More than 72 percent of those on death row in Texas are people of color. Studies show race plays a role in the state’s harshest punishment.
Hannah Wiley
Hannah Wiley was a reporting fellow for The Texas Tribune in 2018, covering issues surrounding the U.S.-Mexico border. She graduated with her MSJ in 2018 from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, where she spent nine months in Chicago in the investigative reporting track and three months in the D.C. political reporting program. She was a research assistant at The Chicago Tribune and a World intern at USA TODAY before joining the Tribune. Although a self-proclaimed foreign policy nerd, Hannah has also reported on education in Chicago and in Puerto Rico and has worked directly with immigrant and refugee populations both as a teacher and a journalist.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Texas court throws out 1987 murder conviction; declares North Texas man “actually innocent”
The Court of Criminal Appeals said Steven Mark Chaney’s conviction was based partly on faulty science.
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Politics
A Texas school contractor says she lost her job because she won’t promise not to boycott Israel. Now she’s suing.
The school severed its contract with the speech pathologist because of state law banning Texas government contracts with companies that boycott Israel.
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Criminal Justice
Convicted murderer Alvin Braziel executed for killing Mesquite man and raping his wife
Braziel’s attorneys failed to secure a delay in the execution after last-minute argument that prosecutorial conduct tainted his trail. He was the 13th and final inmate Texas put to death this year.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Report highlights the trauma that thousands of Texas families have experienced with incarceration
Researchers reviewed prison data and surveyed more than 4,000 adults this summer to determine how incarceration affects family members of prisoners.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Texas executes Joseph Garcia, one of the “Texas Seven” prison escapees
Garcia was executed Tuesday night. He was the fourth of the “Texas Seven” inmates executed after the group escaped the Connally Unit in 2000 and killed Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins during a Christmas Eve robbery.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Trump administration looks to Texas as it pushes a criminal justice reform bill
Prominent Texans in Washington are pushing for a criminal justice reform bill, and lawmakers are looking to the state as an example of how reform works.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Dallas grand jury indicts Amber Guyger, fired officer who killed Botham Jean in alleged apartment mixup
The grand jury decided to indict Guyger on a murder charge for the Sept. 6 killing of Jean, an unarmed black man.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Report: Houston-based pharmacy is supplier of state’s execution drugs
Greenpark Compounding Pharmacy has been selling Texas drugs for lethal injections for three and a half years, according to a BuzzFeed News report.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Advocates say the timing is right for independent oversight of Texas prisons
A bill aiming to detach the ombudsman from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice died in 2017. But news from the past year makes advocates hopeful that 2019 will be different.