In 1963, the Texas Legislature directed the Texas Legislative Council to effect a permanent statutory revision of state law to “clarify and simplify the statutes and to make the statutes more accessible, understandable, and usable.” The Council was instructed not to “alter the sense, meaning, or effect of [a] statute.” In Fleming Foods v. Rylander, it was deemed that one of these non-substantive changes in fact did alter the intent of the statute. The Texas Supreme Court determined that in those instances, the newly re-written version of the statute controls.
License plate readers can aid police — but Texas needs guardrails
Earlier this summer, two Texas law enforcement agencies announced investigations involving the alleged misuse of Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology. In Fort Bend County, a sheriff’s lieutenant admitted to conducting repeated searches unrelated to official law enforcement duties nearly 200 times. Shortly thereafter, Baytown Police opened internal affairs and criminal investigations into allegations that an...