TX Cop Killer Executed:  A Texas man who was convicted in the 2007 murder of a Texas Parks and Wildlife Game Warden was executed Wednesday.  Bob Price of Breitbart reports that 35-year-old James Garrett Freeman was sentenced to death by lethal injection for killing 34-year-old Game Warden Justin Hurst.  Hurst had spotted Freeman hunting at night from his truck when a high-speed chase ensued, ending when Freeman emerged from his disabled vehicle and mercilessly fired several rounds from a .357 Sig caliber pistol and an AK-47 at Hurst and other officers.Hurst, a 12-year veteran of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, was the 18^th Texas game warden killed in the line of duty since the position was created in 1895. Freeman is the second person to be executed in the state this year.

Criminals, not Cops, Most Threaten Black Lives:  A report by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research contradicts claims made by the Black Lives Matter movement, finding that a higher percentage of whites and Hispanics are killed by police and the bigger threat to blacks comes from violent criminals within their own communities.  Jose R. Gonzalez of CNS News reports that Manhattan senior fellow Heather Mac Donald found that four percent of black homicide victims are killed by police compared with 12 percent of white and Hispanic victims, while the number of blacks killed by other blacks is 90 percent.  The report concludes that the BLM movement "has been a counterproductive distraction from the real violence facing black communities: violence from criminals, not the police."

Jail Teacher Arrested for Helping Inmates Escape:  A jail teacher has been arrested for allegedly assisting three inmates escape from a California jail last week.  Gillian Flaccus and Robert Jablon of the AP report that 44-year-old English as a second language teacher Nooshafarin Ravaghi, part of the inmate program since 2014, is believed to have developed a relationship with the probable mastermind of the breakout, 37-year-old Hussein Nayeri, and provided him and two other inmates, 43-year-old Bac Duong and 20-year-old Jonathan Tieu, with Google maps to plot an escape route from the Orange County jail.  Whether her role may have been deeper is still being investigated, including whether she provided tools the inmates used to cut through the metal gate and rebar.  All three inmates were awaiting trial for violent crimes, such as torture and murder, when they managed an elaborate escape in which they crawled through plumbing tunnels, reached an unguarded section of the roof and rappelled down with bed linens.  One of them, Duong, was ordered deported to Vietnam in 1998, but never was. Update:  Duong has turned himself in.  The other two escapees are still at large.

Gov. Brown's Plan Will Affect Plea Bargaining:  Legal experts say that California Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed plan to give more inmates a chance for early release will likely diminish prosecutors' leverage in negotiating plea bargains.  Maura Dolan and Marisa Gerber of the LA Times report that a provision in Brown's proposal would allow for a parole hearing after inmates complete their sentences for their base crime, regardless of the inmate serving consecutive sentences or having sentencing enhancements, which will result in some loss of power for prosecutors in negotiating plea deals with defendants.  CJLF legal director Kent Scheidegger agrees with other legal experts that the plan is "dismantling a system that was carefully put together over time," and fears the defense bar may even try to use the measure to gut the three-strikes law.  "When we have a huge crime problem, we do something about it," he said.  "And when crime rates drop, people forget about it and we go back to old fallacies."