Defendants are regularly condemned to years, decades, or life in prison for minor infractions because of minimum sentencing statutes. If judges had more discretion in sentencing, then sentences could be more proportional to the crime, more specific to the individual defendant, and minimize the negative impact of minimum sentencing laws without inherently needing those laws repealed.
“For decades, Texans who can’t afford a lawyer have gotten caught in a criminal justice system that’s crippled by inadequate funding and overloaded attorneys. A growing body of caseload data — and a recent lawsuit — point to an even more fundamental hazard: the unchecked power of Texas judges.“
Texas Tribune
August 19, 2019
Read More“The judicial races likewise were a Democratic rout. The party won each of 23 seats on the district judge bench, all 13 on the family court, all four for county civil judge, all 15 county misdemeanor judges and all four county probate judges. The sweep of the misdemeanor bench, which was dominated by Republicans, could have huge ramifications for the future of the federal lawsuit, brought by poor defendants, challenging Harris County’s cash bail system. Each of the 16 jurists are defendants, including some who have pushed the county to continue fighting the case, though it already has cost taxpayers more than $6 million.“
Houston Chronicle
November 7, 2018
Read More“Both the 313th and 314th Juvenile District Courts — overseen by Devlin and Phillips, respectively — sent at least two times as many kids to TJJD last year as they did in 2014, while Scheider’s 315th District Court sent 1.4 times as many as before. Phillips, who had the highest incarceration numbers of the three, sent 88 kids to juvenile prison last year while Schneider, on the low end, sent 36.“
Houston Chronicle
October 20, 2018
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