by Legislative Media | May 27, 2015 | Politics
Featured: Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, speaking from the back microphone on the floor of the House of Representatives in April 2015.
Photograph By HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHY
Texans’ Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure would be better protected under legislation sponsored by Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, which would require police to obtain a search warrant from a judge before being allowed to look at the contents of a cell phone or other wireless communications device belonging to individuals who are involved in a search incident to arrest. In general, a search incident to arrest, formally known as a search incident to lawful arrest (SITA) or the Chimel rule, is defined as a legal principle that allows police to perform a warrantless search of an arrested person, and the area within the arrestee’s immediate control, in the interest of officer safety, the prevention of escape, and the destruction of evidence. In addition to protecting Texans’ Fourth Amendment privacy rights, Senate Bill 1864 “gives our law enforcement officers a clean and clear description of how to handle the search of a cell phone,” Canales added. The measure, whose primary author is Sen. Konni Burton, R-Colleyville, passed the Senate on Thursday, April 30. Canales secured passage by the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence – of which he is a member – on Friday, May 21. Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, is a joint author of Burton’s SB 1864, which was approved by the Senate on Thursday, April 30. “Unless it is an emergency that involves the safety of our law enforcement officers, or the police reasonably believe the information in the phone is vital to saving someone’s life, a search warrant must be obtained before they can begin looking at all the information – some if it very private – that all of us have in our cell phones,” said Canales. He noted that when an individual is stopped for an alleged offense, police can examine a cell phone to make sure it can not be used as a weapon against them. “Police can look at the contents of a cell phone or other wireless communications device without a search warrant if the owner of the phone consents, the phone is reported stolen, or if the officer reasonably believes the phone is in possession of a fugitive from justice for whom an arrest warrant has been issued for a felony offense,” Canales added. According to U.S. Courts (uscourts.gov), the Constitution, through the Fourth Amendment, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. The Fourth Amendment, however, is not a guarantee against all searches and seizures, but only those that are deemed unreasonable under the law. Whether a particular type of search is considered reasonable in the eyes of the law, is determined by balancing two important interests, according to U.S. Courts. On one side of the scale is the intrusion on an individual’s Fourth Amendment rights. On the other side of the scale are legitimate government interests, such as public safety. Burton characterized SB 1864 as “a privacy protection bill that takes proactive steps to protect the Fourth Amendment rights of not only Texans, but of all who come to our great state. We now carry around with us everyday items that contain more personal information, photos, contacts, and transcripts of conversations than most people kept in their homes just ten years ago. A police officer looking through a cell phone’s contents is as invasive a search as rummaging through every private paper and item in your home.” In June 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that during a search incident to arrest, a warrant is required in order to search a cell phone or other wireless communication device. In his concurrence to that decision, Justice Samuel Alito called for legislatures to not allow privacy protections in the 21st century to rely primarily upon the blunt instrument of the Fourth Amendment, and to take up the challenge of placing into statue the protections necessary to guarantee those rights in this ever changing technological environment.
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by Legislative Media | May 13, 2015 | Politics
Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, on Tuesday, May 5, secured passage by the House of Representatives of his House Bill 1015, which will help Texas district judges rehabilitate petty criminals while they pay their debts to society.
Photograph By HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHY
Texas taxpayers will save money while improving the rehabilitation of tens of thousands of petty criminals every year, many of them serving drug-related sentences, under legislation by Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, which was approved on Tuesday, May 5 by the House of Representatives. House Bill 1015 would require the Texas Department of Corrections, which supervises 19 state jails in Texas, to notify a district judge, about two weeks ahead of time, when a felon sentenced in their court will have been locked up in a state jail for 75 days. Currently after the first 75 days served in state jails, offenders can be bench warranted back into community supervision, yet experts testified that this rarely occurs because judges do not have an adequate mechanism to monitor this benchmark for each offender, according to a 2014 study by the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence, of which Canales is a member. “State jails are notorious for being more expensive than even state prison, and for offenders who are serious about straightening out their lives, a judge can bring them back home for meaningful rehabilitation programs, diversion treatment, and community supervision, which costs taxpayers a fraction of keeping them in state jails,” Canales said. When the Texas state jail system was first created in 1993, it was intended to remove petty-criminals – many of them convicted of drug-related crimes – from contact with violent offenders as found in the prison system, reduce overcrowding in the prison system, and emphasize treatment and rehabilitation with the goal of reducing the chance those felons would wind up in trouble with the law again, the House committee study noted. But, Canales said, the state jail system – which currently houses around 10,000 “detainees” – is failing because it has is now used for warehousing inmates with no programs to provide rehabilitation. “Right now, no one lets the judge know when an offender who was sentenced in their court can begin the journey to becoming a law-abiding citizen, and instead, they wind up being forgotten for up to two years,” he added. “House Bill 1015 would let our judges take the important steps needed to prepare these offenders to return back to society, as they pay their debt to society.” The reliance on keeping offenders in state jails over community supervision has been criticized for costing taxpayers more money per offender, the House committee noted in its legislative findings, which were published on January 12, 2015. State jails average about $43 per day per offender. This cost is less than prison inmates cost per day, but when one takes into account the higher recidivism rate of state jail offenders, the fact they do not receive meaningful rehabilitation programs, and no parole, the cost is a poor return on taxpayers’ investment; especially for repeat offenders. In comparison, diversion treatment and community supervision costs an average of $10 per day. Therefore, state jails are no longer the backup to community supervision, but are the primary response to state jail felonies with minimal rehabilitation opportunities and maximum sentences served, the legislative committee also concluded. Canales credited Nueces County 117th District Judge Sandra Watts for bringing the issue to light when she testified before the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence during its public hearing held in Corpus Christi on Tuesday July 29, 2014. Canales credited Nueces County 117th District Judge Sandra Watts for bringing this and other issues to light when she testified before the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence during its public hearing held in Corpus Christi on Tuesday, July 29, 2014. Following House passage of HB 1015, Watts reflected, “This bill is another example that Texas is moving towards a ‘Smart on Crime’ approach and away from the ‘War on Drugs’.” During her testimony last summer before the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, Watts told lawmakers that when the concept of state jails was first introduced, a key goal was to give nonviolent offenders a wake-up call about the consequences of their actions, then bring them back home on probation and rehabilitation. “Problem number one is you are assuming, or the law assumed, that there was a mechanism in place where judges would have a list of everybody they sent away (to state jails). There is no way,” Watts said. “The statute says that after they have served at least 75 days, the district judge has the ability to bench warrant them back and put them on probation. I’m probably as computer literate as they come, and I have spreadsheets about all my inmates, but I can’t keep up with who I’ve sent or this time period.” To further illustrate the need for HB 1015, Watts noted that in 2011, there were 23,000 detainees who went through the state jail system. “Of those 23,000, only 158 in that calendar year were bench warranted (court-ordered) back and put back into community supervision,” she explained. “The intention was perhaps good but has been underutilized. It is not working as perhaps the Legislature in 1993 thought that it would, mainly because of the masses of detainees or the defendants we deal with. We do not have anyway to track them, keep them in our mind.”
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by Legislative Media | Apr 27, 2015 | Politics
Featured, from left: Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, and Rep. Morgan Meyer, R-Dallas, reviewing legislation earlier this spring at the Texas Capitol.
Photograph By HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHY
Thousands of Texans who purchase their homes through non-traditional financing known as contracts for deed would be better safeguarded from losing their investment under legislation by Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, which was approved on Thursday, April 23, by the House of Representatives. “I am honored to announce that House Bill 311 has passed the Texas House,” said Canales. “This important legislation will help protect Texas homebuyers from unscrupulous sellers. For most Texans, our home is the most expensive purchase we will make in our lifetime and it is paramount that we protect that investment.” Contracts for deed oftentimes are used when traditional financing, such as mortgages through a financial institution, is not available. Many of the estimated half-million Texans who live in colonias are at risk because they buy their homes through contracts for deed. Contracts for deed, also known as executory contracts, are contracts for the sale of land – usually residential property – where the seller keeps title to the property until the buyer has paid the full contract price. “Most of these contracts are long-term arrangements, lasting eight to 10 years on average,” Canales, an attorney, explained. “In that time, lots of things can go wrong. Sellers die, get divorced, or just disappear. Buyers have a difficult time getting homestead exemptions for their taxes, buying insurance, refinancing, or doing other things property owners with a deed can do.” A deed is a written instrument that, when executed and delivered, convey (transfer) title to or an interest in real estate. HB 311 would automatically require contracts for deed to convey (transfer) the title to the homebuyer, and would encourage these contracts to be legally recorded, which establishes ownership of the residence. Canales said HB 311 would help improve an outdated system of property transactions. “Unfortunately, contracts for deed are structured in a way that allows for abusive practices to arise,” the House District 40 lawmaker explained. “Buyers who complete their payment are not guaranteed the conveyance of title, and if the buyer defaults, they may lose any payment that they have already paid. When not recorded, buyers face less protection and risk losing their property.” Problems caused by contracts for deed, especially in colonias in Texas, were highlighted in a feature article, Colonia Contracts, published by UTLaw Magazine in its December 2012 edition (www.utexas.edu/law/magazine/2012/12/10/colonias-contracts/). Key excerpts from Colonia Contracts follow: Many of Texas’ poorest residents, perhaps half a million according to some studies, live in colonias – a Spanish term referring to informal housing settlements located near the Texas-Mexico border. Similar communities, known as “informal homestead subdivisions,” exist on the outskirts of cities in the interior of Texas. Residents of these communities often endure difficult conditions such as the lack of reliable plumbing or electricity and shoddy housing construction. But they also often endure the risks and financial dangers that come with a lack of a bank-financed mortgage on their property. Many colonia residents buy their land through “contracts for deed,” which are often issued by the original property owners as “pay to own” contracts, and may be as informal as a handwritten deal written on notebook paper. In 2011, the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission requested that the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs commission a study to assess the prevalence of contracts for deed in colonias. Peter M. Ward, C.B. Smith Sr. Centennial Chair in US-Mexico Relations at the LBJSchool; Heather Way, ’96, director of the Law School’s Community Development Clinic; and Lucille Wood, 2011–2012 Research Fellow at the WilliamWayneJusticeCenter for Public Interest Law, were contracted to direct the study. The informality of contracts for deed means that colonia residents are often at risk of unclear title to their homes, which can complicate sales immensely and put property owners at great risk. “Buyers risk losing their properties, their homes, and all of the money they’ve put into those properties and homes,” said Wood. “Everything.”
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by Legislative Media | Apr 22, 2015 | Politics
Featured: Air Force Staff Sgt. Rosemery Aragón signals as airmen load simulated patients during a readiness training exercise in Alexandria, La., March 13, 2014. Aragón, an aeromedical service superintendent, is assigned to the 43rd Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron.
U.S. Air Force photograph By TECH. SGT. MATTHEW SMITH
Veterans or current members of the U.S. armed forces – mostly women – who were victims of sexual trauma, such as rape, during their military service, then wind up breaking Texas laws as a direct result of that anguish would be able to receive proper treatments under court supervision rather than going to jail, Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, has proposed. House Bill 1958 by Canales would allow such victims of sexual trauma, including those who were sexually harassed during their time in the military service, to have their cases heard by a growing number of specialized judicial forums in Texas, known as veterans courts. His measure was heard at the Texas Capitol on Wednesday, April 8, 2015 by the House Committee on Defense & Veterans’ Affairs. “In 2010, women in the military had a higher chance of being raped than being killed in combat. In 2014, 48 percent of women in the military said they experienced sexual harassment, while 8.2 percent experienced unwanted sexual contact,” Canales reported. “Sexual trauma is a very deeply distressing experience, and the terrible and often long-lasting shock of such events can have the most dire consequences.” Texans will get their first in-depth look at Canales’ HB 1958 during the committee hearing, which will take place as the U.S. Department of Defense observes Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. Currently, about 15 veterans courts, which were authorized several years ago by the Texas Legislature, are operating in Texas, including in Hidalgo and Cameron counties. “Veterans courts are designed to provide intense treatment programs to veterans suffering from medical and emotional catastrophes, specifically brain injury, mental illness, or mental disorder, including post-traumatic stress disorder,” said Canales. “Veterans and active military personnel who are victims of sexual trauma stemming from their service also should be allowed to receive the specialized medical services they, too, need and deserve, rather than being cast to jail with no regard to what they have suffered.” In order to qualify for treatments through a veterans court, the local district attorney must agree that the veteran’s criminal behavior was significantly affected by trauma directly related to their military service. A December 5, 2014 account by MilitaryTimes.com supports Canales’ concern that sexual trauma does indeed continue to affect many military personnel. “The number of rapes and violent sexual assaults is significantly higher than previously thought, according to new data released by the Defense Department and the Rand Corp.,” Patricia Kime, staff writer for MilitaryTimes.com wrote in her story, “Incidents of rape in military much higher than previously reported”. According to Kime, “preliminary findings of an extensive survey of 170,000 troops released Thursday (December 4) revealed that 20,000 service members said they had experienced at least one incident of unwanted sexual contact in the past year, representing nearly 5 percent of all active-duty women and 1 percent of active-duty men.” Her story noted that many of the 20,000 assaults in 2014 “were violent, probing acts. Nearly half the assaults reported by women and 35 percent reported by men were ‘penetrative sexual assaults’ — crimes that include rape and penetration with an object.”
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by Legislative Media | Mar 27, 2015 | Politics
Rep. Terry Canales, D-McAllen, featured on Tuesday, September 17, 2013, addressing the State Legislative Session Wrap-Up Luncheon, sponsored by the City of McAllen, the McAllen Economic Development Corporation, and the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, held at the McAllen Country Club.
Photograph By MARK MONTEMAYOR
With a growing number of state agencies providing detailed information in Spanish on their respective websites, Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, is working to create a bilingual presence on the Internet for the Texas House of Representatives. Canales has filed House Bill 288, which proposes that key components of the home page for the House of Representatives, as well as for the individual websites for each of the 150 state representatives, also have the capability to be read in Spanish. “It is both practical and beneficial to offer legislative information in both English and Spanish. As we seek to modernize our government and keep pace with the 21st century, I believe we must allow legislative information to be accessible in English and Spanish,” said Canales, who is fluent in English and Spanish. “The success of government depends on effectively communicating with the public and offering nondiscriminatory, accurate information.” On Wednesday, March 18, HB 288 was unanimously approved by the House Committee on Transparency and Operation with the recommendation that it be approved by the House of Representatives, then sent to the Senate for their action. Canales noted that the Texas Senate for the past 14 years has maintained and improved its Spanish-language version of its Internet web site, including the individual official websites of each state senator. That site is available online at http://www.senate.state.tx.us/Senado.htm. The House of Representatives should also break down language barriers, the lawmaker said. “People in the United States should speak English because that is the most spoken language of our country, but we do not want to disenfranchise those (who are more fluent in Spanish),” Canales said. “According to a 2011 Census survey, almost 30 percent of Texans speak Spanish. Of that figure, more than 42 percent of those Texans speak English less than very well.” The Center for Immigration Studies found that the Census Bureau recently released information from the 2013 American Community Survey (ACS), including languages spoken for those five years of age and older. “The new data show that the number of people who speak a language other than English at home reached an all-time high of 61.8 million, up 2.2 million since 2010,” Karen Ziegler and Steven A. Camarota reported in their October 2014 article, One in Five U.S. Residents Speaks Foreign Language at Home, Record 61.8 million. “The largest increases from 2010 to 2013 were for speakers of Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. One in five U.S. residents now speaks a foreign language at home.” (http://cis.org/record-one-in-five-us-residents-speaks-language-other-than-english-at-home). In 2007, the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a federal agency under the management of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, released updated information, based on the 2000 Census, that detailed the languages spoken in U.S. and Texas. According to the CDC, English and Spanish, or predominantly Spanish, are spoken considerably by Texas residents at their homes, including in the major metropolitan regions not located along the Texas-Mexico border: Harris County (Houston): 898,885; Dallas County (Dallas): 539,570; Bexar County (San Antonio): 517,885; Tarrant County (Ft. Worth): 218,615; Travis County (Austin): 168,285; and Nueces County (Corpus Christi): 118,745. These figures do not include residents in those counties who spoke English only. Counties bordering Mexico, as expected, reported large percentages of their residents who spoke English and Spanish, or predominantly Spanish. “Providing more Spanish-language content on the House of Representatives websites also will help generate more commerce with non-English nations which do business with Texas, he added. “Texas bordering Mexico also makes it crucial that our largest trading partner have access to our Legislature and the information we have.” According to http://www.TexasWideOpenForBusiness.com, which is a maintained by the Texas Economic Development Corporation – an arm of the Office of the Governor – Mexico in 2014 was ranked number one with $102.6 billion in Texas exports, followed by Canada ($31.1 billion), Brazil ($11.7 billion), China ($10.9 billion), and the Netherlands ($8.9 billion) as the top five international trade partners. Exports are goods or services sent from Texas to another country for sale. Mexico also held the top spot as country of origin for Texas imports, accounting for more than $90.1 billion, or 29 percent, of Texas imports in 2014. China ranked number two for Texas imports ($45.4 billion), followed by Saudia Arabia ($19 billion), and Canada ($17.4 billion), added TexasWideOpenforBusiness.com. Imports are goods or services sent from another country to Texas for sale.The public hearing, in its entirety, is available on the Internet by logging on to http://www.house.state.tx.us/video-audio/committee-broadcasts/ , then scroll down to “03/11/15 Government Transparency & Operation” and click the committee’s name.
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