A shout-out to great blog work getting noticed

Scott Henson has started 2008 on fire at Grits for Breakfast, and some of the powers-that-be are taking note.  Specificaly, on Friday in this post, titled "Court of Criminal Appeals Workload Declining under Judge Sharon Keller," Grits documented a caseload decline in Texas's highest criminal court and suggested that "CCA judges just don't work as hard as they used to."  Within 48 hours, Grits had received and posted this thoughtful response from a judge on the court.  This passage provide a flavor of the overall response:

The total number of petitions for discretionary review that were filed with the CCA in fiscal 2007 was 1,661.  The court has no control over that number.  Both defendants and the State have a statutory right to file such petitions.  The Court granted 149 petitions–that is, it agreed to hear 149 new discretionary cases in 2007.  By comparison, the total number of cases filed in the U.S. Supreme Court during its 2006 Term was 8,857, and it heard 78 civil and criminal cases.

Beyond my interest in the substantive specifics of this debate, it is great to see a serious reform advocate and a prominent judge engaging on these important topics directly in the blogosphere. 

Further, as the links below document, Scott is off to a flying start in 2008 covering a number of other important criminal issues dear to my heart:

• Partisan labels provide little guide for identifying criminal justice reformers
• Federal corruption investigation includes Harris County Jail contracts among targets
• Clergy seeking to respond to violent crime should look to restorative justice
• More on what clergy can do to respond to and reduce violent crime