Active Committees

Texas Judicial Council

Juvenile Justice Committee

Next Meeting: TBD

Charge:

Assess the impact of school discipline and school-based policing on referrals to the municipal, justice, and juvenile courts and identify judicial policies or initiatives that: work to reduce referrals without having a negative impact on school safety; limit recidivism; and preserve judicial resources for students who are in need of this type of intervention.

Members:

Hon. Orlinda Naranjo, Chair
      Judge, 419th Judicial District, Travis County

Hon. Sharon Keller
      Presiding Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals

Hon. Glenn D. Phillips
      Presiding Judge, City of Kilgore

Hon. Gary Bellair
      Presiding Judge, Ransom Canyon Municipal Court

Hon. Valencia Nash
      Justice of the Peace Pct. 1, Place 2, Dallas County

Mr. Henry Nuss
      Welder Leshin, Corpus Christi

Hon. Polly Spencer
      Judge, Probate Court #1, Bexar County

Advisory Committee:

Hon. Jeanne Meurer (Ret.), Travis County Juvenile Judge

Ms. Deborah Fowler, Texas Appleseed

Mr. Ryan Turner, Texas Municipal Courts Education Center

Ms. Tina Amberboy, Permanent Judicial Commission for Children, Youth and Families

Dr. Dora Fabelo, Austin Independent School District

Ms. Joyce James, Center for Elimination of Disproportionality and Disparities

Mr. Dustin Rynders, Disability Rights Texas

Mr. Roland Hayes, Austin Community College

Ms. Carolyn Counce, Texas Association of School Boards

Mr. Jeff Ward, San Antonio ISD Police Chief

Mr. Chuck Brawner, Spring Branch ISD Police Chief

Mr. Billy Harden, Assistant Principal, Austin ISD Alternative Learning Center

Mr. Bill Hawkins, Law Office of Bill Hawkins, Houston

Hon. Don Coffey, Justice of the Peace, Precinct 3, Place 2, Harris County

Ms. Linda Brooke, Director of External Affairs and Communications, Texas Juvenile Justice Department

Resources:

Reports & Publications

Breaking Schools' Rules: A Statewide Study on How School Discipline Relates to Students' Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement, Justice Center - Council of State Governments
The Impact of Juvenile Transfer Laws on Juvenile Crime, by Jacob Cohn & Hugo M. Mialon, 2011
Texas' School-to-Prison Pipeline, Ticketing, Arrest & Use of Force in Schools, Texas Appleseed, December 2010
Texas' School-to-Prison Pipeline, School Expulsion, The Path from Lockout to Dropout, Texas Appleseed, April 2010
Texas' School-to-Prison Pipeline, Dropout to Incarceration: The Impact of School Discipline and Zero Tolerance, Texas Appleseed, 2007

Articles

Whitmire: Ticketing Students at School Teaches the Wrong Lesson, Austin-American Statesman, March 14, 2011
School District Cops Ticket Thousands of Students, Texas Tribune, June 2, 2010
Too Black for School? How race skews school discipline in Texas, Texas Observer, May 5, 2010

Judicial Selection Liaison

Charge:

Examine potential changes related to the judicial selection process in light of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010), and Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., 129 S. Ct. 2252 (2009).

Member:

Justice Bill Boyce

Resources:

Survey of State Court Judges Regarding Texas Judicial Selection
August 2010 Judicial Council Report
Characteristics of Courts in States with Partisan Judicial Elections, National Center for State Courts
Recusal Reform in the States, 2009-2010, Brennan Center for Justice

Committee on Court Resources

Charge:

To review local expenditures on the court system and their current budgetary situation, review the revenue generated by the courts and the potential for increasing and possibly dedicating resources provided by the state to the courts, identify and promote the use of promising practices at the local level and make recommendations.

Members:

Richard Figueroa
Chief Justice Sherry Radack
Judge Orlinda Naranjo
Judge Polly Spencer

Meetings:

February 5, 2010
June 22, 2010

Shared Solutions Summit Toolkit Launched
The Shared Solutions Summit Toolkit is the product of the first Shared Solutions Summit, convened January 8-10, 2012, and enables all justice system stakeholders to access the information and ideas shared at the summit. Videos, presentations, and project plans are included for five key topic areas: criminal courts, mental health courts, child protection courts, civil courts handling self-represented litigants, and limited jurisdiction courts handling juvenile Class C cases. The toolkit captures the leadership, collaboration, and data analysis techniques discussed at the summit, along with examples of how they can be applied to specific areas in need of improvement.

We encourage you to use the toolkit to help implement your own justice system improvements. The toolkit can be found at http://www.courts.state.tx.us/tjc/Shared-Solutions.asp

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Updated: 25-Mar-2013