7.13.2016
Your No-Big-Government-State-Rights-Loving Politicians Are Grandstanding Again
Current law in Texas: The killer of a police officer in the line of duty may be prosecuted by your local DA who may seek the death penalty in your state funded district court in your county seat presided over by a locally elected judge with county residents serving as jurors. Any appeal goes to state elected judges and then, and only then, to the federal courts.
The proposal: Make the killing of any police officer (heck, they are all "federally-funded" in some way) a federal crime to be tried by an appointed federal prosecutor in front of a life-time appointed judge in a federal courthouse in the metroplex with jurors coming from any county within the federal district. Appeals would go directly to the federal courts bypassing any state courts.
So . . . what is the purpose of this proposed law?