Agenda

• Today: Crime Policy

    - Criminal Procedure
    - Due Process
    - Punishment and Rehabilitation
    - Criminal Justice Reform

• Discussion: Gunshot Mics and Traffic Cams

• Tomorrow: Texas Judicial System

Upcoming Dates

• Module 3 Study Guide due Friday
• Module 3 Quiz next Monday
• Module 4 Quiz and everything due next Tuesday
• Final Exam August 6, 9 AM

Final Exam Rules (be on time!)

• The Final Exam is an hour and a half before regular class time!
• If you have taken all the Module quizzes, you are exempt from the final exam
• If no one is here within 10 minutes of start time, I will leave
• Once the first student finishes, no one else will be allowed to start the exam
• The time limit will end after 1 hour 50 minutes to allow the next class to enter
• There will be sufficient time for accommodations for people who arrive on time, but no extra time before the next class needs the room

Criminal procedure: types of crime

• Felonies

    - serious crimes
    - punishable by prison time
    - punishable by more than one year of incarceration
    - prison or state jail incarceration
    - violent crimes such as assault, murder, robbery, and sexual assault
    - serious property crimes such as burglary, grand theft

• Misdemeanors

    - minor crimes punishable by less than a year in jail 
    - jail time served in local jails, not prison
    - misdemeanors range from petty theft to minor traffic violations (which are class C misdemeanors in Texas)

Elements of crime

• Set by statute
• Prosecution must allege and prove all elements of the crim
• Many crimes require mens rea, literally “guilty mind” or criminal intent
• Crimes that do not require mens rea are strict liability crimes

Due Process

Due Process

Due Process

It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.

    - William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 
    

It is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.

    - Benjamin Franklin

Due Process of Law

• Due process is guaranted by the Texas Constitution
• Due process is guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution

Due Process: Search and Seizure

• Due process includes reasonable searches

    - evidence from illegal searches must be excluded from evidence

• Due process at arrest:

    - arrest requires a warrant or probable cause to believe the arrestee committed a crime
    - individuals arrested must be informed of certain basic rights

Due Process: Interrogation and Confessions

• Due process and confessions

    - confessions can not be coerced
    - a suspect must have been informed of their rights under Mirana v. Arizona

Arraignment

• Arraignment is an initial court appearance
• The defendant is informed of the charges against them
• If the defendant cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed
• Bail, if any, is set at arraignment

Pre-trial

• In felony cases, a grand jury will bring an indictment if there is sufficient evidence
• In other cases, a writ of information will be used
• After indictment, there will be a pre-trial hearing
• Most cases end with a plea bargain

Trial Procedures

• Defendants are entitled to trial by jury in felony cases
• Defendants may choose a bench trial
• The prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt
• The defense may present evidence
• The defendant is entitled to subpoena witnesses

Trial Outcomes

• Guilt or innocence

    - If the jury finds the defendant not guilty, this is final
    - If the jury finds the defendant guilty, the judge can set aside the verdict

• Sentence

    - Juries may pass sentence in some crimes
    - Judges may impose a lower sentence than the jury

What is the purpose of the criminal justice system?

• Protecting the people

What is the purpose of the criminal justice system?

• Protecting the people
• Punishment of the guilty as justice and to deter crime

What is the purpose of the criminal justice system?

• Protecting the people
• Punishment of the guilty as justice and to deter crime
• Rehabilitating the convicted to return to society

Criminal justice reform

• focus more on rehabilitation

    - more humane
    - more effective

• reduce or eliminate bail

    - high bail makes poverty a crime
    - innocent people may spend months jailed awaiting trial

• government acts on our behalf, so if government acts unjustly they have done it in our name

Two more Flock Cameras cut down in Houston

Two more Flock Cameras Cut Down

Discussion Question 0

Discuss Question: Is it true that those who have not broken any law should never have a reason to prevent government from listening to or watching them? Is it true that “if you have done nothing illegal, you have nothing to hide?”

Houston Area Deployments: Gunshot Detection and ALPRs

• The Harris County Sheriff Office deployed ShotSpotter in Aldine in October 2021.

    - The initial deployment generated over 4,000 alerts and resulted in 40 direct arrests.
  
    -  By late 2023, the Houston Police Department claimed a 97 percent accuracy rate based on independent vendor metrics.

• The Houston Mayor considered removing the system from the 2024 budget due to cost and efficacy concerns.

Discussion Question 1

Discussion Question: How should local governments balance the financial cost of surveillance technology against its potential benefits for solving crimes?

(We will consider other things. For now, just think about the financial question, please.)

Montgomery County and Conroe Flock Camera Controversy

-* A Conroe citizen crowdfunded an open records request for a 51 camera Flock Safety contract in 2026.

    - The city initially returned heavily redacted documents, citing confidentiality concerns.
    - The Texas Attorney General intervened, ruling the redactions violated the Texas Public Information Act and ordering the release of basic contract information.
    - The Conroe Police Chief defended the cameras, asserting they strictly capture vehicle make, model, time, and license plates rather than acting as AI surveillance.
    

Discussion Question 2

Discussion Question: What role do public information requests play in ensuring accountability for local law enforcement surveillance programs? Do you think they give citizens enough power?

Privacy Advocates and Multimodal Threats

• The Electronic Frontier Foundation strongly opposes acoustic gunshot detection due to inflated accuracy claims and the risk of false deployments targeting minority neighborhoods.

    - In July 2026, the EFF successfully pressured Flock Safety to abandon its "Distress Detection" rollout, which would have integrated high powered microphones with street cameras.
    - Multimodal AI combines video, audio, and text to cross verify public behavior.
    - Privacy experts warn that this integration risks widespread chilling effects on legal public assembly.

Discussion Question 3

Discussion Question: Who would benefit most from properly used technologies to reduce crime, minorities or non-minorities? Who would have the most to fear from improperly used technologies? What’s the overall balance for minority neighborhoods?

Texas Red Light Camera Ban: We’ve already been here

• House Bill 1631 banned photographic traffic signal enforcement across the state.

   - State Senator Bob Hall argued the cameras violated due process under Article 1 of the Texas Constitution by presuming the owner was the driver.
   - The system also denies the Constitutional right of the accused to face their accuser in court

• Suburbs like Humble continued operating cameras into 2024 by taking advantage of loopholes allowing existing contracts to expire naturally.

Discussion Question 4

Discussion Question: Red light cameras have a proven record of reducing deadly accidents, though they do increase rear end collisions. Is the issue different than the current one or more of the same? What lessons can we learn?

Surveillance Successes

• The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children attributes the recovery of over 1,000 missing persons nationwide directly to ALPR alerts.

    - The Texas Department of Public Safety used Automated License Plate Readers to track a suspect vehicle from Bexar County to a Houston apartment complex in June 2026.
    - This quick action resulted in the safe recovery of two abducted children.

Discussion Question 5

Discussion Question: Is it possible to use these technologies appropriately for missing persons, quick aid to crime victims, and catching people with violent felony warrants without raising general surveillance concerns for ordinary citizens? What limits are absolute musts?

Jurisprudence on Warrantless Surveillance

• The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on any of these because they are quite new

• The Court has presciently commented on upcoming technologies like this and ruled on similar older technologies since at least 1967

• Katz v. United States (1967): The Supreme Court established that the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places, ruling that warrantless electronic audio surveillance of a public phone booth violated a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Jurisprudence on Warrantless Surveillance (2)

• Kyllo v. United States (2001): The Court ruled that thermal imaging of a home requires a warrant.

    - Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia explicitly noted in dicta that the court must protect against more sophisticated surveillance technology that might arise in the future.

• Chatrie v. United States (2026): The Supreme Court ruled geofence warrants constitute a search requiring Fourth Amendment protections.

Discussion Question 6

• Texas Penal Code Section 16.02 governs audio interception, strictly requiring at least one party consent for audio recording, which heavily limits state run multimodal surveillance without a warrant.

Discussion Question: For microphone systems, does this give us any clue as to how they might be used in a way that does not threaten the privacy of citizens?

Discussion Questions

• Given Justice Scalia’s warning in Kyllo, at what point does standard street surveillance cross the line into an unconstitutional search?
• How does the Texas red light camera ban reflect state level priorities regarding due process compared to automated law enforcement?
• Do the high profile successes, such as recovering abducted children, justify the continuous monitoring of the broader public?
• Do those who have done nothing illegal still need privacy?

Authorship and License

• Author: Tom Hanna

• Website: tomhanna.me

• License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.