Prior to being signed into law, it saw overwhelming support in the legislature, where it passed by a 111-30 after the addition of a last minute amendment by Jeff Leach of Plano to waive the fee for law enforcement.

The law began as Senate Bill 16, proposed by state Senator Robert Nichols.  The measure reduced the first-time fee for a license to carry from $140 to $40 and the annual renewal fee from $70 to $40. The fee would cover the Department of Public Safety’s cost to manage the license program as well as $27 for county, state and federal background checks.

“The problem is we have the third-highest fee [for a license to carry] in the nation,” said state Representative Phil King of Weatherford, who siagned onto the bill along with 22 members of the Texas House as authors or co-authors.

At $140, the Texas license fee was 3rd highest in the nation behind Illinois and Arkansas.

House democrats criticized the law, contending that the reduced fee will cost the state roughly $12.6 million in 2018.

When Governor Abbot signed the Bill into law on May 29, 2017, he did it at a gun range to celebrate.

Lentz worked on over 185 cases, including 51 homicides.  Apparently, giving the prosecutors the evidence they wanted was his only priority regardless of whether that meant putting innocent people behind bars and potentially sending them to their death.

Lentz worked for the lab from January 2012 until he resigned in March 2014. He said the department investigated Lentz and forwarded the findings to the district attorney’s office. He said the department would not release any further information about the allegations against Lentz or comment on the situation.

I harken back to my earlier post about HPD – where HPD failed to investigate 20,000 crimes with workable leads.  Harris County prosecutors have identified over two dozen cases now in jeopardy because of this one analyst.

In 2002, forensic testing at the lab was temporarily suspended because of a number of serious management, employee and structural problems, including a leaky roof that for years dripped water on stored evidence. There was also a backlog of untested rape kits, which at one point totaled 6,600, and persisted until August 2013 when the work was outsourced.

Obviously this is an extremely serious issue.  This calls into question not only the veracity of the evidence the lab submits as evidence, but raises bigger questions about the pervasive mismanagement of HPD as a whole.

Arrested for a Possession?

Arrested for a Drug Crime?

If you’ve been accused of any offense involving Marijuana (including possession of Marijuana) or any drug crime,  contact attorney Tristan LeGrande by calling 281-684-3500.