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.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake