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This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
El Paso, Texas, has increasingly become the subject of an intense national conversation. The New York Times, The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal report that migrant surges are straining the city, the country and the economy. These are just three headlines from a barrage of coverage of the “crisis” at the border. Nastassia Artalejo, an El Paso resident whose family has lived in the city for…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Brittany Trevino of New Braunfels, Texas, was going through her family storage unit two years ago when she was suddenly accosted by police and arrested under questionable circumstances. Trevino’s possession of a small pipe used to smoke legal CBD hemp was used to charge her with drug paraphernalia, a crime for which she was ultimately convicted. Despite this injustice, Trevino tried to move on with her life—then, one day, she encountered the same officer who arrested her. Overcome with displeasure, Trevino made a rude gesture to the officer, who responded by walking away from a traffic stop he was conducting to pull Trevino over and arrest her for failing to signal a lane change. Police Accountability Report reviews the footage and evidence surrounding Trevino’s case, and speaks with Brittany personally to examine how much of a burden the system has placed on her life and family.
Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham
Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Adam Coley
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As I always make clear, this show has a single purpose holding the politically powerful institutional policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible. And today we will achieve that goal by showing you this video of the arrest of a Texas woman that was prompted by simply letting her displeasure known about an overly aggressive cop. But it’s why the police decided to place handcuffs on her and what happened before the arrest occurred that we will be unpacking today. A prime example of how the extraordinary powers we grant police can be used to retaliate against us.
But before I get started, I want you to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at par@therealnews.com or reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter at @tayasbaltimore and we might be able to investigate for you. And please like, share and comment on our videos. It helps us get the word out and can even help our guests. And of course, you know I read your comments and appreciate them. You see those little hearts I give out down there. And we do have a Patreon called Accountability Reports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated. All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way.
Now, one of the biggest challenges to holding police accountable is fighting back against the unique set of powers that are vested in them and ability to retaliate using the law that is both treacherous and consequential when abused by the people who wield it. That’s because if a department or even a single cop doesn’t like what you have to say, they have an easy and extremely effective way to push back, namely the arrest. And the series of events depicted in the video I’m showing you now is a perfect example of that truism. It reveals exactly how police can literally cage a critic and as a result, throw an innocent life into chaos. The story starts in New Braunfels, Texas. Three years ago, that’s when police there decided to arrest Brittany Sams. Brittany had been visiting a family storage unit searching for an Instapot, but suddenly, and without warning police pounced, let’s watch.
Brittany Trevino:
[inaudible 00:02:15] this guy just beat me up. This guy just beat me up.
Speaker 3:
She’s resisting.
Speaker 4:
Relax.
Brittany Trevino:
I’m not resisting. I’m not resisting.
Speaker 4:
[inaudible 00:02:26].
Brittany Trevino:
[inaudible 00:02:26] a liar.
Speaker 3:
Stop resisting, damn it.
Brittany Trevino:
You are a liar. You are a liar and you beat me up. Please I’m not resisting.
Speaker 4:
Move your hand.
Brittany Trevino:
I’m not resisting. I just… Oh my God-
Speaker 3:
[inaudible 00:02:30].
Brittany Trevino:
… He just beat me up. He just for real beat me up.
Speaker 3:
Relax.
Taya Graham:
Now it’s worth noting the police had not an iota of evidence or probable cause to arrest Brittany. In fact, after searching her car and aggressively patting her down, the only charge that could conjure was, I’m not even kidding, drug paraphernalia due to a pipe they found in her car that she contends was filled with legal CBD or hemp. Just watch.
Speaker 3:
Listen.
Brittany Trevino:
[inaudible 00:03:00] beat me up. I’m serious.
Speaker 3:
Hey.
Brittany Trevino:
For no reason, he grabbed me. He started threatening me. He slammed me against the car because he was like, I going to slam you against the car. He said it so defiantly, so cocky.
Speaker 3:
What is your name? Have you ever been to [inaudible 00:03:12] Texas ID or driver’s license?
Brittany Trevino:
Yes, of course I have.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Brittany Trevino:
Of course I have.
Speaker 3:
The reason it looks like there’s a lot of people here. We have some people in training. Okay, that’s all it is. So listen. Okay, I need you to level with me on one thing, other than the marijuana pipe. Is there anything, anything in your car?
Brittany Trevino:
I already told you the answer to that question. No, I’m not a [inaudible 00:03:34].
Speaker 3:
I don’t understand why they just don’t freaking comply.
Speaker 4:
That’s because you caught them doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing.
Speaker 3:
So right now all I’ve got is a class C, which I don’t know if they’re going to take but she was resisting. So I got that. Wire cutter in the glove box. Other than that, there’s nothing I can link her to unless she threw it back here.
Speaker 4:
[inaudible 00:04:00]. All right, I’m going to put you in handcuffs. Okay?
Speaker 3:
So this is what you’re going to be charged with. All over drug paraphernalia.
Taya Graham:
But that didn’t matter because Brittany was dragged into court over the charges, not just any court, but in municipal court, which generally speaking is designed solely to process fines and tickets issued by local cops, not adjudicate justice. But that ordeal was not the end of the turmoil for Brittany, not in the least. Because after having to defend herself in court on bogus charges and after being convicted of that same meaningless crime, Brittany was upset to say the least. The process had cost her time, money, and work. And that’s where the next chapter in the saga begins. The point where we show you, not tell you just how destructive the power of police can be when it is subject to the slightest pushback.
That’s because roughly a month ago, Brittany was driving when she spotted the same officer who arrested her. This time, he was conducting a traffic stop angry and still suffering from the fallout over her questionable arrest, Brittany did what every American has the right to do, express her displeasure with the government. Now she decided to make the statement in the most concise and admittedly creative way possible. Her act of defiance expressed in the raising of the middle finger, a legally protected act that succinctly expressed her sentiment regarding the officer in question. But that same officer decided that with regards to him, the first amendment was not applicable at all and that aiming a middle finger in his direction was in fact a criminal act. Because shortly after Brittany furnished her one star review of his job performance, that same officer left the scene of the car stop, raced after Brittany and proceeded to pull her over. Take a look.
Brittany Trevino:
Why? Because the cop that arrested me for resisting arrest now has pulled me over for flipping him off.
Speaker 3:
I’m going [inaudible 00:06:07].
Brittany Trevino:
I know who you are.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Brittany Trevino:
I know who you are.
Speaker 3:
That’s fine.
Brittany Trevino:
You’re pulling me over for flipping you off.
Speaker 3:
Ma’am-
Brittany Trevino:
Yes you are. You are retaliating against me. You turned your sirens on and everything ran over here like a crazy person.
Speaker 3:
Okay. Well ma’am, the reason why you’re being contacted is you failed to a signal lane change when you flipped me off.
Brittany Trevino:
Okay.
Speaker 3:
Okay? So go ahead and step by the car.
Speaker 5:
[inaudible 00:06:30].
Brittany Trevino:
He’s hurt me before. Please don’t let him do anything to me. Please. Please. Please. Please don’t. I flipped him off because he’s been illegal to me.
Taya Graham:
And then without any warning, he declared Brittany under arrest for, and I’m not kidding, failing to signal before a lane change, just watch.
Speaker 3:
All right. [inaudible 00:06:53]. You’re under arrest for fail to signal a lane change.
Brittany Trevino:
I’m under arrest for failing to signal a lane change?
Speaker 3:
Yes, ma’am.
Brittany Trevino:
I’m under arrest for failing to signal a lane change?
Speaker 3:
Yes, ma’am.
Taya Graham:
Now, it’s worth noting that the Texas Transportation Code calls for up to a $200 fine for failing to signal a lane change. But nowhere in the law is there any mention of jail time for this infraction. Hence, cuffs and an arrest are not warranted. But just moments later, that same officer made an astonishing admission when he was questioned by a supervisor, the cop actually admitted, at least tacitly, that he had specifically targeted Brittany, a startling confession that reveals just how easy it is for officers to retaliate against their critics. Take a listen.
Speaker 6:
Did she not have a driver’s license or what? Why are we arresting her for a traffic infraction?
Speaker 3:
Well, she comes down the street, comes right towards me, as I’m walking back by the car to be doing nothing, she flips me off. And then as she does that, she gets in the lane and fails to single a lane change. You think it’s going to be an issue?
Speaker 6:
Given your history her.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 6:
Any other person you would write a ticket to, right?
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 6:
So that’s how you have to treat every interaction.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Taya Graham:
So I just want to take a second to make an important point here. Often during the encounters we report on people ask for a supervisor, and often police respond in ways that could generously be characterized as dismissive. However, as this case proves, that request is firmly founded in the fact that during a questionable arrest, another set of eyes or the presence of another cop can help. It’s not a perfect or guaranteed solution, but as this encounter demonstrates it can’t hurt. Just listen again as the supervisor questions the officer’s justification for the arrest.
Speaker 3:
You think it’s going to be an issue?
Speaker 6:
Given your history with her.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 6:
So any other person you would a ticket to, right?
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 6:
So that’s how you have to treat every interaction.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Taya Graham:
Unfortunately, in this case, the near arrest was not the end of the consequences for Brittany, an ongoing ordeal that we will be discussing with her shortly. But before we do, I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who’s been reaching out to police and looking into this story. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Taya. Thanks thanks for having me, I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So first, Stephen, what are police saying about this arrest?
Stephen Janis:
Well, Taya, we reached out to everyone possible in this government. We reached out to the city manager, the assistant city manager, the liaison between the police department and the police chief asking them specific questions about this officer and other problems within the department. They have not got back to us yet, but we will keep following up with this because we are going to get answers about this cop, about this arrest and about this whole fiasco, I promise you that.
Taya Graham:
So what details do we have about the first arrest and the municipal courts? How do those types of courts differ and why are they so problematic?
Stephen Janis:
Municipal courts are basically profit centers for cities. They’re run by the city government. So hence you don’t have the separation of powers like you have with a real independent judiciary. They are basically cash registers for politicians to raise money off the backs of the people. Basically, we know in this situation, she couldn’t get a public defender, you can’t get a public defender. It’s very hard to appeal. There’s a study in the Harvard Law Review which shows that municipal courts are really, really, really isolated from the entire legal system. Not independent, don’t have many defense attorneys and basically run by the people who are enacting laws and trying to extract fines. It’s a mess and it’s not something I think that’s healthy for our democracy.
Taya Graham:
What concerns does this series of events raise for you? I mean, what have you found looking into the town and the police department itself?
Stephen Janis:
Well Taya, I looked at the town finances extremely revealing. Over 50% of the discretionary spending of the budget goes into policing law enforcement and public safety. Whereas only 13% to 12% goes into quality of life. And I think this is exemplar of what happens when you overinvest in policing because you have these bogus arrests, you have police who have nothing better to do. Why would a cop pursue something for giving them a finger? It makes no sense if there was other crime going on, and yet the city still spends half of its discretionary income or half its discretionary budget on policing. It’s absurd. This is really exemplar of the problem with over-policing and why we spend too much on arresting and punishing people and not taking care of them.
Taya Graham:
And now to learn about what happened to her before and after the arrest and how she’s fighting back, I’m joined by Brittany. Brittany, thank you so much for joining me.
Brittany Trevino:
Thank you for having me, Taya.
Taya Graham:
So why did the officer approach you in the incident that we’re seeing from last month?
Brittany Trevino:
Well, I gave him… He was blocking the lane I was in, so I had to switch lanes. And when I seen him, I flipped him off. He left his traffic stop and he came and pulled me over. He said I did not use my turn signal.
Taya Graham:
So did he say he was pulling you over for exercising your first amendment rights or did he have another pretext?
Brittany Trevino:
I think he had talked to the other officers on his way to pull me over because they had showed up behind him. He waited until they got out or started pulling up to get out of his car and then he came up to me quickly while they were pulling up and getting out of their vehicles. And he had that conversation with me in the window, told me to get out of the car and he told me to get out of the car right when the other officer, the least ranking officer that came up afterwards, he told him to put me in handcuffs. So I just turned around and he did put me in handcuffs. He was not aggressive or anything to me. He was fine to me. He was just doing whatever he was told. But he’s the one that put me in handcuffs and then Akers was going to have me transported by him to the jail. So
Taya Graham:
Talk to me a little bit about what you heard later in the recording. I mean, what did his supervisor tell him about the arrest he was trying to affect? Because we hear Officer Akers say he wanted to arrest you and put you in jail for not using a turn signal. I have that right.
Brittany Trevino:
So actually I didn’t even realize what had been caught on the livestream until the next day when people started commenting on it because I just closed it and was done with it. But after I reviewed it, I did hear him say that he was taking me to jail for failure to use a turn signal. And then the superior officer, the sergeant asked if he would do that to anybody else and he said he would give a ticket to anybody else that wasn’t me. And he said, so you got to give her a ticket too and let her go. And then he told them that they could let me go, and he went and sat in his car and waited for them to get his ticket for the turn signal signed and then they gave it back to him when he left.
Taya Graham:
This shows just how important it can be to have a supervisor on the scene. But it seemed that seeing Officer Akers, having your hands put behind your back and the cuffing itself was just very traumatizing. How did you feel in that moment? You seemed so scared and stressed. What were you thinking?
Brittany Trevino:
Oh, I am terrified to go to jail. Previously, why I flipped him off when I was driving by is that I had a really bad experience over the last two years with this certain officer. I mean, I wouldn’t just go around flipping off any cop. I would flip off Patrick Akers because of an arrest that he put me through in 2019 or the beginning of 2020 it was. And then that just concluded last month.
Taya Graham:
So you previously had a bad experience with him. Can you talk about that? Let me show some of the video and tell me what we’re seeing here.
Brittany Trevino:
I was really actually super glad when the other two officers ran around the corner to come save Akers because he had put in… He made a call on the radio for all officers in town to turn on their lights and sirens and speed there as quickly as possible. So every officer in town was on their way to save him from me during this interaction. But as soon as they turned the corner, I was just so happy that somebody else was there. I mean, I was in a dark alleyway alone with this man and he was saying things that did not make sense to me. It was almost immediate that he grabbed me and shoved his camera into my back and started screaming, stop resisting. He had me shoved into my vehicle. I could not move if I wanted to turn around, I couldn’t. And his reasoning for it, I could not, I literally couldn’t understand. I mean, I didn’t understand that night. I didn’t understand for probably I didn’t fully understand until I went to trial.
Taya Graham:
Can you tell me what you were charged for with this arrest and what the results of the case were?
Brittany Trevino:
Said I was under arrest for resisting arrest and then there was a pipe like a CBD that… Okay, in this town you can buy hemp flour and you can buy pipes to smoke just like tobacco. They’re glass pipes. And I had a glass pipe, multicolored glass pipe on my seat, I guess. And when he seen that, he whipped out his handcuffs. He had already been grabbing me and I was up against my car when he seen it. But you know the exact second when he sees it, because he sees it, he gets a sigh of relief. You can tell because he is like, oh, how am I going to explain this? And then it’s like he gets confident and he’s like, ah, you are doing all of this because you have a marijuana pipe.
And then they ripped apart my vehicle, so that’s more cost, by the way. I mean ripped. He took my Michael Kor’s wallet that I had just gotten for Christmas, tore the stitching, pulled out the venting from underneath my dash. I had to get it put back up in there, the vents. And then it looked like he had taken a knife or something and tried to peel up my airbags that are factory sealed. It’s like he was looking anywhere to find something and you can tell if you watch the interaction afterwards, you can tell that he is getting more and more upset that all he found in there was a pipe that they did not even test. They told me at my trial that was my… I could have had it tested, but I didn’t. I could have brought proof that I was innocent, but I did not do that.
Taya Graham:
So what were the consequences of that arrest? How did it impact you financially or even emotionally or even physically? I mean you were just recovering from an accident when this happened, right?
Brittany Trevino:
So I mean, I guess I’ll start with physically. I mean physically my wrist now, it clicks all the time and it’s ever since then. And then my shoulder, I can’t really put my hand behind my back anymore comfortably at all. So I definitely have damage that’s lasted at least two years physically. But also at the time of the first arrest, I had only been walking a couple weeks. I had not been walking since January of that year, and this happened in July, June or July, and I just started walking when he was doing that to me. It was just like, I mean, nobody wants to be approached in a dark alleyway alone, first of all. So there’s that.
Taya Graham:
And how did it impact your family and your finances?
Brittany Trevino:
Cost, first of all, I went to jail. So that was $1,500 cash to the court. It had to be paid. So my husband basically took all the money we didn’t have and got me out of jail, which is great. He’s amazing, but he’s also went through a lot because of this. It’s put a lot of strain on our family, especially for me to be so traumatized by it that it has affected my life. Just not wanting to leave the house, not wanting to… I get scared when I see him. And yeah, I flipped him off, but I flipped him off for the sake of America because I mean, this is not right. What he did to me was completely wrong to do. Financially $1,500 right away.
And then I have gone to court at least twice a month every month, including now. So right as my trial ended is when I flipped him off and got pulled over. So it has not stopped since June of 2020 that I’ve been going to court at least once a month, usually twice. I’ve had a couple trials. Those were five days, one of them was five days, one of them was one day. So the cost of just traveling to back and from is substantial. It’s at least $40 a month just to drive to these places. And then either my husband doesn’t go to work or my sister doesn’t go to work.
So I added it up and I think it was a total of 45 days in the last two years I have spent in a courtroom all day long. So I mean that’s over a month of income just in court dates. And then to top it off, I had to pay for my public defender, which was $1,500. I wasn’t allowed to have a public defender in the other one. And the costs just keep going. There’s court costs on top of it, which is about $350. For the trials, I have to pay overtime for the police, I was reading. It has overtime for them. So not only does he… It’s like he gets a bonus when he does things like this. Because now he gets to sit in court and not have to actually go do his job, and all he is got to do is sit there and lie and he gets paid overtime.
Taya Graham:
You mentioned an unusual detail about your arrest with Officer Akers, and it’s actually something I have never heard before, but you had confirmed by IA, internal investigations. What was it? I have never had anyone mention this to me before.
Brittany Trevino:
He handcuffed his self to me.
Speaker 3:
Just waiting for you guys to get here. I couldn’t get the cuffs off and I got my shit stuff up inside the cuff. So we were just tangled together for like until you guys got here.
Brittany Trevino:
That’s why I didn’t get slammed on the ground. They had to come help him, release himself from me and re-put other handcuffs on me after they de-handcuffed us from each other. I found out that only in the internal affairs meeting when I went to meet with the Internal Affairs, he said, “Well, I think Akers is just a little embarrassed about something.” And he goes, “Okay, right here. He had handcuffed himself to you. His radio and his shirt or something were caught in the handcuffs, so you guys were attached to each other until the other officers came and detached you.”
Taya Graham:
Thank you so much, Brittany. And now to get more background on this department and its fraught relationship with the community, I’m joined by Cop Watcher and First Amendment activist Corners News, who’s been following the story? Corners, thank you so much for joining me again.
Corners News:
Thank you, Taya, for having me again.
Taya Graham:
Now you were performing a cop watch and had an encounter with the New Braunfels, Texas Police Department. Let’s watch a little bit of the encounter.
Speaker 3:
Huh?
Corners News:
You know him?
Speaker 3:
No.
Corners News:
Do you know him?
Speaker 3:
What?
Corners News:
Do you know him?
Speaker 3:
What’s that?
Corners News:
Do you know him?
Speaker 3:
Yes, I do.
Corners News:
Okay.
Speaker 3:
You all know him? He staying here.
Corners News:
[inaudible 00:22:58] what?
Speaker 3:
Is he staying here?
Corners News:
Maybe.
Speaker 3:
Okay. Can I help you?
Corners News:
No, no, no. [inaudible 00:23:05].
Taya Graham:
Can you describe what you were recording?
Corners News:
I noticed police lights. So I decided to make a U-turn to go and record that interaction. When I got there, the interaction was over, but I noticed the units were speeding to another location without emergency lights. So they went into a motel and they stopped a person that was walking in the parking lot. He had a backpack and he seemed like he was probably going home or something. He didn’t appear to be homeless or anything like that, so they were questioning that person. So I decided to get down in my car and started recording.
Taya Graham:
So the officer asked you to step back while you were recording and you did. Let’s watch some of the video and then you tell me what happened next.
Corners News:
You can pat me down if you want, man.
Speaker 3:
I’m going to detain you until I’m done with my investigation. You can keep recording.
Corners News:
It’s right there on record.
Speaker 9:
We’ve asked you multiple times quit interfering and your interfering.
Corners News:
I need double… I have a injured rotator cuff.
Both officers Akers and I forgot the other officer’s name. They told me to move back because they might arrest me for interference or something like that. So I did move a little bit back. I want to say I was somewhere around 15 to 20 feet away from them. So I wasn’t speaking to them. I wasn’t interfering in any way. So the other officer decided to arrest… Well, they cuffed me because I wasn’t moving back. So they placed cuff cuffs on me and they placed them so tight. And so at that point they decided to release the guy and that’s when they released me.
Taya Graham:
So the officer said that you were put in cuffs because you weren’t listening and that you were walking in a threatening manner. Do you agree with their assessment?
Corners News:
That would be… I mean, how do you walk in a threatening manner? I don’t see anyone walking in a threatening manner unless you’re making threats or something of that sort. But when you’re silently walking towards them to record them, unless they consider a camera a threat, maybe, I would see that. But I don’t see how me walking and recording is threatening in any way.
Taya Graham:
So I noticed that on your video as well as Brittany’s video, there were comments that specifically referenced Officer Akers. Now usually commenters talk about police officers in general, not the police officer actually depicted in the video. What have you heard from the community about Officer Akers’s interaction with the public?
Corners News:
When I posted that video on my channel, I received, I want to say, three or four different comments from females in that area that had dealt with Patrick Akers and one of them was Brittany and I went into her… I think she posted a link on her page. So I clicked on that link and I saw body cam where Akers, without warning just walks up to her and starts grabbing her and detaining her for no crime. They hadn’t received… I believe they didn’t receive a complaint regarding her or anything, she was just there. They initiated a call and he started grabbing her and detaining her for whatever reason. And another comment that somebody posted is that Akers went into somebody’s house without a warrant and threatened with arrest, they was not allowed to go in or something like that.
Taya Graham:
Why do you think they’re reaching out to you instead of local media in the town? Why are they reaching out to you instead of the local newspaper or local TV station?
Corners News:
I know here in my area, local media doesn’t cover any sort of stories on police misconduct unless there’s a death or there’s something serious. But they usually don’t cover any misconduct.
Taya Graham:
Now, one of the most unsettling aspects of this story is not just the disturbing videos we watched. What I mean is the fact that a cop could put someone in handcuffs who had hurt his feelings. It’s not just symbolic of the overreach by law enforcement. Rather, the careless abuse of power we watched is an example of a deeper problem that bad policing is just a symptom of. So what do I mean?
Well, I want you to think about the near arrest of Britney, not as simply a bad act of a single cop. Instead, consider the behavior we just witnessed as symbolic of a deeper and more insidious problem. What I mean is that how that officer responded to a single expression of displeasure on behalf of a citizen is an embodiment of a broader antipathy towards we the people that continues to have serious implications for other facets of American society.
How do I know this? Well, consider recent article by the Washington Post that focused on America’s falling life expectancy, it was a startling piece that showed the number of years the average American is expected to live has fallen drastically over the past decade. Worse yet, this trend has continued even as similarly situated countries have continued to make steady progress increasing lifespans. One of the most troubling aspects of the findings is the seemingly uniquely American version of the problem. The decrease in life expectancy comes even as we spend the highest amount per capita on healthcare than any other country in the world. In other words, we spend the most to get the worst results. Seriously.
Now, the reason I bring up this entirely unrelated problem in a discussion about police is simple. First, I think there is no better barometer of societal failure than the shrinking lifespan of a nation’s residents. I mean, what could be more indicative of a failure of American’s institutions then its citizenry having less and less time on this earth.
Now, just a quick caveat. The reason behind this drop was complex. Some of the decrease was attributed to COVID-related deaths. Another stat that weighed heavily on the problem were the so-called deaths of despair, meaning ailments like cirrhosis of the liver from drinking or drug overdoses. And finally, a good portion was attributed to the increase in obesity among Americans, fueled primarily by subsidies of processed foods by the government that makes us more likely to have unhealthy diets. All of these factors add up to a recipe for bad outcomes. A really, really bad report card for the great American experiment. But what makes this heartbreaking story even more distressing is something that has nothing to do with statistics, death rates, or even the suffering it portends a reaction to this alarming report that says more about why it is related to this bogus arrest than any other fact I can conjure.
Put simply, despite the gravitas of this potent new American reality, despite the failure it represents, the story I have just recounted for you was met with total and confounding silence from our political establishment. It simply came and went with hardly a remark from the people we elect to represent us. I mean, it is really telling that the health and duration of the lives of Americans would hardly cause a blip on the radar of the political elite. It is profoundly revealing that this shocking deficit passed unacknowledged by both national and local leadership. Meanwhile, contrast that deafening silence with the constant calls for more police. And even more revealing, the never ending political brawl over crime and violence, which usually centers over whether you are for or against law enforcement to begin with.
I mean, think of the actions of the officer we just watched as a symbol of that mystifying lack of response. Ponder his speedy reaction as a stark contrast to the deafening silence that occurred when our collective health failures were revealed for the whole world to see. It’s troubling, isn’t it? How quickly an officer can punish someone who questions him. And even more troubling how quickly the elite are willing to defend police when they violate someone’s rights. But it’s all justice telling what little consternation was caused by the aforementioned catastrophe of human suffering. How little action has been taken to even debate the root causes of this defining failure of American policy. And now contrast that lack of initiative with the system’s massive capability to deploy a pair of handcuffs. Measure our mass incarceration project and arrest heavy approach to law enforcement against the background of a pricey, yet ineffective healthcare system.
It’s easy to see which is more efficient. When we rebel, when we push back, the reaction is swift. When we challenge and stand up to arbitrary government power, the consequences are merciless. When we die prematurely, crickets. Just like the cop who chased down Brittany to slap cuffs on her, just like the cops who arrested her while searching her family’s own storage locker, just like the system that fails to deliver the basic right to a longer life, the elites who control this country let their priorities be known to us every day. That our lives should be burdened by punishment, not bolstered with longevity. And when someone raises a voice in dissent to this deadly calculus or questions necessity or even justification for these types of destructive policies, the response is immediate, drastic and consequential.
I want you to think about what that means. Why it happens, and who is responsible, who decides the value of our lives and puts limitations on our freedom. And when you answer that question, I think you’ll understand who is truly responsible for this mess we live in. And when you do, I hope you’ll join us on that often quixotic quest to hold them accountable for all of this. I want to thank Brittany and Corners News for speaking with us today. Thank you both for stepping forward and sharing your experiences. And of course, I have to thank Intrepid reporter Stephen Janis for his writing, research and editing on this piece. Thank you, Stephen.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
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And I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate for you. Please reach out to us. You can email us tips privately at par@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct. You can also message us at @police_accountability_report on Facebook or Instagram or at @eyesonpolice at Twitter. And of course you can always message me directly at @tayasbaltimore on Twitter or Facebook. And please like and comment. I do read your comments and appreciate them. And we will have a Patreon link pinned in the comments below for Accountability Reports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is greatly appreciated. My name is Taya Graham and I am your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please be safe out there.
This post was originally published on The Real News Network.
As abolitionists worldwide observed a day of protest against the death penalty on Tuesday, the six members of the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority threw out lower court rulings and allowed the state of Texas to execute Jedidiah Murphy, a deeply faithful Jewish man who suffered from mental illness and wished to become a religious counselor for others in prison. Last-minute legal wrangling saw…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The attorney behind Texas’s “bounty hunter” abortion ban, Senate Bill 8, has requested that several Texas abortion funds hand over information about every abortion they have “assisted or facilitated in any way” over the last two years. “We are a majority person-of-color organization, both our staff and our board as well as our clients,” said Neesha Davé, executive director of the Lilith Fund…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
With their heads bowed, eyes shut, and hands locked, the Southwest Crossing Community Initiative starts every meeting with a prayer: “Please, protect us from a deadly explosion.” “And please, cover us … and ease our minds.” Southwest Crossing is an aging community in Houston where nearly 20 percent of residents are over 65. They know, as it is, the average American is expected to live only a…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
A federal judge has found Texas’s law targeting drag performances to be overly vague and in direct violation of First Amendment speech rights, thus rendering it unenforceable. U.S. District Judge David Hittner issued his ruling on Tuesday, placing a permanent injunction on the law known as Senate Bill 12. While the Texas statute doesn’t expressly mention drag shows, it’s clear that Hittner…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
I know it’s hard to fathom, but there really was a time when “Don’t Mess with Texas” actually meant something and not just in terms of litter.
It forewarned the uninitiated of bona fide badasses, legendary contrarians, daring dreamers, and serious politicians who had no qualms about taking fatuous pretenders out behind the proverbial woodshed and beating the living or figurative shite out of them.
Sam Houston once drubbed a U.S. congressman half to death with his cane in Washington, D.C., and practically walked away scot-free. (His lawyer was Francis Scott Key!) Then, three decades later, during his second stint as governor of Texas, he jeered the Texas secession convention, refusing to swear loyalty to the Confederacy. A century later, Denison native Dwight D. Eisenhower, who served as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during WWII and became a two-term U.S. president, would very bluntly throw staggering shade at the then-budding but insatiably greedy American Military Industrial Complex. JFK didn’t heed Ike’s remarks, and, though Lyndon Baines Johnson played along (to his discredit and, I think, regret), he also became the most progressive American president in history, enacting dozens of eye-popping rights, privileges, and freedoms that most Americans today take for granted. Then we traded longhorns for lambs, allowing our last real lion, Ann Richards (she had more brains and balls than Poppy or Sonny Boy Bush combined), to be ousted by Dubya’s personal “turd blossom,” Karl Rove.
Since this act of nasty debasement, a gaggle of Republican oaf-keepers have spent the last three decades reducing our great state to what we are now — an international laughingstock.
Cattle manure. Openly deranged.
Semiautomatic rifle-packing asshats.
And this was well before the dog and Ken Paxton pony fiasco.
We’re no longer seen as a great state. We’re viewed more like a Third-World banana republic (emphasis on “banana”). Texas is now a joke, an adjectival term of derision, as in “those idiots went all Texas on us” or “that stupidity is Texas-level, yo!”
For educated Americans and most of the rest of the world, Texans are synonymous with shameless cretins, imbeciles, morons, or losers. The slow, Republican-led domestic intellectual plummet and resulting international perception shift have reduced us to a superficial, xenophobic, conformist dystopia. Which sincerely sucks, because we used to be the exception, not fascist fools.
Texas produced the first female sheriff, the first all-women state Supreme Court, the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court (Sandra Day O’Connor), the first Black woman in the U.S. House of Representatives (Barbara Jordan), and the first Chicano G.I. Joe (legendary Medal of Honor recipient Roy Benavidez). Texas was the home turf for the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the first Bilingual Education Act, Roe v. Wade, and dozens of landmarks that define the Great Society. Texas was even the base of operations for Madalyn Murray O’Hair and the American Atheists association and Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill.
Texas produced Janis Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Beyonce, Selena, Freddy Fender, Katherine Anne Porter, Robert Rauschenberg, Erykah Badu, John Graves, Doug Sahm, the Butthole Surfers … hell, even Black Panther Bobby Seale is a native Texan!
The Lone Star state also produced icons of the Third Estate, including Walter Cronkite, Molly Ivins, Dan Rather, and Jim Leher.
Today, Texas politics has descended into an ignorant crescendo of conformist, party-line blowhards like Greg Abbott, John “Cornholio” Cornyn, and Ted Cooz. And Texas’ national contributions to cultural and intellectual development rise to little more than lukewarm, rustic slop jars like Chip and Joanna Gaines, Jenna Bush Hager, Kelly Clarkson, Pascal High School’s own Sheridan Taylor Gibler, Jr. (also known as Taylor Sheridan), and clueless, third-rate sophists like Alex Jones and Joe Rogan.
Lone Star icon Willie Nelson once said, “I’m from Texas, and one of the reasons I like Texas is because there’s no one in control.” And back when he said it, it was probably true. We used to be more open-minded. We were practical and believed in common sense. But Texas is no longer governed by pragmatism, assertive wit, or human decency. Texas has been reduced to a big, red, Republican Porta-Potty, where backwards wastrels launch excrement on the shithouse walls just to see what will stick under the graying, mustachioed upper lips of their, yes, deplorable constituencies and pass their hypocritical smell tests.
In 2021, the Texas Lege made abortions illegal and sexual assault rewarding, because raped women were no longer permitted to abort their vicious fecundators’ offspring. On Sep. 1, 2023, the Lege made it legal for God-bothering chaplains to serve as guidance counselors in public schools without certification or experience in classroom instruction — but, hey, they’re at least qualified to explain to prepubescent female students how Mary was made preggers without her consent and how hallowed by thy shame that turned out!
And this immaculate transgression was followed by several other lapses into priggish asininity. The feckless Lege’s new “death star” bill eliminates local civil ordinances around the state, including workplace protections and common-sense environmental regulations. Senate Bill 17 bans diversity and inclusion programs at public universities (because what’s wrong with gubernatorial incumbents gathering boner mounts at places called “Niggerhead Ranch”?). Senate Bill 19 gives the checkless Lege the power to proclaim that only college instructors who obstruct diversity and inclusion can receive tenure. House Bill 900 gives the reckless Lege expanded parameters to ban books in Texas libraries—except the Bible, of course, the reading of which will soon be required by force and policed by the new armed hall monitors the Lege is encouraging to reduce the scourge of intellectual discourse.
Don’t mess with Texas?
Heck, it’s getting so that any half-conscious dunderhead with a pulse can eat Texas for breakfast. We’re mindless buffoons walking around with Texas Lege-ratified “Kick Me” notes on our backs, wondering why everyone else is bent on making us butt-sore.
At one time, Texas may have been Willie’s sublime free-for-all. Now, it’s clearly not. One party has been running the show for too long, and its leaders and their rabid base refuse to think constructively, thrive on cultural impracticalities and historic inanity, and seem bent on making sure any semblance of conscience or enlightenment is fenced in.
Even some Texas Aggies are appalled.
The slow, anti-intellectual deluge of Red State Kool-Aid has left Jim Bob Q. Public Yellowstoned (thanks, Gibler) and the party behind everything we used to rue seems to revel in seeing the rights of anyone who isn’t straight, white, and a man’s man trod upon with impunity.
So please mess with Texas, friends.
Let’s get rid of the real trash.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
The Texas Senate on Saturday acquitted Attorney General Ken Paxton of 16 articles of impeachment alleging corruption and bribery, his most artful escape in a career spent courting controversy and skirting consequences of scandal. No article received more than 14 of the required 21 votes to convict. Only two of 19 Republican Senators, Bob Nichols of Jacksonville and Kelly Hancock of North Richland…
All summer long, incarcerated people have been dying from heat in U.S. prisons. The Prison Policy Initiative reports that temperature spikes are driving the increase in mortality nationwide: extreme heat days increase deaths by 3.5 percent, and two- to three-day heat waves cause increases of 5.5 percent and 7.4 percent respectively. The impact of the heat was highest in the Northeast…
On Wednesday, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled to decriminalize abortion at the federal level, holding that national laws prohibiting the procedure are unconstitutional. The ruling not only orders that abortion be removed from penal codes, but requires that federal public health institutions offer abortion procedures. “Today is a day of victory and justice for Mexican women!
Migrant rights groups and Texas Democrats on Wednesday welcomed a federal judge’s order that the state remove from the Rio Grande about 1,000 feet of orange buoys fastened together with metal cables and anchored with concrete blocks. The federal Department of Justice sued Texas and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott over the buoys in July. Judge David A. Ezra of the Western District of Texas — an…
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections last summer, some district attorneys in Texas vowed not to prosecute residents who seek, facilitate or provide abortions — but last Friday, a state law went into effect that could result in prosecutors being removed from office if they refuse to pursue abortion cases. The law forbids prosecutorial discretion…
The Texas Supreme Court, made up entirely of Republicans, decided Thursday to allow a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth to take effect on September 1, rejecting an emergency effort by advocacy groups to block the law. The decision came a week after a Texas district judge temporarily halted the Republican-authored law, arguing that S.B. 14 infringes on the “fundamental right of…
A Texas judge has deemed a recently passed law — which aims to limit the ordinances or regulations that can be enacted by municipalities across the state — a violation of the standards protecting local control in the Texas constitution. The city of Houston initially sued the state over the law, and was later joined by the cities of El Paso and San Antonio. State District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble…
A Texas law banning transgender youth from accessing puberty blockers and hormone therapy will go into effect next week after the state attorney general’s office filed to block a judge’s temporary injunction against Senate Bill 14. In her decision Friday, state district court Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel wrote that SB 14 “interferes with Texas families’ private decisions and strips Texas parents …
This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.
On Monday, a group of Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the chair of the House Oversight Committee demanding an investigation into the deaths of dozens of incarcerated people this summer, which advocates have attributed to excessive heat and subpar conditions in prisons. The letter was sent by Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin (Maryland), Greg Casar (Texas), Jasmine Crockett (Texas)…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
On Tuesday, far right Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk will begin hearing arguments in a case brought by conservative plaintiffs that could shut down Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas and across the country. Texas and an anonymous plaintiff affiliated with extremist anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood over $17 million in Medicaid payments that…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott faced fresh criticism on Friday after officials confirmed a young child died during a bus trip from the border city of Brownsville to Chicago, Illinois — part of the Republican’s monthslong stunt of transporting migrants to communities with Democratic leaders. “The Illinois Department of Public Health said the child was 3 years old and died Thursday in Marion County…
A Texas judge has placed a temporary injunction on some of the state’s abortion restrictions, ruling that physicians shouldn’t be barred from providing abortion services in medical emergencies. Just hours after that ruling, however, the state attorney general’s office filed an appeal stating that the restrictions will remain in place, pending the state Supreme Court’s decision on the matter.
08.07.23
Rosa Jimenez in downtown Austin, Texas, on March 4, 2021.
(Aug. 7, 2023 — Austin, TX) Rosa Jimenez was exonerated today after the Travis County District Attorney moved to dismiss a 2003 murder charge against her, based on testimony from leading pediatric airway experts that affirmed the death at the center of the case was a tragic accident and not murder.
Ms. Jimenez, who has always maintained her innocence, was convicted of murder after a 21-month-old child she was babysitting choked on paper towels and suffered a severe brain injury due to oxygen deprivation. He passed away three months later.
Prior to today’s dismissal, Ms. Jimenez was released from prison in 2021 after Judge Karen Sage of the 299th Criminal District Court in Austin, Texas recommended that Ms. Jimenez’s habeas petition be granted, finding that, “There was no crime committed here … Ms. Jimenez is innocent.” The decision came after the Travis County District Attorney’s Office conducted an in-depth review of the evidence through its trial division, special victims unit, and conviction integrity unit. The evidence included reports and testimony of numerous pediatric airway experts who unanimously concluded that the choking incident was the result of a tragic accident. At Ms. Jimenez’s original trial, the State presented faulty testimony stating it would have been physically impossible for the child to have accidentally choked. In May 2023, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned her 2005 conviction, ruling that the State had used false and misleading testimony to obtain her conviction. Support for Ms. Jimenez’s innocence has been widespread, particularly among Travis County state legislators. Over the years, four Texas judges who have reviewed her case in federal and state courts have all concluded that Ms. Jimenez is likely innocent and the child’s death was an accident.
“Rosa was the mom to a one-year-old girl and seven months pregnant when this ordeal began. She was forced to give birth to her son in jail, shackled, while awaiting trial. For the past 20 years, she has fought for this day, her freedom, and to be reunited with her children.” said Vanessa Potkin, director of special litigation and Ms. Jimenez’s attorney. “Her wrongful conviction was not grounded in medical science, but faulty medical assumptions that turned a tragedy into a crime — with her own attorney doing virtually nothing to defend her. I wish we could say that what happened to Rosa was an isolated occurrence, but we have a real, pervasive problem in our country when it comes to how the criminal legal system treats the caregivers of children who are hurt or die. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent caregivers and parents in prison today based on faulty, unscientific medical testimony misclassifying accidents or illness as abuse.”
A decade into her incarceration at 33 years old, Ms. Jimenez was diagnosed with kidney disease, which progressed to end-stage during her wrongful incarceration. Months after her release in 2021, she began dialysis and is now in need of a life-saving kidney transplant. “Just when Rosa can finally close the chapter on her 20-year fight to prove her innocence, she has to take on a new battle — the fight for her life,” Ms. Potkin said. Ms. Jimenez is being evaluated by Weill Cornell hospital for a kidney transplant and is hoping to find a living donor.
Ms. Jimenez’s case has garnered attention from local and national leaders, including San Antonio Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich. “I’ve been following Rosa’s case since she was released two years ago and moved to San Antonio,” Coach Popovich said. “It’s heartbreaking — a tragic miscarriage of justice. DA Garza and his team deserve great credit for helping the Innocence Project establish Rosa’s innocence with new scientific evidence. Rosa is just 41, endured nearly 20 years wrongly incarcerated, and desperately needs a live donor so she can get a kidney transplant. Please check out the micro site Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York has established for kidney donors Kidney4Rosa.com. Help save her life.”
“Just when Rosa can finally close the chapter on her 20-year fight to prove her innocence, she has to take on a new battle — the fight for her life.”
“Just when Rosa can finally close the chapter on her 20-year fight to prove her innocence, she has to take on a new battle — the fight for her life.”
Vanessa Potkin
Director of Special Litigation and Ms. Jimenez’s attorney
Rosa Jimenez holding her daughter Brenda. (Image: Courtesy of Rosa Jimenez)
In January 2003, Ms. Jimenez was caring for her 1-year-old daughter Brenda and the 21-month-old year-old boy, whom she regularly babysat, when the toddler approached her choking. She immediately tried to remove the blockage, but, when she was unable to do so, she rushed to a neighbor’s house for help and they called 911. The child was resuscitated by paramedics, but the lack of oxygen resulted in severe brain damage, and he died three months later.
After the accident, Ms. Jimenez, who was pregnant with her second child and did not speak much English, was questioned for over five hours by an allegedly bilingual police officer whom Ms. Jimenez described as barely able to speak Spanish. While trained interpreters are provided at trials, an interpreter is not constitutionally guaranteed during a law enforcement interrogation. Although Ms. Jimenez had difficulty understanding the officers, she consistently maintained her innocence and repeatedly explained that the child had accidentally choked. Ms. Jimenez, who regularly cared for children in her community, had no criminal record, and there was no history or evidence of abuse in the child’s death. Despite this, she was arrested and charged later that night. Ms. Jimenez’s situation is not uncommon among wrongly convicted women. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 40% of female exoneres were wrongly convicted of harming children or other loved ones in their care.
Rosa Jimenez holding her daughter Brenda. (Image: Courtesy of Rosa Jimenez)
Rosa Jimenez (left) who was released from prison after serving 17 years for a crime she did not commit is hugged by her attorney Vanessa Potkin.
At trial, the State relied on faulty medical testimony contending that it was impossible for the toddler to have accidentally choked on the paper towels, which he’d put in his own mouth, and that Ms. Jimenez must have forced them into his mouth. Ms. Jimenez’s appointed attorney never presented any credible expert witnesses to rebut the State’s faulty claims, and she was convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison.
After the Innocence Project took on Ms. Jimenez as a client, her lawyers sought out top medical airway experts to evaluate the case evidence. Four top pediatric airways specialists from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Medical Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Stanford University Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital independently reviewed the case and issued a consensus report concluding that all the medical evidence indicated that the child accidentally choked, and that Ms. Jimenez had been wrongly convicted of a crime that never occurred.
Nearly 71% of female exonerees were convicted of crimes that never took place. As with Ms. Jimenez, such “crimes” include incidents later determined to be accidents according to the National Registry of Exonerations.
At her 2005 trial, Ms. Jimenez’s court-appointed attorney failed to present a meaningful defense in response to the State’s unfounded medical testimony. The principal issue addressed at trial was whether this was an accidental choking. Ms. Jimenez’s trial counsel failed to present qualified experts to counter the State’s false testimony that it was impossible for this to have been an accident.
Ms. Jimenez’s attorney called only one expert who was fully discredited on cross-examination, who went on an explosive and harmful rant, and, at one point, yelled expletives at the prosecution. A state court habeas judge in 2010 who first recommended that Ms. Jimenez receive a new trial noted that in his “30 years as a licensed attorney, [and] 20 years in the judiciary, [he had] never seen such unprofessional and biased conduct from any witness, much less a purported expert,” adding that the expert had left Ms. Jimenez’s case in greater jeopardy than before he testified.
In September 2018, a federal district court also ruled that Ms. Jimenez’s conviction should be vacated because she was denied her constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel. That ruling was under appeal by the Texas Attorney General’s office, and, at that time, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office initiated a review of the new medical evidence.
“As prosecutors, we have an obligation to ensure the integrity of convictions and to seek justice,“ said Travis County District Attorney José Garza. “In the case against Rosa Jimenez, it is clear that false medical testimony was used to obtain her conviction, and without that testimony under the law, she would not have been convicted. Dismissing Ms. Jimenez’s case is the right thing to do.”Our hearts also continue to break for the Gutierrez family. In this case, our criminal justice system failed them, and it also failed Rosa Jimenez. Our hope is that by our actions today, by exposing the truth that Ms. Jimenez did not commit the crime for which she was accused, we can give some sense of closure and peace to both families.”
Rosa Jimenez and her son Aiden. (Image: Vanessa Potkin)
Ms. Jimenez was seven months pregnant at the time of her arrest. She gave birth to her son Emmanuel in jail while awaiting trial. She held him for a total of five hours before he was taken from her and placed in foster care along with her daughter. During Ms. Jimenez’s incarceration, her children grew into young adults. Although they visited her over the years in prison, Ms. Jimenez was never allowed to hold or make physical contact with them because she had been convicted of harming a child. Upon her release in 2021, Ms. Jimenez reconnected with both Emmanuel (who now goes by Aiden) and Brenda, whose wedding Ms. Jimenez was able to attend shortly thereafter. She now looks forward to becoming a grandparent in August.
Ms. Jimenez now faces another fight: to find a kidney donor and receive a life saving transplant. “The past 20 years, I have been fighting for my freedom, my innocence, and my children. Now I have a second fight,” said Ms. Jimenez. ”I want to have a long, healthy life with my family, who I waited so long to be with again. I want to see my grandchildren grow up. I have come so far, and I will keep fighting for as long as it takes.”Ms. Jimenez is represented by Vanessa Potkin at the Innocence Project; current and former Foley & Lardner LLP trial lawyers Rachel O’Neil, Sara Brown, Sadie Butler, and Joanne Early and Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
The post Rosa Jimenez Is Exonerated of a Crime That Never Took Place After 20 Years appeared first on Innocence Project.
In what The Associated Press reports is the first legal pushback since an abortion ban took effect in Texas in 2022, State District Judge Jessica Mangrum issued a temporary injunction against the ban late Friday afternoon in the case of unsafe pregnancies. While the Texas Supreme Court instantly blocked the injunction by filing an appeal, it was seen as a victory by reproductive rights advocates.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Today, a Texas District Judge issued an injunctionblocking Texas’ abortion bans as they apply to dangerous pregnancy complications, including fatal fetal diagnoses. After much confusion around what conditions qualify as “medical emergencies” under Texas’ abortion bans, today’s ruling gives clarity to doctors as to when they can provide abortions and allows them to use their own medical judgment. The Judge recognized that the women in the case should have been given abortions, and also dismissed the state’s request to throw out the case. Furthermore, today’s ruling found S.B. 8—a citizen-enforced abortion ban—unconstitutional.
In her ruling, Judge Jessica Mangrum wrote that doctors cannot be prosecuted for using their own “good faith judgement,” and that “The Court finds that physical medical conditions include, at a minimum: a physical medical condition or complication of pregnancy that poses a risk of infection, or otherwise makes continuing a pregnancy unsafe for the pregnant person; a physical medical condition that is exacerbated by pregnancy, cannot be effectively treated during pregnancy, or requires recurrent invasive intervention; and/or a fetal condition where the fetus is unlikely to survive the pregnancy and sustain life after birth.”
In Texas state court, a ruling is automatically stayed as soon as it is appealed, meaning today’s injunction will be temporarily blocked if and when the state appeals. Today’s ruling comes following a hearing in the case last month, where five of the plaintiffs gave gripping testimony and were callously cross examined by the state’s attorneys, who asked to have the case thrown out.
“Today’s ruling should prevent other Texans from suffering the unthinkable trauma our plaintiffs endured,” said Nancy Northup, President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “It would be unconscionable for the State of Texas to appeal this ruling. The court has been clear: doctors must be able to provide patients the standard of care in pregnancy complications. That standard of care in certain cases is abortion because it is essential, life-saving healthcare. This decision is a win for Texans with pregnancy complications, however Texas is still denying the right to abortion care for the vast majority of those who seek it.”
“For the first time in a long time, I cried for joy when I heard the news,” said lead plaintiff Amanda Zurawski. “This is exactly why we did this. This is why we put ourselves through the pain and the trauma over and over again to share our experiences and the harms caused by these awful laws. I have a sense of relief, a sense of hope, and a weight has been lifted. Now people don’t have to be pregnant and scared in Texas anymore. We’re back to relying on doctors and not politicians to help us make the best medical decisions for our bodies and our lives.”
“This makes me hopeful that we can continue to provide competent rational care,” said plaintiff Dr. Damla Karsan. “It’s exactly what we needed. The court has guaranteed that we can once again provide the best care without fear of criminal or professional retribution. We can once again rely on our knowledge and training especially in challenging situations where abortions are necessary.”
The Center for Reproductive Rights brought this case—Zurawski v. State of Texas—on behalf of two OB-GYNs and 13 Texans who suffered severe pregnancy complications, yet were denied abortions due to the state’s abortion bans. The overarching Texas abortion ban will remain in place however, meaning most Texans will still be unable to access abortion in the state.
The conflicting language in Texas’ abortion bans has resulted in pervasive fear and confusion among doctors as to when they can help patients with severe pregnancy complications. Texas doctors have been turning patients away because they face up to 99 years in prison, at least $100,000 in fines, and the loss of their medical license for violating the abortion bans. This means pregnant Texans are being forced to either wait until they are near death to receive care or flee the state if they are able. In Zurawski v. State of Texas, the Center for Reproductive Rightsasked the court to give doctors clarity on what circumstances qualify as exceptions and to allow doctors to use their own medical judgment without fear of prosecution.
Learn more about the plaintiffs here.
The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Morrison & Foerster LLP, and Kaplan Law Firm on behalf of patients Amanda Zurawski; Lauren Miller; Lauren Hall; Anna Zargarian; Ashley Brandt; Kylie Beaton; Jessica Bernardo; Samantha Casiano; Austin Dennard, D.O.; Taylor Edwards; Kiersten Hogan; Lauren Van Vleet; and Elizabeth Weller as well as healthcare providers Dr. Damla Karsan, M.D. and Dr. Judy Levison, M.D., M.P.H.
This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) has sent more than 50 members of the West Virginia National Guard to Texas’s southern border to support the state’s inhumane border security program, Operation Lone Star, which is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for potential constitutional rights violations. Justice, who is currently campaigning for the U.S. Senate, is one of 14…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The Mexican government has reported that officials found two dead bodies stuck to buoys — installed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to make it more dangerous for asylum seekers to cross the southern border into the U.S. — which the Biden administration ordered to be taken down last month. Mexico Foreign Relations officials said that the Texas Department of Public Safety notified the Mexican…
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.
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