Author: mopress

Read an expanded version of this story at The Rag Blog

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of next week Texas plans three lethal injections in a row. And in each case, there are troubling questions.

On Tuesday, Larry Swearingen is scheduled to be executed for a crime that probably took place while he was in jail. Scott Henson reviews the facts at Grits for Breakfast.

* * *

On Wednesday, Virgil Martinez is scheduled to be killed for shooting to death an ex-girlfriend, her friend, and two children. An awful crime. But Martinez was arrested at a mental hospital where he had admitted himself for hearing voices ordering him to kill, and jurors were never told that he suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). The Brazosport Facts published a good overview of the Martinez case in 2006.

According to federal court records accessed by the Texas Civil Rights Review, a magistrate judge concluded in 2005, and a federal district judge agreed in 2006, that the trial attorney for Martinez could have made better use of medical evidence about TLE and “post-seizure aggression.”

The federal documents further indicate that Martinez did exhibit “bizarre and at times violent behavior” during his time at a mental hospital.

But in 2007 a federal appeals panel argued that the trial attorney for Martinez was justified in not telling jurors that the defendant had a condition that could cause “savage and uncontrolled” aggressiveness. Such information, along with other facts about his history of aggression and jealousy, might persuade the jury that a death penalty would be most appropriate.

The appeals panel agreed with the magistrate and district judges that the lawyer did not understand the difference between violence during a seizure and “post-seizure” aggression. But, giving strict attention to the question that was put to them, the appeals panel refused to label this failure as a mark of attorney incompetence.

So it may still be the case that “post-seizure” aggression is a medical condition that affects Martinez, and which affected him at the time of the four killings. Setting aside the question about whether his lawyer was competent in selecting a defense strategy under the circumstances of the trial, the appeals record has produced a fact that is significant.

Perhaps we can still expect a stay in this case.

* * *

On Thursday, Ricardo Ortiz is scheduled to be killed by lethal injection because he was convicted of lethally injecting a cellmate with a triple dose of heroin.

The official account posted by Texas prison authorities says that Ortiz and two other cellmates cooked up three doses of heroin in an El Paso cell and that Ortiz injected all three doses into the victim who died of an overdose.

The Texas Attorney General adds that Ortiz committed the crime in order to prevent his cellmate “from testifying against him” about some bank robberies.

So here is what Texas officials tell us: they held a prisoner in an El Paso cell with someone who could testify against him. They allowed three doses of heroin into the cell, didn’t smell it while it was cooking, and didn’t notice a thing until the next cell count revealed a dead prisoner.

Are Texas authorities so into lethal injections that they’d set up the ideal conditions for one and then use their own malpractice as a foundation to practice another? — gm

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has posted their reasons for granting a stay of execution in the matter of Larry Ray Swearingen.

But the key phrase strikes us as worth quoting: “but for the alleged constitutional error of the State sponsoring the false testimony of Dr. Carter, no reasonable juror could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

In the words of the court:

At trial, [Harris County Medical Examiner] Dr. Carter testified that Trotter’s body had been left in the forest for approximately twenty-five days, which was consistent with the State’s theory that Swearingen murdered Trotter on
December 8, 1998, and left her body in the forest. In her affidavit, Dr. Carter does not address the correctness of her original testimony based on decomposition and fungal growth, but states that if she had been provided certain additional data, she would have testified that the findings of her autopsy
“are consistent with a date of exposure in the Sam Houston National Forest within fourteen days of discovery, and incompatible with exposure for a longer period of time.”

It’s a monetarist bubble that is popping under the global economy argues Asia Times economist Henry CK Liu, and throwing future debt into past debt is only going to result in a decade of hard times.

From Liu’s point of view, 2008 was a year mis-spent. First there was complacency and denial. Then, future debts were applied directly to past debts in a colossal waste of wealth and opportunity.

In the end, says Liu, the average taxpayer is being forced to assume “risks” made by financial elites. In return, the same elites will demand leaner capital budgets. The result? Average workers will soon be financing their own unemployment.

At some point, says Liu, emergency attention needs to turn to average worker wages. This is where the battle for economic health will be lost or won.

On the supply side of the argument, as we hear daily from CNBC, the “bailout” funds are being tossed onto assets that will some day recover their worth, keeping the tax burden low.

Since banks are now asking for even more billions, it seems sensible that taxpayers should demand assets in return for any money spent upon a banking institution. If worse comes to worst, banking functions should be nationalized.

Trillion dollar priorities are being reordered at a rapid rate these days, and workers are feeling the pain of being left outside. Yet as Henry George very sensibly observed, there is no good reason why busy people cannot be merged into an economy where each busy person helps to meet some other busy person’s needs.

Henry CK Liu puts it this way:

When unemployment of 6% of willing workers is accepted as structural in an economic system, the fault is with the system, just as if a hospital accepts an annual mortality rate of 6% of its curable patients as structural, the hospital’s operation needs to be reexamined. The fundamental flaw in market capitalism is its inherent failure to deliver full employment as a social goal.

The hard times are already hitting our Texas neighborhoods, and everyone who knows anything about it only promises that times will soon get harder.

Against the hard times we have voices that can demand: keep us working together for the things that all of us need. The average worker can afford to pay for a program like that.–gm

By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier<br
by permission

Although I am a sourpuss and think President Obama is beholden to much the same crowd as was ex-President Bush, there are many people anticipating that things will change for the better soon. And so there is a resurgence of progressive activity going on, and that is good.

One source of optimism is that Michael Chertoff is gone as Homeland Security head. Two weeks ago, after another disturbing factory raid by ICE in Bellingham, Washington, Janet Napolitano, the new DHS chief, said publically that she had not even been informed the raid was going to happen and that she was ordering a full review of it. “I want to get to the bottom of this,” she said. It is not a clear message, but it provides a glimmer of hope that the recent workplace raids, dramatically handcuffing and imprisoning working people, might be softened in favor of restarting discussions about comprehensive immigration reform.

Interestingly, Napolitano also sent the Rio Grande Valley a signal last month. When Brownsville’s city commissioners had been pressured by Homeland Security to put up more border fencing right in the middle of an area that the city had planned for development, Napolitano stepped in, saying that she was not aware that a deadline had been given to the city and that she wanted to reconsider some of these projects. How far she will go is a mystery, but recent events have provided some hope.

Another sign of hope is that President Obama seems more favorable to labor organizing, and a press release I saw from a local uni*n group quotes Obama that labor is not “part of the problem but…part of the solution.”

Since I have not reported anything on labor recently, let me do that now.

Several weeks ago I reported attending an interesting anti-NAFTA event held by the Southwest Workers (SWU), which is based in San Antonio but also does work here in the Valley. SWU has started an organizing effort in Edinburg, trying to reach the school district’s bus drivers, cafeteria workers and other low income employees. I phone-interviewed organizer Anayanse Garza.

Braune: The SWU is trying to reach workers in Edinburg, but the district is balking. Is that correct?

Garza: Yes, we already have members, but we want more. But the ECISD (Edinburg School District) has been uncooperative. About a month ago, an assistant superintendant yelled at us, saying that if it were up to him there would be no uni*ns allowed. After we made his comments public, we had a series of meetings.

Braune: You certainly should have the right to organize.

Garza: Certainly, and we feel that the workers are being given false information and it is having an intimidating effect. Some are being told what we are doing is illegal. Some are being told it is against ECISD policy to be part of the SWU. Actually, it goes against ECISD policy to discourage us from getting members.

Braune: I know you had a rally in front of the school board last Tuesday night. What was your message there?

Garza: We were trying to inform the board about our continuing problems. We have met with a couple of board members but not with the whole board, and we have not spoken, even after about a month of this dispute, with the head of the school board. One of our SWU representatives and one of the bus drivers spoke at the public testimony session last night while the rest of us were rallying with signs outside. We told them that we want to have a meeting and that we have been trying to schedule a way to work out the problems. But so far today we have not gotten a call from them.

Braune: Your organization has experience with this sort of organizing; I take it what you immediately want is a fair opportunity to meet with the workers.

Garza: Yes, and we are surprised at the problems we are facing. The school district workers have mandated lunch and break time, and they discourage employees from leaving the campuses. So there are lunch rooms and meeting rooms where the workers congregate. We have simply asked that we can meet with them at the breaks on occasion. Part of the disinformation is that we want to interrupt the work time, which is not true. We simply want to visit during the breaks.

Another bit of disinformation is that we are demanding that we can just walk into the schools at any time. That is ridiculous. We would sign in at the desk like all other legitimate visitors. In other districts where we have members, we are able to meet with the workers in an orderly way with no problem.

We hope the ECISD School Board will hear us so that we may work together to correct these issues and help our schools, our families, and the community of Edinburg prosper as a whole.

Braune: Thanks for your work and the interview. Keep us informed how it is going.