thought he might offer to clean the yard or wash the truck. But it was dark outside, he said. When he noticed the truck door was unlocked, he snatched the wallet inside.
Later, he would describe the decision as rash, adding that he wished he could apologize and work to repay what he took. âI got carried away,â he said in Spanish.
After buying diapers at a grocery store, Padron went to a Walmart and bought a bike, a hair straightener and a âFrozenâ coloring book before the accounts were frozen. He was heading back toward the border at around 10 p.m. when the police, responding to a call from the credit cardsâ owner, found him and chased him down. The police reported recovering goods worth a little more than $300.
They arrested him on several potential charges: the misdemeanors of fleeing the police and stealing the wallet, and multiple counts of using stolen credit cards, a low-level felony. A magistrate met with Padron, noted on a form that he wanted a court-appointed lawyer and set his bail at roughly $40,000. He probably could have paid $4,000 or less to a bail bondsman and been released, but Padron did not have that. He was sent to the county jail.
Texas law lays out what should have happened next. His form requesting a lawyer should have reached English CantĂș within 24 hours and been ruled on within days. Prosecutors had 30 days to officially charge him with any misdemeanors and 90 days for felonies; after both deadlines, he should have been released.
None of that was done.
English CantĂș said in an interview that he does not get the attorney request forms. This surprised several county magistrates, who said jail staff had promised a year ago to begin consistently forwarding them to the court.
âWas that being done? I donât know,â said Jeannie Smith, a magistrate of nearly 15 years. âIs it being done now? I donât know.â
Without a lawyer to follow up on his case, Padron stayed in jail for nine and a half months.
Misdemeanor prosecutors finally charged him in March 2023 with one crime, evading arrest. He was released and a month later reported to court, where he was offered a plea deal: a year of probation, along with a $600 fine, $270 in court costs and a monthly $40 fee.
Padron hesitated. He knew he could not pay, he said later, and he had already been jailed so long. Shouldnât he get credit for that? he recalled asking the prosecutor.
The prosecutor most likely should not have offered Padron a deal at all. State law bars Texas prosecutors from speaking in court to a defendant who has asked for a lawyer before a judge rules on the request. (Although prosecutors said they only talk to defendants who have waived their right to counsel, the law specifies those waivers are invalid if a request for a lawyer is outstanding.)
A defense lawyer could have pushed for Padron to get time served, a sentence equal to the months he had spent in jail, ending his case without probation. Or asked the court to waive fines and fees, given his inability to pay them. But Padron did not have a lawyer, and the prosecutor warned him the next offer could be worse. He took the deal.
Six months later, in November 2023, Padron was arrested for violating his probation as he crossed into Eagle Pass for work. He had not attended his monthly check-ins or paid his dues.
This time, he was in jail for six and a half months, apparently by mistake, before anything happened in his case.
âI found out he was in custody because he called me from the jail,â the probation officer told English CantĂș in a May 2024 hearing.
The judge called the delay âunacceptable.â âWe need to move these individuals as quickly as possible, especially if they are inmates,â he added.
Padron stood expressionless. The 10-minute back-and-forth was in English, which he does not understand.
In Texas, misdemeanors like Padronâs evading arrest charge have a maximum sentence of one year, and judges are required to credit defendants for time already served. Padron had been incarcerated for a total of 16 months. Still, the prosecutor asked for another 44 days in jail.
English CantĂș switched to Spanish to ask Padron why he violated probation, and he responded that with a baby and little work, he could not afford the fees and was afraid to check in without them. The judge paused, and then sentenced him to 34 additional days. (The judge declined to comment on individual cases.)
âThe good news is itâs almost over,â Padron said at the jail a couple of weeks later, desperate to reunite with his family. In July, he was released for what he thought would be the final time.
A month later, he was again stopped at the border and sent back to jail. More than two years after his initial arrest, he was now being charged in felony court for using the credit cards.
By then, the victim of Padronâs crime had moved on.
Yaqueline Salinas had been furious in 2022 when she got an alert that her credit cards were being used at the nearby Walmart. She drove around until she saw Padron, whom she recognized from her neighborâs security cameras, and flagged down the police.
But it took felony investigators a year to ask for her credit card statements, she said. The bank had refunded her money, so she never responded. âI felt bad, honestly,â Salinas later said in an interview in Spanish, remembering the Pampers that fell off the bike Padron was riding. âHeâs already missed so much time with the baby.â
She assumed his case had been resolved long ago. âHe went back to jail?â she asked a Times reporter. âOh my god.â
Even without her records, felony prosecutors carried on. But it would be another year before Padron was indicted.
Last year, felony indictments in the county were brought, on average, nearly 14 months after a crime, more than twice the time it took for misdemeanor charges, a Times analysis shows. Felony prosecutors work for the district attorney and rarely coordinate with the county attorneyâs misdemeanor prosecutors, they said.
As a result, defendants like Padron sometimes plead guilty to a misdemeanor, thinking they will be freed, only to be rearrested â or never let go â because the police had also listed a potential charge for felony prosecutors to consider.
That is why Sanchez, the man held for trespassing at the local mall, was not released until seven months after his guilty plea: The jail was still holding him on an outstanding burglary allegation that prosecutors later said they were not pursuing.
Another man, 22, was arrested last April, accused of smashing his fatherâs car windows and running from the police. In September, he pleaded guilty to evading arrest, a misdemeanor, for time served. But the jail continued to hold him, waiting for the district attorney to charge him with vandalism. In February, when The Times asked the district attorney why the man was still there, he said his office had no record of the case. The man was released that day.
In interviews, English CantĂș and Iracheta, the county attorney, were quick to point to improvements they had made.
Iracheta said he had sped up misdemeanor prosecutions in recent years by requiring the police to send him cases within 30 days. Still, in 2024, his office took half a year on average to file charges.
âFiling within six months is reasonable,â he said, noting that the statute of limitations for misdemeanors is two years. âWe are actively working to improve efficiency,â he added.
Last fall, English CantĂș accepted a state grant to hire a coordinator to help appoint lawyers; the coordinator started this month.
From July to December, the judge also assigned lawyers in 31 cases, according to audit reports, compared with none in the first half of the year. He denied one request. Still, almost all those appointments came after defendants appeared in court; scores of additional requests logged by magistrates earlier in the process had gotten no response, state reports through December show.
In felony court, Padronâs case continued. He was finally given a lawyer, Luis De Los Santos, in August 2024.
De Los Santos was initially appointed to handle Padronâs felony charges about five months after his first arrest, according to a court administrator. But Padron said he never heard from the lawyer, and nothing was ever recorded in his court file. Twenty-one months later, afterPadron was indicted, De Los Santos was assigned to the case again. (He did not respond to questions about his first appointment.)
In October, after Padronâs first felony court appearance, De Los Santos seemed unsurprised that his client had been in jail so long. Moments later, the judge, Maribel Flores, said that she does not usually know how long a defendant has been held until late in a case. But asked by a reporter about Padronâs time in jail, she said that in such situations, âusually weâll just do time served.â
In November, the prosecution agreed for Padron to be released on bail without cost. But the charge hung over him.
âI really donât want to get probation, because for any little thing theyâre going to lock me up,â he said the next morning. âIâm going on two and a half years for the same thing.â
He reported to court again in December, when the prosecution offered Padron a plea deal: not time served, but five years of probation, which typically involves nearly $4,000 in fees.
De Los Santos told Flores that he considered the offer âfairly reasonable.â But Padron was hesitant, and the lawyer asked for more time to explain the deal to him. Flores put the case off again until January.
Padron missed that hearing. The next day, outside his home, he said he had overslept and found his bike missing when he awoke, leaving him no way to get to court on time. His son was about to turn 3, and Padron was despondent at the idea of being sent to jail again.
Across the border, a new warrant was written up for his arrest.
Article originally posted by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.
AUSTIN (AP) â Austin police say they’re investigating several incendiary devices found at a Tesla dealership Monday on the city’s north side, the latest in a series of events targeting the company owned by billionaire Elon Musk.
Austin police responding to a report of hazardous materials found the devices and called in the city’s bomb squad, which took them into police custody without incident, the department said in an email to The Associated Press. There were no reports of injuries or damage.
âThis is an open and ongoing investigation, and there is no further information available for release at this time,â the department said.
Attacks on property carrying the logo of Elon Musk’s electric-car company are cropping up across the U.S. and overseas, along with protests nationwide in response to the billionaire’s work with the Trump administration cutting federal funding and the workforce.
On Saturday, a man drove his car into protesters outside a Tesla dealership in Palm Beach County, Florida. No one was injured, and the man was arrested on an assault complaint. In California, police said a counter-protestor was arrested Saturday after activating a stun gun during an anti-Musk demonstration outside a Tesla dealership near downtown Berkeley. Nobody was hurt. The 33-year-old man was awaiting charges Monday.
Several more cases of violence targeting Tesla include Cybertrucks being set on fire in Seattle and shots fired at a dealership in Oregon. Tesla showrooms, vehicle lots, charging stations and privately owned cars also have been targeted.
NACOGDOCHES – Our news partner, KETK, reports that the University of Texas System Police Department at Stephen F. Austin State University has received a $150,000 grant to fund equipment and training.
The Nacogdoches Law Enforcement Foundation, a nonprofit that assists agencies serving in Nacogdoches, awarded the grant. The $150,000 grant will cover at least 30 duty tourniquets with carriers, along with two automated external defibrillators for new patrol vehicles.
Korey Kahle, a lecturer of computer science at SFA, has been the head of the foundation since it began in March 2022. Recently, the foundation also helped Cason Snider, who was injured in a Nacogdoches County two-vehicle crash in 2017.