Terri Langford
Born in Oceanside, California. Naturalized Texan. Comes by her tough love of government honestly. She majored in it at the University of Texas. First courtroom stories were in the Atticus Finch-like Lowndes County courthouse in Valdosta, Georgia, where two months into that first job for the Jacksonville-based Florida Times Union, she found herself covering a quadruple murder. Eventually moved to Jacksonville, covering social services and began unpacking the conflicted rules of government social work and public housing redevelopment for readers. Joined the Associated Press in Dallas and worked there and in Houston covering some of the state's biggest trials and complicated legal issues including the Branch Davidian standoff with ATF agents and the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas as well as witnessing several state executions. Worked for the Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle, where she covered everything from airport security, civil courts and the 9/11 attacks to the strains of the Texas Child Protective Services system, the state's removal of more than 400 children from their polygamist parents in West Texas, the Allan Stanford Ponzi scheme trial and the world of Medicare fraud in Houston's private ambulance networks. Langford was named Texas Reporter of the Year in 2011 for her work on the connection between private ambulances in Houston and the non-regulated mental health clinics there. Before joining the Tribune in March 2014, she tried her hand at public radio, working for WNYC in Trenton, covering New Jersey government.
Recent Contributions
Gov. Rick Perry at the final keynote of TribFest on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014.
Gov. Rick Perry won't be making a Halloween court appearance after all. The Oct. 31 hearing that had been scheduled in Perry's criminal case has been rescheduled for Nov. 6 at 10 a.m., a court employee confirmed.
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Personal injury lawyer Thomas J. Henry of Corpus Christi, (bottom) is backing Democrat Nicholas "Nico" LaHood in the Bexar County district attorney's race against 16-year Republican incumbent Susan Reed (top)..
Thanks to a wealthy and generous personal injury lawyer, Democrat Nicholas LaHood is mounting a well-funded challenge in his bid to unseat 16-year Republican incumbent Susan Reed as Bexar County district attorney.
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Texas Gov. Rick Perry, left, and Judge Bert Richardson, right.
A judge ruled Monday that Gov. Rick Perry will have to appear at an Oct. 31 hearing related to his indictment. On that date, visiting Judge Bert Richardson said, he would take up two matters raised by the governor's legal team.
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photo illustration by: Todd Wiseman
A federal ruling that Texas' strict voter ID law discriminates against minority voters has kicked off a rapid-fire legal race over whether photo identification will be required on Election Day this November.
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A defiant Texas Governor Rick Perry speaks to supporters after his booking at the Travis County Courthouse on August 19, 2014.
Defense lawyers for Gov. Rick Perry have asked that a transcript of the grand jury witness testimony that led to his indictment be made in the event there was information provided that could prove his innocence.
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A Texas parole commissioner has been indicted for tampering with a government record after a lawyer complained that at least five inmates were denied parole after she falsely said they had refused to sit for required interviews.
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Gov. Rick Perry speaks to the media and supporters after being booked at the Travis County Justice Center on August 19, 2014.
Lawyers for Gov. Rick Perry on Friday requested that the indictment against the governor be dismissed, saying the special prosecutor in the case was never properly sworn in.
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photo by: Rodger Mallison / Fort Worth Star-Telegram
While a federal judge in Corpus Christi mulls whether the state's requirement to show photo ID to cast a ballot violates the Voting Rights Act, a judge on the highest criminal appeals court in Texas has sued the state over its voter ID law.
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Siding with a decision made a year ago by a lower appeals court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday refused to reinstate money-laundering convictions against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
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Texas Gov. Rick Perry, left, and Judge Bert Richardson, right.
The judge in Gov. Rick Perry's case ruled Friday that Perry does not have to appear at an Oct. 13 court hearing, according to the special prosecutor in the case. But that does not mean Perry has a pass to skip hearings.
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Gov. Rick Perry leaves the Blackwell-Thurman Justice Center in Austin after his booking on Aug. 19, 2014.
Michael McCrum, the special prosecutor who secured an indictment against Gov. Rick Perry in August, said he expected to reply in October to a challenge filed by Perry's legal team.
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Gov. Rick Perry speaks to the media and supporters after being booked at the Travis County Justice Center on August 19, 2014.
Gov. Rick Perry should not be excused from all hearings leading up to his felony trial, the special prosecutor in the criminal case said in a motion filed Wednesday.
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State senator Ken Paxton with supporters as he announces his win as the republican primary nominee for Attorney General on Tuesday, May 27, 2014.
The Travis County district attorney's office investigation into whether state Sen. Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for Texas attorney general, committed a crime when he violated the Texas Securities Act will not proceed until after the Nov. 4 election.
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photo by: Texas Department of Public Safety
This is a sample Texas Election Identification Certificate, available for those voters who do not have an acceptable form of photo ID such as a driver's license or a U.S. passport.
Texas' voter ID law was designed to thwart emerging minority voting power in the state and should be dropped, attorneys for the law's opponents said during closing arguments in a federal court on Monday.
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In 2004, Davontae Marcel Williams, on the left, was found starved to death. Lisa Ann Coleman, on the right, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday night for her role in the boy's death. If carried out, she would be the sixth woman to be executed in Texas since 1982.
UPDATED: A 38-year-old Arlington woman was executed Wednesday for the starvation death of her girlfriend’s son. Lisa Ann Coleman is the sixth woman to be executed in the state since 1982.
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