Episode 4 of Unforgotten: Riding Shotgun, with @michellepitcher.bsky.social, is out today wherever you find podcasts!
Read our preview of this true crime saga of hypnosis, the death penalty, and possible wrongful conviction:
The Observer is one of 5 outlets joining in the second year of ProPublica's local Texas Investigative Initiative: www.propublica.org/atpropublica...
If TX continues to install A/C at its current pace, it would take ~70 years for all inmates to have climate control, Judge Robert Pitman wrote in an order throwing out TDCJ's motion for summary judgment last week. 90,000 inmates don’t.
Plaintiffs are asking cells be kept b/w 65-85 degrees #txlege
From @michellepitcher.bsky.social and Free Range Productions ... "The Unforgotten: Riding Shotgun," a true crime podcast about potential wrongful convictions, hypnosis, and the death penalty.
Featured preview:
“They have no DNA. They have no fingerprints. They have no ballistics. They have no fibers—they have nothing that you would think of as objective evidence connecting Charles to this crime scene.”
We partnered with The Unforgotten to do a podcast! If you're interested in potential wrongful convictions, hypnosis, or the death penalty—or if you just want to go on a wild ride during your commute—check out ‘Riding Shotgun’ wherever you listen to podcasts. www.texasobserver.org/riding-shotg...
Behold, the Observer enters the 21st century -- with @michellepitcher.bsky.social and @wesferguson.bsky.social.
A podcast! www.texasobserver.org/riding-shotg...
In exciting news, Texas Observer Staff Writer @michellepitcher.bsky.social has co-won the Texas Institute of Letters’ short nonfiction award and Investigations Editor @liseolsen.bsky.social has won for best nonfiction book! Congratulations!
See the winners here:
Text block reading: In a letter filed with the court, Dr. Joseph V. Penn, the Director of Mental Health Services at the University of Texas Medical Branch, which manages care for inmates at the Wayne Scott Unit, described Mr. Thomas as one of the most impaired and complicated patients he has ever encountered. Dr. Penn’s letter states that Mr. Thomas’s mental illness is so intractable and severe that transferring him to Grayson County raises grave concerns of additional serious self-harm and psychotic deterioration. Dr. Penn explains: “despite his current antipsychotic and other psychotropic medication treatment regimen, he still has grandiose and paranoid delusions . . . and remains clinically fragile and at risk to decompensate.”
INBOX: Texas wants to decide if Andre Thomas is mentally competent to be executed. A doctor says he's not even well enough to go to the hearing.
I wrote in 2023 about Thomas, one of "the most mentally ill prisoners serving a death sentence in Texas history." www.texasobserver.org/andre-thomas...
Pitcher extensively covered complaints against this judge- now presumed DA elect. Many members of the #Dallas bar expressed concern- including about the time this judge had a staffer impersonate her on Zoom. @texasobserver.org www.texasobserver.org/who-judges-t... @michellepitcher.bsky.social
New from @michellepitcher.bsky.social: Last week, former Dallas County District Judge Amber Givens was fighting her sanctions for judicial misconduct before the Texas Supreme Court. Today, she’s the presumptive Democratic nominee and likely next district attorney for one of Texas’ biggest counties.
New from @michellepitcher.bsky.social: Without a clear frontrunner or heir apparent, the race is wide open. That leaves a big impending hole at the top of a prosecutor’s office that handles about 60,000 criminal cases a year.
The first officer to be tried over the botched police response to the 2022 elementary school shooting in Uvalde was acquitted yesterday. The whole trial has raised the question: How helpful are school police? www.texasobserver.org/uvalde-trial... - via @TexasObserver
New from @michellepitcher.bsky.social: Since 1999, the year of the Columbine shooting in Colorado, the federal government has devoted an estimated $1 billion to putting sworn police officers in schools.
But the efficacy of these officers remains unproven, especially in the case of mass shootings.
Drug deaths are rising in Texas prisons and state jails, and synthetic cannabinoids like K2 have become the primary killer. Jackie Wiley went into a state jail on a drug charge. He never made it out. www.texasobserver.org/state-jails-...
From @michellepitcher.bsky.social in our magazine: Between January 2020 and July 2025, at least 189 Texas prisoners died of drug-related causes—and each year through 2024 was deadlier than the last. In 110 cases, synthetic cannabinoids were likely involved.
#BestOf2025, from @michellepitcher.bsky.social: “The State of Texas makes every inmate seem like the most evil, horrible [person]. We demonize them, and we don’t see the trauma of people like Pam Perillo.”
New from @michellepitcher.bsky.social: Pam Perillo doesn’t celebrate the fact that she walked free after expecting to be executed. She has no explanation for why she was spared, except that “God must still have a lot of work to do.”
From @michellepitcher.bsky.social, in our magazine: Silence is not sacred at Alienated Majesty Books in Austin, where literary knowledge and loud live music go hand in hand.
The decision came after the CCA granted relief in the Andrew Roark case—which was strikingly similar to Roberson’s—last October.
The Court of Criminal Appeals has stayed Robert Roberson’s execution, sending his case back to a lower court for reconsideration. He was scheduled to be executed in less than a week.
Robert Roberson's attorney Gretchen Sween will not petition for clemency ahead of his scheduled Oct. 16 execution. "A quest for clemency would not right the wrong...It would only divert precious time and resources from the fundamental mission: obtaining a new trial for Robert at long last."
New @michellepitcher.bsky.social: Efforts to limit police transparency by shielding some complaints from public view have failed multiple times during the 2025 legislative season—most recently in the form of House Bill 15, which died this week.
“This is the most massive secrecy grab in Texas since the adoption of the Public Information Act.”
New today from @michellepitcher.bsky.social: A move to "standardize" police personnel files could have devastating consequences for transparency.
New from @michellepitcher.bsky.social: Jorge Renaud, became a social justice advocate after spending years incarcerated in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system. In his new poetry collection, out in May from Plancha Press, he trades in his megaphone for a pen.
Good question. The state had requested a specific date—it wasn’t the judge’s call.
“It doesn’t seem like anything is going to get resolved without a date.” -Judge Austin Reeve Jackson, who points out he doesn’t have the authority to weigh the merits of the case.
The judge ruled that the execution date will be set for October 16, 2025. #RobertRoberson
