Have a number of undesirable individuals that keep coming up in offense reports. Have a few cases that I could make that would merely put the person on probation in this town. Want them to move. Can I tell them I will file the charges on them if they don't leave town?

Come on people surely others have had this idea!

Been in this business for 30 years. My mentors told me it was unlawful. I took their word for it, but I've never bothered to research it. Seems like it might infringe on some constitutional rights. If you find a definitive answer, our county's population may soon be reduced by half.

For some case law, see page 89 of The Perfect Plea.

Of course, "banishment" as a part of a plea is not enforceable but there is always more than one way to skin a horse. I just recently suggested, in clear and unambiguous terms, to a "passer through" (caught casing a local church and arrested for CT) that it was a good idea to move on down the road. I have been known to buy a bus ticket for some folks that believed, after a counseling session, that another locale may be beneficial to their rehabilitation. But I have also had those locals that you couldn't chase out of town at gun point.

I've got a few families of people I'd like to donate to another county. Any takers?

I've often wondered why certain career criminals (who have to know that every cop in the county knows who they are and what they've been doing their whole life) don't just move on and start fresh in a town that doesn't know who they are. Ideas?

Back in the day, it wasn't unusual for a sheriff to to banish an individual from the county. In fact, a long, long time ago, there was a process known as "county hopping," whereby the banished individual would be given a ride to the county line, where he would be met by a deputy from the next county who would give him a ride through that county, etc, etc. I once received a teletype from an agency in Arizona, stating that "my boy" was sure he was going to enjoy the west coast. Them were the good ol' days.

Sometimes, a change of scenery is all a feller needs to straighten up and fly right. Most probationers, I am certain, would do a lot better if they would move far enough away from their home that they couldn't see their old buds, and would be forced to make new--and hopefully better--ones.

But the class of crook you're talking about is simply going to be a pain in the behind to the authorities whereever he lives. And in those cases, it seems to me, we have to remember who are clients are. We do not simply represent the people in our district. We represent all of Texas. Have we really done right by our clients by simply moving a crook to another jurisdiction?

Of course, if you could get them to move back to Louisiana, that is a whole different matter.

perhaps we can arrange a trade; or perhaps one man's trash is another's treasure???

No thanks, the known evil is better than the unknown.

Don't worry, sooner or later they'll come down to the beautiful island paradise that is Galveston!

Funny X! Funny!

Listening to Dispatch on a police scanner, I have on more than one occasion heard an officer, who has stopped a motorist, call in something like this:

"Run a 43 on NAME, DOB XX-XX-XXXX. He tells me he has misdemeanor warrants out of Oregon, but that they will not extradite."

Sure enough, Dispatch checks, and is told that there are active warrants for the guy in Oregon (or wherever), but that the local Sheriff there will not pick him up from out of state.

That winds up keeping the guy out of a jurisdiction, but because he has voluntarily entered into the arrangement, by skipping bail and leaving the State, the Prosecutor is not responsible.

Before moving to Texas, I worked with a County Attorney in Iowa. Every morning we appeared at the bond hearings for the people picked up the day before. The county I was working in was right on the border with Illinois and drugs/drug dealers from Chicago were a big problem. Whenever we had someone with an Illinois DL picked up, the CA's didn't care so much about the bond amount, but did make a big deal of requesting that the warrant only be executed within Iowa. I don't know if the criminals paid enough attention for that to make a difference.

Years and years ago I had a conversation with a police officer from Texarkana. On more than one occasion the police exercised "unofficial extradition" by removing an unwanted scofflaw from the Texas side to the Arkansas side, warning them not to come back. I'm sure the practice is no longer in vogue.

In my brief tenure on the "dark side", I defended individuals in a certain coastal county. The DA there had a seperate document that indicated removing the defendant from the negatvie associations he had developed in the jurisdiction was "in the defendant's rehabilitative interest" and the defendant was, therefore, not permitted in the county as a condition of his probation...You could always make that the only real condition to sweeten the deal..

I once worked with a wonderful, now retired, chief of juvenile probation that would counsel out-of-county kids that got in trouble in our county that "life will be much more tolerable for you if you don't come north of the Sabine River any more."

I can't remember that any of them ever did.