Tarrant DA Annual Report: Who’s Responsible for COVID Case Backlog?
March 16, 2021
Recently, Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Sharen Wilson released her 2020 annual report. Not surprisingly, it talks a lot about how the last year has been impacted by COVID, and how cases started piling up after The Texas Supreme Court shut down jury trials.
The report provides some jaw-dropping numbers. The number of untried cases nearly doubled in one year. In January 2020, there were 29,253 pending cases. By December, the caseload had soared to 43,759.
In her report, she states, “Many criminal cases cannot be disposed of with plea offers and must go to trial.” What does this mean? Let’s break it down.
While every person accused of a crime has the right to a jury trial, very few actually exercise that right. If they did, the entire criminal justice system would come to a screeching halt: jury trials take time, money, space, jurors and a lot of personnel — things every county has limited resources of.
In 2019, less than 1 percent of all pending cases were resolved by way of a jury trial. Most resolutions come by way of plea bargaining. A plea bargain is a state offered resolution that is generally meant to entice the defendant to plea, providing the defendant a better outcome than they would hope to obtain if convicted at trial. In return, the State moves cases, saves money, and secures specific outcomes. Other types of resolutions involved state-issued dismissals, state-run diversion programs, or grand jury returning no bills.
A common misconception is that judges are responsible for reducing backlog. While a defendant displeased with their state offers can generally circumvent the plea bargaining process and enter an “open plea” to a judge for punishment, they can only do so with the State’s permission. Even then, the Judge does not have the power to reduce the charge, dismiss companion cases or offer other often desired results, making this path to resolution generally less desirable.
COVID shut down a lot of things, but the plea process wasn’t one of them. The criminal courts have accepted pleas throughout the pandemic, virtually and in person.
So, how does the DA explain an increase of almost 14,000 pending cases during a time when there were fewer felony case filings and more criminal prosecutors employed than years past? Well, it sounds like some cases just have to be tried. What does that look like?
In 2019 – before the pandemic – there were 153 felony juries seated in Tarrant County and 220 misdemeanor juries. With all 20 Tarrant County courts running at full steam, only 373 cases were resolved with jury trials. Even if all our system’s resources are committed exclusively to executing jury trials once the system opens back up, we are looking at decades to resolve that kind of backlog.
Meanwhile, the jail continues to be overwhelmed. Even after opening a new facility early last year, the Belknap Unit, Tarrant County is over 80 percent occupancy, according to the Texas Commission on Jail standards. Aside from the fact that it costs taxpayers approximately $82 a day to house an inmate, where we will put additional inmates as cases keep pouring in and those sitting remain unresolved?
The reality is that the District Attorney’s Office has almost complete control over the backlog. They alone have the ability to dispose of cases efficiently through reasonable plea bargain offers.
It will take effort on everyone’s part to reduce the backlog of cases in Tarrant County. Forcing citizens by way of jury summons to resolve cases themselves, isn’t ideal. Trying cases simply isn’t the answer. Doing whatever it takes to resolve them through an agreement is.
It’s time for the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office to come to the bargaining table. Let’s take a seat, discuss, and work through this together.
Hate Crime? Plano Boy Bullied at Sleepover
March 15, 2021
The family of a Plano middle school student says he was the victim of a hate crime, and police have contacted the FBI.
Summer Smith says her 13-year-old son, who is black, was called racists slurs, shot with BB guns, slapped him in his sleep, and made to drink his white classmates’ urine at a recent sleepover.
The alleged bullying was captured on video which has since gone viral.
The boy’s mother said that her son was bullied at the hands of former football teammates. She said her son quit the football team earlier in the year due to bullying. She claims that his invitation to the sleepover was a set-up, a “premeditated attack” for their “entertainment.”
So far, no one has been arrested or charged in connection with the incident. If anyone gets arrested and they are under the age of 17, they would be handled through the juvenile system.
Under state law, there is not a specific crime that is a hate crime, but if a crime is motivated because of race, sexual orientation or gender, the punishment for that crime can be enhanced.
The FBI also aggressively investigates and prosecutes hate crimes, which is likely why they were contacted by Plano police.
The family reported the bullying incidents at the sleepover to Plano ISD on March 2. A couple of days later, a group of mothers and Plano residents protested in front of Haggard Middle school to demand school officials take actions.
Since then, the story has garnered national attention momentum. A GoFundMe page has been set up for the teen. The family has hired an attorney who has stated that the bullying rises to felony assault and is a hate crime.
Press conferences have been held with the police chief, school superintendent and the mayor. Hundreds of people have protested outside Plano police headquarters.
We will continue to keep you posted as this story continues to unfold.
In other news:
On Friday, the Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved a $27 million civil settlement with the family of George Floyd.
It’s the largest settlement of its kind.
Last May, the 46-year-old black man died after former police officer Derek Chauvin pinned him to the ground for nine minutes. Floyd’s family sued, arguing that police violated his rights and failed to properly train its officers.
The timing of the approval of the settlement is interesting. Jury selection is underway in Chauvin’s trial. The news of this settlement could lead to Chauvin’s legal team to call for a mistrial. Or make it harder to seat an impartial jury.
Tarrant County Jailers Accused of Lying on Dead Inmate’s Log
March 11, 2021
Two Tarrant County jailers have been indicted after authorities said they lied at least 20 times about checking on an inmate before he was found dead in June.
Jailers Erik Gay and Darien Kirk are now facing the charge of tampering with a governmental record, a state jail felony punishable by six months to two years in the state jail and up to a $10,000 fine.
The Star-Telegram has been following issues in the Tarrant County Jail extensively over the past year. The paper reported that Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn requested that Gay and Kirk be investigated after inmate Javonte Myers was found dead in his cell.
The Texas Rangers took over the investigation and the Star-Telegram obtained their investigative report this week.
Myers was booked into Tarrant County jail on two misdemeanor charges of possession of a controlled substance and criminal trespass. The Texas Rangers investigation indicated that jailers knew Myers suffered from seizures, bipolar disorder, a brain condition and respiratory complications.
Due to these complications, Myers was placed in a medical cell, where it is required that jailers check on inmates every 20 minutes. It is also required that jailers keep a digital log to record the start and finish of every check.
Tragically for Myers, the required checks weren’t conducted properly and he died in his cell of a seizure. Kirk and Gay later admitted to investigators that they falsified checks on Myers and other inmates, the Star-Telegram reported. Both have since resigned.
Myers was one of 17 people who died while in custody at the Tarrant County Jail in 2020. The Sheriff’s Department has come under fire due to the high number of inmate deaths and even lost its state certification for six days last summer.
Many of the inmates who died were in jail for misdemeanor offenses and some suffered from mental illness and homelessness – petty crimes carrying a death sentence for some. New bond restrictions and decreased case resolutions resulting from the pandemic could have also contributed to inmates spending more time in custody than necessary, exposing them to similar fate.
Lauren King with the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition was quoted in the Star-Telegram stating, “A focus for 2021 will be creating a connection with the criminal justice system and figuring out how do we catch people who go back and forth between the jail and a shelter?”
According to the Star-Telegram, the Bexar County District Attorney announced last year that his office wouldn’t prosecute homeless people for criminal trespassing unless they had a violent history. When the Star-Telegram asked how the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office would handle similar matters, DA Sharen Wilson responded: “Homeless people who commit crimes are prosecuted in Tarrant County.” She went on to explain her office is working to divert low-level, non-violent offenders out of the jail and into treatment.
