Texas Defender Service
@TexDefender
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We fight for the end of mass incarceration and excessive punishment in Texas through direct representation, policy reform, and public education.
Texas
Joined September 2011
For incarcerated individuals, communication with friends, family, and supporters is vital. Costs remain a barrier, and though they were set to be limited throughout the country this year, affordable communications are once again in peril.
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Louisiana is turning back the clock, and starting Aug. 1, a new law limiting post-conviction relief will take effect. One of the most disastrous effects of the new law will be to close the door on the ability of individuals to raise claims of innocence.
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In this post by @RDunhamDP, he highlights just how real the chances are that an innocent person gets executed. Indeed, it's happened before, and so long as we have the death penalty, it can happen again.
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Death penalty trials consume resources and time, and generally leave everyone worse off. For most cases, pleas can be a successful way of avoiding these concerns, and by taking death off the table, the future becomes less volatile and uncertain.
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Today, the Supreme Court sided with it's recent precedent in the case of Rodney Reed and determined Ruben Gutierrez could bring his suit challenging Texas's limiting post-conviction law.
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Zohran Mamdani has previously voiced his opposition to voter disenfranchisement. If Mr. Mamdani wins the NYC mayoral race later this year, he may lead the U.S.'s biggest city away from arbitrarily taking away the right to vote from a vulnerable political population.
Back in 2019, Zohran Mamdani responded to a post of mine on here about a bill filed in New York that’d have entirely repealed felony disenfranchisement (i.e. allowed people to vote from prison) by endorsing the idea: “the right to vote is inalienable.”
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The Supreme Court has continued its trend of denying petitions for stays of execution over no noted objections. Executions are permanent, yet without those stays, individuals are left with no recourse by the law. The Court should take up these cases.
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Robert Roberson's wrongful conviction and the government's continued attempts to execute him are indefensible. @DPInfoCtr lays out just how shocking the Texas AG's decision in Mr. Roberson's case really is.
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RT @innocence: Gretchen Sween, lawyer for #RobertRoberson, said "there is no justification for the Attorney General's relentless effort to….
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RT @TCADPdotORG: This is absolutely outrageous. We will continue fighting for justice for #RobertRoberson.
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RT @LauraBurstein1: BRKG ATTY STMT: Attorneys file an objection to TX AG’s request to schedule an execution date for #RobertRoberson, an in….
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Ken Paxton’s office requested a new execution date for Roberson ignoring the fact that an appeal on Roberson’s behalf is pending before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. As the @thedallasmorningnews article lays out, this is indefensible.
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Bail is an important part of our criminal legal system, and so long as it remains in place, protecting the right to a presumption of innocence must be a top priority.
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It’s always easy for prosecutors to argue that relief on an appeal based on procedural errors should be overturned, but it’s important to remember that those appeals wouldn’t have been necessary if the State hadn’t bent the rules in the first place.
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Being formerly incarcerated does not need to be end all be all. From incarceration to the Nevada state legislature, Jovan Jackson wants to help others like him have a second chance outside of jail or prison. We need more leaders like him.
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In troubling news, for the first time since he was elected in 2019, the district attorney of Dallas county will be seeking death in a capital case, that of Randy Halprint's retrial, after having declined to seek it in numerous cases before his.
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Prison oversight is essential to ensuring the health and safety of incarcerated individuals. Increased oversight, especially in places where abuse has been documented before, could help with both.
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Robert Prevost supported the end of the death penalty during Pope Francis's time as the head of the Catholic Church. As Pope Leo XIV, we hope he continues to advocate for the end of that punishment, especially in the country of his birth — the U.S.
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The courts are instrumental in providing necessary checks to convictions and sentencing practices. For many, they represent the last line of defense before losing their liberties.
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Today we lost a former governor of Illinois who, while a personal advocate of capital punishment, nonetheless defied political considerations and instituted a moratorium on executions because he recognized that they could not be fairly conducted.
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