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Home > Dedman School of Law > Centers and Clinics > Deason Center

Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

 
The Deason Center brings a Stats and Stories approach to criminal legal reform. The Stats: We collect, analyze, and assess the hard data that drive smart, sane, and sensible criminal justice reform. The Stories: We uncover, recount, and amplify the stories of people who live, work, and struggle in our criminal justice system. Together, our Stats and Stories make a compelling case for change.
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  • Getting Gideon Right by Andrew L.B. Davies, Blane Skiles, Pamela R. Metzger, Janelle Gursoy, and Alex Romo

    Getting Gideon Right

    Andrew L.B. Davies, Blane Skiles, Pamela R. Metzger, Janelle Gursoy, and Alex Romo
    April, 2022

    In Gideon v. Wainwright, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the government must provide a criminal defense lawyer for any accused person who cannot afford one. But for too many people, Gideon's promise remains unfulfilled. In Texas, there are no statewide guidelines about who is entitled to a court-appointed lawyer. Instead, counties create their own rules that create serious gaps in constitutional protection. Getting Gideon Right investigates the financial standards that determine an accused person's eligibility for appointed counsel in Texas county courts. The report reveals a patchwork of county court policies that are both complex and severe.

  • Grading Injustice: Initial Appearance Report Cards by Malia N. Brink, Jiacheng Yu, and Pamela R. Metzger

    Grading Injustice: Initial Appearance Report Cards

    Malia N. Brink, Jiacheng Yu, and Pamela R. Metzger
    September, 2022

    Arrested people across the United States often wait in jail for days, weeks, or even months before seeing a judge or meeting an attorney. In November 2021, the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center published Ending Injustice: Solving the Initial Appearance Crisis, a comprehensive report about this ongoing crisis in pre-trial due process. That report described the devastating consequences of delayed and uncounseled initial appearances.

    Now, these Initial Appearance Report Cards offer a closer look at the laws governing post-arrest procedures in each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. While the Deason Center’s previous report provided an overview of the initial appearance crisis nationwide, the Initial Appearance Report Cards are a rigorous assessment of the laws in almost every jurisdiction in the country. These report cards reveal enormous gaps in the legal protections accorded to people accused of crimes, illuminating both the scope of the initial appearance crisis and our urgent need to solve it.

  • Greening Criminal Legal Deserts in Rural Texas by Pamela R. Metzger, Claire Buetow, Kristin Meeks, Blane Skiles, and Jiacheng Yu

    Greening Criminal Legal Deserts in Rural Texas

    Pamela R. Metzger, Claire Buetow, Kristin Meeks, Blane Skiles, and Jiacheng Yu
    December, 2022

    Texas’ rural communities urgently need more prosecutors and public defense providers. On average, Texas’ most urban areas have 28 lawyers for every 100 criminal cases, but rural areas only have five. Many rural prosecutor’s offices cannot recruit and retain enough staff. The Constitution’s promise of equal justice for all remains unfulfilled. Rural Texans charged with misdemeanors are four times less likely to have a lawyer than urban defendants. In 2021, only 403 rural Texas lawyers accepted an appointment to represent an adult criminal defendant. In 65 rural counties, no lawyer accepted an appointment. And the problem is getting worse. Since 2015, Texas has lost one-quarter of its rural defense lawyers. Many of them retired and have not been replaced.

    This policy brief outlines three solutions to recruit more criminal lawyers to serve rural Texans: Educational pipelines, financial incentives, and rural public defender offices. Rural Texans deserve the same constitutional protections as their urban and suburban counterparts. With strong recruitment strategies, targeted incentive programs, and new rural defender offices, Texas can green its criminal law deserts.

  • Budding Change by Pamela R. Metzger, Victoria Smiegocki, and Kristin Meeks

    Budding Change

    Pamela R. Metzger, Victoria Smiegocki, and Kristin Meeks
    July, 2021

    Budding Change explores what happened when Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot (DA Creuzot) radically changed his office’s policies about the prosecution of first-time misdemeanor marijuana cases. The report concludes that DA Creuzot’s 2019 policies were associated with significant reductions in police enforcement of marijuana misdemeanor laws. As a result, marijuana screening caseloads within the District Attorney’s Office declined substantially. Budding Change shows that prosecutorial policies can have a profound impact on policing behaviors.

  • Ending Injustice: Solving the Initial Appearance Crisis by Pamela R. Metzger, Janet C. Hoeffel, Kristin Meeks, and Sandra Sidi

    Ending Injustice: Solving the Initial Appearance Crisis

    Pamela R. Metzger, Janet C. Hoeffel, Kristin Meeks, and Sandra Sidi
    October, 2021

    Most Americans expect that if they are arrested, they will quickly appear before a judge, learn about the charges, and have an attorney assigned to defend them. The reality is vastly different. After arrest, a person can wait in jail for days, weeks, or even months before seeing a judge or meeting an attorney. This report chronicles the resulting initial appearance crisis and highlights its devastating consequences. More importantly, it provides policymakers and advocates with actionable recommendations.

  • Fewer, Not Fairer by Victoria Smiegocki, Pamela R. Metzger, and Andrew L.B. Davies

    Fewer, Not Fairer

    Victoria Smiegocki, Pamela R. Metzger, and Andrew L.B. Davies
    November, 2021

    In 2019, police across Dallas County asked the District Attorney to prosecute fewer marijuana cases than the year before. This report examines whether the racial disparity in those cases improved at the same time. Fewer, Not Fairer shows that while the number of referrals declined, police were still more likely to refer a Black person for marijuana prosecution than a non-Black person. However, some cities achieved more fairness when their police departments almost entirely stopped requesting marijuana prosecutions altogether.

  • Series Preview: Screening and Charging Practices of Three Mid-Sized Jurisdictions by Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

    Series Preview: Screening and Charging Practices of Three Mid-Sized Jurisdictions

    Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center
    February, 2021

    Understanding how prosecutors make their screening and charging decisions is essential to criminal legal reform. This preview report is the first in a series of publications that explores the screening and charging practices of prosecutors in three mid-sized jurisdictions. Through an innovative mixed-methods empirical study, the series provides a holistic account of prosecutors’ charging practices.

  • The ABCs of Racial Disparity by Pamela R. Metzger, Kristin Meeks, Victoria Smiegocki, and Kenitra Brown

    The ABCs of Racial Disparity

    Pamela R. Metzger, Kristin Meeks, Victoria Smiegocki, and Kenitra Brown
    July, 2021

    Data show that Black and White people use marijuana at roughly equal rates. Yet in 2018, in six of Dallas County's biggest cities, Black people were vastly overrepresented in the enforcement of low-level drug crimes. With a look at enforcement trends before the election of District Attorney John Creuzot, this study launches a series of reports about how his reforms have impacted Dallas County.

  • The Rural Texas Sheriff by Andrew L.B. Davies, Valeria Liu, and Elisa Torossian

    The Rural Texas Sheriff

    Andrew L.B. Davies, Valeria Liu, and Elisa Torossian
    April, 2021

    The Rural Texas Sheriff reports on a focus group conducted in conjunction with the Deason Center's 2019 Rural Criminal Justice Summit. The report places rural Texas sheriffs and their agencies in a national context. It also offers insight into the focus group's perceptions of rural law enforcement and jail management. With first-hand accounts of these sheriffs’ experiences, the report offers a compelling look at the personal and professional lives of Texas’ rural sheriffs.

  • Greening the Desert by Pamela R. Metzger, Kristin Meeks, and Jessica Pishko

    Greening the Desert

    Pamela R. Metzger, Kristin Meeks, and Jessica Pishko
    September, 2020

    Greening the Desert brings a criminal justice lens to the phenomenon of legal deserts in small, tribal, and rural (STAR) communities—vast areas with few, if any, practicing attorneys. The report explores STAR criminal justice communities and describes strategies and initiatives to green these criminal law deserts. Using case studies, the report offers concrete examples of successful innovations. It also includes cautionary notes about risks that may arise with the implementation of strategies to recruit, train, and retain STAR practitioners.

 
 
 

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