JB - thank you so much. I really needed a good heartfelt laugh today.

A bill designed to toughen up the prosecution of state prison convicts for smuggling and using cell phones behind bars was approved this afternoon by the Texas Senate.

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Prison officials are investigating whether a Texas death row inmate accused of threatening a state lawmaker using a smuggled cell phone is behind an Internet posting that threatens the lawmaker and his family.

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A chaplain on Texas' death row has admitted helping condemned Killeen killer Richard Tabler smuggle letters out of prison - perhaps including one that threatened a Houston state senator and his family.

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[This message was edited by JB on 09-12-09 at .]

From an updated article:

"The chaplain felt he did it for humanitarian reasons."

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Humanitarian:

1.having concern for or helping to improve the welfare and happiness of people.
2.of or pertaining to ethical or theological humanitarianism.
3.pertaining to the saving of human lives or to the alleviation of suffering: a humanitarian crisis.

The Austin American-Statesman on Monday reported prison authorities this year, through August, confiscated 995 cell phones. Records show 1,226 cell phones were seized during 2008.

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A former guard at the Reeves County Detention Center faces up to 15 years in prison in a bribery and smuggled iPods investigation.

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The Travis County corrections officer who testified that she gave convicted killer Milton Dwayne Gobert a cell phone in his jail cell has been fired from the office and remained in jail this morning on a third-degree felony charge of bringing prohibited items into a correctional institutions, according to an arrest affidavit and jail records.

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Richard Tabler, the Texas death row convict whose antics with a smuggled cell phone two years ago threatened to kill a state senator and spurred a statewide security crackdown on contraband, now says he�s sorry.

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Zachary Kilgore made and received dozens of cellphone calls last summer as he awaited his murder trial, allegedly telling a person on the other end to kill everybody who was going to testify against him, even children.

And he did it all from inside Metro Corrections — using a cellphone smuggled to him by a jail employee, according to an internal investigation.

http://www.courier-journal.com...cess-more-cellphones