Month: September 2012

September 27, 2012 Attorney Kevin Madison Comments Off on Formula One Weekend in Austin Expected to Bring Large Increase of Sex Trafficking According to Austin Police

Formula One Weekend in Austin Expected to Bring Large Increase of Sex Trafficking According to Austin Police

AUSTIN — Austin police are partnering with local non-profits to fight an expected rise in human trafficking during Formula 1 weekend. It’s a crime that grows anytime Austin has an influx of visitors. Restore a Voice is among a network of groups working together to solve the issue and provide help to the people who are rescued from slavery during F1 weekend.  “They will come to our clubs, and they will enjoy our downtown district as they should. There will be a lot of partying going on, but they want more than that. There are many people who come for the seedy side of the sporting event,” said founder of Restore a Voice Larry Megason.  Restore a Voice is establishing shelters for the people APD rescues during race week, and plans to offer them food, medical, care and counseling.  “And provide a home for them where they can experience the freedom and dignity,” said Megason.

The Austin Police Department is unsure how many trafficking victims they will rescue during F1, but the department is preparing for a busy week.  “It could be one victim. It could be 200,” said APD Victim Services Supervisor Dolores Laparte-Litton.  Human trafficking is also known as modern day slavery, underage prostitution and sexual exploitation. Four out of five victims are U.S. citizens. Up to 300,000 girls between 11 and 17 are lured into the sex industry every single year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Traffickers regularly beat them into submission, and generally there is a process of breaking down an individual’s will,” said advocate John Nehme.  Nehme is creating a documentary called, “Trade in Hope” that shares the story of women who were trapped in slavery and how volunteers are helping them overcome their past. Sex trafficking was a huge problem at the Super Bowl in Dallas in 2011. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott called it the single largest human trafficking event in the United States

 

September 24, 2012 Attorney Kevin Madison Comments Off on Decade Long Study Says Texas Supreme Court Decisions are Biased in Favor of Corporate Defendants

Decade Long Study Says Texas Supreme Court Decisions are Biased in Favor of Corporate Defendants

Report: Decade-Long Review Shows Texas Supreme Court Is Activist, Ideological

Court Watch—January 26th, 2012
The Texas Supreme Court has a long history of favoring corporate defendants over families and small businesses, according to a decade-long review of the Court’s decision making by Court Watch, a project of the non-profit Texas Watch Foundation.

Court Watch reviewed the 624 cases involving consumers decided by the Court between 2000 and 2010. The report, “Thumbs on the Scale: A Retrospective of the Texas Supreme Court, 2000-2010,” finds that the state’s high court for civil matters “has marched in lock-step to consistently and overwhelmingly reward corporate defendants and the government at the expense of Texas families.”

“The Texas Supreme Court is an activist, results-oriented body that over the last 10 years has developed into a safe haven for corporate defendants at the expense of individuals, families, and small business owners,” said Alex Winslow, director of Court Watch. “The statistics speak for themselves. The court’s pro-defendant ideology can not be disputed.”

Among the report’s findings are:

    • Corporate and government defendants prevail in an average of 74% of cases annually.
  • Consumers have lost 79% of cases in which they were pitted against a corporate or government defendant.

These findings lead Court Watch to conclude: “The Texas Supreme Court has become a reliable friend to those who seek to escape the consequences of their actions; its justices are the ultimate guardians for the moneyed and powerful who wish to shirk responsibility.”

The report focuses on the decade beginning in 2000 because it reflects a paradigm shift. In 2000, Rick Perry became governor. His appointees to the Court have taken it in a decidedly activist and ideological turn.

  • Justices appointed to the Court by Governor Rick Perry have sided with consumers an average of just 29% of the time.

Despite a constitutional provision limiting its jurisdiction to questions of law – not fact – the Court has routinely overturned decisions made by local juries. Even Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson admonished the Court in a 2004 dissenting opinion, writing: “This Court is constitutionally bound to conduct only a legal – not factual – sufficiency review.”

  • Texas Supreme Court has overturned local jury decisions in consumer cases an average of 74% of the time since 2004.

Court Watch writes that “The jury is our smallest, most direct, and least corrupted form of government. … However, the Texas Supreme Court has displayed a fundamental disregard for juries.”

Court Watch has been monitoring and reporting on the Texas Supreme Court and the impact its decisions have on Texas families since 1996. During that time, Court Watch has issued an annual list of the most anti-consumer cases of a given year. In keeping with that tradition, this report includes a “Dirty Dozen of the Decade,” a representative sampling of the most dangerous, far-reaching decisions made by the Texas Supreme Court during the last decade.

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