Texas lawmakers plan to address a number of criminal justice issues this year. One of the issues on their agenda is reforming the state’s bail system. Pretrial detention is intended to serve the purpose of ensuring that defendants who are at risk for harming others or failing to show up to court. Unfortunately, the current system detains thousands of people each day who do not create either of those risks for the simple reason that they cannot post the bond or pay a bail bondsman to post it for them.

The statistics are staggering. Three out of every four people incarcerated in county jails in Texas have not yet been convicted of a crime. This means that only one in four Texas county jail inmates is in jail because they were convicted of a crime. Texas taxpayers spend about a billion dollars per year keeping people in jail who do not need to be there.

While pretrial detention is vital for individuals who are likely to harm people or flee while they await trial, unnecessary detention has harsh consequences for those who are detained, and for their families. Employers cannot wait indefinitely for their employees to return to work, so many people who are detained eventually lose their jobs. Without income from employment, these individuals often face other hardships like loss of their housing. Their families struggle to stay afloat financially while they are behind bars, and even more importantly, their families struggle to function as they wait for them to come home. The stress and strain that come with trying to free an incarcerated family member without adequate financial resources take a huge toll on families, and some marriages and families crumble under the pressure.

Bail reform in Texas is likely to involve developing more accurate risk assessment procedures aimed at accurately predicting which arrestees pose a threat to public safety or a flight risk and assigning bail accordingly. While it is not expected that the state will do away with cash bail entirely like California and New Jersey have, it is possible that bail reform could eliminate the need for a cash payment by low-risk arrestees. A bill containing better risk assessment measures and a reformed cash bail strategy passed in the Texas House last year, but it failed in the Senate. Lawmakers do not plan to let that defeat end their efforts to rework the state’s pretrial detention system. Instead, they plan to try again and keep on trying until Texas’s badly broken bail system receives the repairs that it needs.

When you are charged with a crime in Texas, time is of the essence. Locate a skilled Texas criminal law attorney right away because your rights are at stake. Your attorney can develop a strong defense strategy that will address your charges and pursue an outcome that protects the things that are most important to you. Call Texas Criminal Defense Attorney Alex Tyra today, at (903) 753-7499, or fill out a contact form on our website.

Hate crimes are criminal acts that arise from the perpetrator’s prejudice or hatred towards a particular group of people. Sometimes, hatred towards a specific race or religion is what causes a perpetrator to act. At other times, the motivating factor could be gender identity, sexual orientation, or even disability. In 2001, the Governor of Texas signed the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act (The Byrd Act) into law. The Byrd Act defines a hate crime as a crime that is explicitly motivated by the victim’s race, religion, gender, color, disability, sexual preference, national origin, or age. Other states have hate crime laws, and their definition of what constitutes a hate crime varies, so the definition of hate crimes is not uniform among the states. There are also federal hate crime laws.

The states are also not in agreement as to whether to treat hate crimes differently than other crimes, because there is always some underlying offense, whether it is an assault, murder, kidnapping, vandalism, or some other crime, that is recognized as an offense under the law. Some lawmakers are hesitant to support enhanced penalties for hate crimes because they feel as though doing so punishes specific thoughts in addition to the actions that arise from those thoughts. Other lawmakers feel as though discerning an individual’s intent is not something that can be accomplished with a legally acceptable degree of certainty, so they, too, are hesitant to endorse laws that impose additional penalties for hate crimes beyond what the law provides for each particular type of offense. Other factors in the hate crime law debate include the effects on crime victims and communities of classifying some acts as hate crimes and not others, and whether punishments for hate crimes are imposed equally on all offenders or whether offenders who target certain groups are punished more severely than those who focus on other categories of victims.

Hate crime law is a murky area of criminal law, and defendants accused of hate crimes need a reliable, experienced criminal defense attorney in their corner. Defense strategies for individuals charged with hate crimes vary with individual circumstances, but because of the nature of hate crimes, an effective defense may incorporate strategies that address political or media bias in relation to a particular case in addition to the defense strategies that are available based upon the type of offense that the defendant is accused of. Hate crime defendants require defense that goes above, and beyond the defense that would typically be needed for the crime they are charged with and seasoned Texas criminal defense attorneys can provide that type of support to their clients.

Texas Criminal Defense Attorney Alex Tyra – Strong Support for Texas Defendants

When you are charged with a hate crime, your rights are at stake, and your safety may be at risk. Due to the divisive nature of hate crimes, individuals accused of committing hate crimes are often the target of incendiary violence before they even have a chance to defend themselves against the charges. Protect yourself and your loved ones, your present freedom, and your future well being by working with a Texas criminal defense attorney on your hate crime case. Call Texas Criminal Defense Attorney Alex Tyra, at (903) 753-7499, or fill out a contact form on our website