Catching Up

I’ve had very little free time this week due to an extremely busy work schedule. I’m just now getting up to speed on the week’s news. Here are a few items that have caught my attention, starting with the latest TYC news.

• The Austin American-Statesman brings us more evidence of TYC mismanagement:
  

  Twelve of the 550 youths listed as ready to be freed from the scandal-racked Texas Youth Commission won't be leaving early after all.
  
  The reason: They escaped, some many months ago. And officials have no idea where they are.
  
  "Yes, there are 12 who disappeared earlier," Youth Commission spokesman Jim Hurley confirmed Thursday, as other officials adjusted the number of possible releases downward by as many as 100 — from 550 to 450 or less — because of other newly discovered paperwork miscues.
  
  House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, said others were dropped from the list because they were found to be in solitary confinement for new infractions or were ineligible because of their crimes.
  
  "So, they were planning to release people they didn't even have?" Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, D-Houston, said when told of the mistake. "Explain to me how that works. And why no one caught this earlier. This was a dysfunctional agency that still seems to be dysfunctional."



• Next week, the Texas Senate may vote on legislation that would provide some needed changes to TYC. From the FWST:
  

  The head of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee said Wednesday that he expects the legislation to overhaul the scandal-plagued Texas Youth Commission to be sent to the Senate floor next week.
  
  Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said the bill's main authors have reached agreements with judges and prosecutors on a number of issues, including segregating inmates based on age and bringing inmates back before judges when they reach age 19 to determine where they should be placed.



• Yesterday’s Washington Post ran this piece about the TYC scandal. (So this is now a national story.) The article, which mostly summarizes the key developments, reports that:
  

  Kimbrough said the culture and organization of the agency with remote facilities ruled like fiefdoms by autonomous superintendents, little oversight by headquarters staff in Austin, poorly trained corrections officers and inadequate staff-to-inmate ratios have contributed to the agency's entrenched problems. Before the latest revelations, a South Texas juvenile detention facility was already under Justice Department scrutiny because of a 2004 inmate riot and a level of youth-on-youth assaults determined to be five times the national average in similar facilities.
  
  ...The population in Texas juvenile facilities has tripled over the past decade partly because lawmakers have been enacting tougher criminal penalties against minors and elevating certain juvenile offenses to criminal acts, said one civil rights advocate working on the TYC reform effort.
  
  "Texas has tried to be tougher on crime than any other nation in the world, and as a result our prisons, including TYC, are saturated," said Will Harrell, executive director of the Texas ACLU. "What you see at the West Texas State School is the predictable outcome of a saturated system."



• Last year, I mentioned that the State Commission on Judicial Conduct admonished Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht for violating certain provisions of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct by publicly supporting the nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. Hecht successfully appealed the admonishment, but there is more to this story. The Dallas Morning News recently reported the following:
  

  A political committee funded by homebuilder Bob Perry contributed $16,000 to help Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht pay his legal bills as the court was preparing to hear arguments in a case against the company.
  
  Justice Hecht solicited donors in February to pay the cost of defending himself against charges of violating judicial ethics. The state's judicial-conduct panel admonished Justice Hecht last year for using his office to promote the failed nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. The sanction was subsequently overturned, but Justice Hecht owed $340,000 to his lawyers.
  
  Hillco PAC, an Austin-based committee whose primary funder is Mr. Perry, donated $16,000 to the justice. And the contribution came days before the Texas Supreme Court heard an appeal by Perry Homes seeking to overturn a string of unfavorable rulings.
  
  The case involves a retirement-age couple, Bob and Jane Cull of Mansfield, locked in a 10-year legal battle with the Houston-based homebuilder over structural problems with their house.
  
  An arbiter awarded the couple $800,000, but Perry Homes has refused to pay. Attorneys for Perry Homes say the couple waived their right to arbitration. The arbiter and lower courts disagreed.
  
  The donation violates no laws or ethics rules. And Justice Hecht is not required to report campaign contributions until July, so it's unclear whether he received more from Mr. Perry or other donors with business before the court.
  
  ...Alex Winslow, executive director of Texas Watch, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign contributions, criticized Justice Hecht for soliciting donors with cases before the court.
  
  "Taking the money when he did to pay for his personal legal expenses, at the very least, calls his impartiality into question with regard to the Perry Homes case," he said.

  
  The case was argued last month, but the Court’s ruling is still pending.



• The U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion this week in Massachusetts v. EPA. This is the case that raised the question of whether greenhouse gases are air pollutants. (Some very basic background on the case can be found here.) SCOTUS ruled against the EPA. From the FWST:
  

  The Supreme Court had three questions before it:
  
  Do states have the right to sue the EPA to challenge its decision?
  
  Does the Clean Air Act give the EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases?
  
  Does the EPA have the discretion not to regulate those emissions?
  
  The court said yes to the first two questions. On the third, it ordered the EPA to re-evaluate its contention that it has the discretion not to regulate tailpipe emissions.
  
  ...Ann Klee, who served as general counsel at the EPA from 2004 through mid-2006, said the Bush administration's "options are now considerably more limited." She said the EPA could still decide not to regulate carbon dioxide, but only if it also concludes that such emissions do not contribute to climate change or endanger public health.
  
  That's an argument that could be difficult to make given the widespread view among climate scientists that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is the principal heat-trapping "greenhouse" gas that, if not contained, will lead to significant warming of the Earth, rising sea levels and other marked ecological changes.

  
  Among the fifty states, Texas is the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and Attorney General Greg Abbott had sided with the EPA. I haven’t had a chance to read the opinion, but, as always, SCOTUS BLOG has thorough analysis (start here).