Pubdate: Sun, 20 Feb 2000 Source: Houston Chronicle (TX) Copyright: 2000 Houston Chronicle Contact: Viewpoints Editor, P.O. Box 4260 Houston, Texas 77210-4260 Fax: (713) 220-3575 Website: http://www.chron.com/ Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html Authors: David Jones And Mike B. Charlton Note: Jones, a Houston attorney, was the Democratic nominee for Harris County district attorney in 1984. Charlton, also an attorney, is the former chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party. Also: Our newshawk writes: "This will probably be of dubious interest to those of you outside of Harris County, but seemed worth posting if only because David is now a member of the Board of Directors of the DPFT." OK, we agree that it may be off topic, but will make an exception. The Drug Policy Forum of Texas is among the most active of state based DPR organizations. DPFT also has the oldest and one of the largest state based email discussion lists - which does much to bring the DPFT members and city chapters together. See: http://www.mapinc.org/DPFT/ WITH NOTHING TO LOSE, TEXAS DEMS SHOULD VOTE GOP On March 14, we will both vote in the Republican Primary. Though we have been committed to the Democratic Party for the last 30 years, we have found purposes greater than partisanship to guide us this year. As practitioners in a criminal justice system that is terribly flawed and that is, at times, often a threat to basic issues of fundamental fairness, we must vote Republican in the Harris County district attorney and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals primary races. We hope other Democrats and independents will follow. Waiting until November may be too late. The Harris County and Texas statewide Democratic primary ballot is empty. Republicans hold every major statewide office and Harris County's judiciary is solidly Republican. Virtually all of these officeholders will run unopposed in November. Our Democratic Party has been vanquished, at least until Texans discover the threat to justice that exists under the present political arrangement. A similar dilemma for Republican voters existed in Texas prior to their party's surge in the late 1970s and early '80s. With no candidates to choose from in their primary, conservatives and Republicans frequently voted in Democratic primary races. No doubt this conservative influence delayed the Democratic Party's emergence as a party more closely tied to its national leadership and its progressive legacy. However, with the election of Gov. Bill Clements in 1978 and Ronald Reagan to president in 1980, the Republican Party reconfigured Texas' electorate. A two-party state was born. At least until the total collapse of the Democratic Party as a competitive political institution in the mid-1990s. In the criminal justice system in Texas, this new political environment spawned a one-party state ideology and the merger of prosecutorial and judicial political interests. In Harris County, a Republican prosecutor's office has trained, developed and helped elect all but one of 22 felony court judges. To get the Republican nomination for judge of the highest criminal state appellate court, a candidate's credentials must include prior service as a prosecutoor. Due process, the presumption of innocence and even the Bill of Rights are secondary concerns. The consequences of a politicized judiciary staffed by former prosecutors should be frightening enough standing alone, but look at the actual damage to our state. We are the Western world's leading killer of its people. Our incarceration rate trails only corruption-prone Louisiana and our prison population is second only to California -- a much larger state. We build prisons rather than schools and we fund them better. Carla Faye Tucker's execution proved that there is no clemency process in Texas. Moreover, Harris County is third in the nation in the number of death row executions. Convictions have been upheld even though the lawyers slept through trial. Convictions are routinely upheld even though court-appointed attorneys refuse to provide even minimal representation in a large number of cases. A Houston Chronicle expose last year documented that the poor accused are more likely to go to jail or prison than the well-off who go home more often or see a probation officer. A PBS investigative report last month titled The Case for Innocence, showcased the inequities of Texas justice. Roy Criner is serving 99 years for rape, despite being cleared by DNA testing -- twice, once by the nationally reputed forensic lab, CellMark and once by the crime lab of the Texas Department of Public Safety. In an opinion by Judge Sharon Keller of that court, the Republican-dominated Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Criner had not sufficiently demonstrated his innocence to justify a new trial. Somehow, more was required to prove innocence. Judge Keller impugned the integrity of the 16-year-old victim by suggesting she was promiscuous on the basis of a letter written to a girlfriend that she liked sex. The show could have been titled The Case for Injustice. Few of us, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, can imagine a more Kafkaesque nightmare than to be innocent and incarcerated for the rest of their lives and to realize that there is nothing we can do about it, that no court will listen to our pleas and our evidence, to know that even with the modern science of DNA technology, innocent and wrongfully convicted persons have simply no chance. These are but a few of the horrors of a Texas justice system that can no longer be tolerated by decent people. Fortunately for those of us who want to register our opposition to such madness there is an option. We can vote for a new Harris County district attorney in the Republican primary. Likewise, several judges of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, including the one who was a national disgrace on TV, have serious opposition in the GOP primary. All voting citizens, Democrat and Republican alike, should review carefully the credentials of those who wield such powers and who are capable of doing such harm. Our votes could make a difference. Until competition is restored in Texas by an energized Democratic Party, justice commands that we do so. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake