Dear Friends, In one of his very first acts this January, President Trump called for use of the death penalty in every case in which an undocumented migrant commits a capital crime. As Cathy Buerger wrote in her op ed in Just Security, “the order signals that some people—by virtue of who they are—deserve to be killed.” President Trump’s Order […]
Dear Friends, I wanted to let you know that Scott Panetti, a former Texas Defender Service client, died at a prison hospital in Galveston on May 26, 2025. Panetti, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, had spent over 30 years on Texas death row. He was 67 years old. Panetti is most known for his 2007 case […]
Dear Friends, I wanted to share the important news that our former board member Charles S. Kelley and his team at Mayer Brown, along with Advancing Real Change, Inc., have succeeded in winning relief for their capitally convicted client Larry Estrada. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that Mr. Estrada has intellectual disability and […]
Dear Friends, I wanted to make sure you saw exoneree Michael Morton’s recent opinion piece in the Houston Chronicle denouncing Texas’s efforts to roll back protections for the innocent. Michael Morton was wrongfully convicted of the murder of his wife in 1987. Separated from his then-three-year-old son, Michael spent nearly 25 years in prison before a dedicated team of […]
Dear Friends, As Mother’s Day approaches, we remember the thousands of mothers incarcerated in Texas prisons. Eighty percent of women incarcerated in Texas prisons are mothers of children under the age of 18. The number of women incarcerated in Texas has increased by 951% since 1980, at more than twice the rate of male incarceration. Women in […]
Dear Friends, We are proud to share with you an important new resource for people incarcerated in Texas and their families: Texas Defender Service’s Parole Website. The site is the first-ever clearinghouse of information for how people can advocate for themselves or their loved ones in the Texas parole review process. Incarcerated people and those who love […]
