The big win
Thursday, January 20, 2005
By Tim Sullivan
As a teenager in Sài Gòn in the 1970s, Hubert Võ envisioned himself one day becoming a lawmaker in South Việt Nam’s democratic government. But the country’s fall in 1975 to communists vetoed that idea.
Fortunately, there was a place called Texas.
Full Story at Nguoi Viet Online (California)
By Greg Moses
Texas Civil Rights Review
Indymedia Austin / NorthTexas
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund is ready to take its school funding case to the Texas Supreme Court says attorney David Hinojosa. But MALDEF is worried that the legislature is once again failing to meet several school-funding standards already set by the courts.
On Friday the Supreme Court announced that it would take probable jurisdiction of the school funding case, setting a hundred-day calendar for pre-hearing briefs. MALDEF had resisted moving the case to the Supreme Court until an Austin trial court strengthened its ruling on funding equity, but now Hinojosa says MALDEF is not expecting to hear anything more from the lower court.
“We’re ready to go forward,” said Hinojosa when contacted by telephone at his San Antonio office. “We feel we have precedent to support our case, and if the court will apply the facts to that precedent, it will rule in our favor and in favor of the children of Texas.”
Meanwhile, Hinojosa says that the legislature is trying to answer “constitutional questions with political answers” and is therefore missing an opportunity to directly address solutions that are needed.
“MALDEF would be more than pleased to assist any of these legislators to craft a finance plan that will make it possible to never, never file another lawsuit,” says Hinojosa. But he doesn’t see such a plan in the works yet.
“It seems simple to put 100 percent of Texas students inside a single equitable system that offers equitable and adequate funding for everyone,” said Hinojosa Tuesday evening. “But the legislature is answering constitutional questions with political answers, and that’s where the problems occur.”
Hinojosa says the school funding plan now being considered by the legislature would increase the total percentage of students included in a fair system. But the smaller percentage of students left out will result in more dramatic disparities between the richest and poorest districts.
“The equity gap will grow,” says Hinojosa, “giving some students so much more of an advantage. Yet these are public schools we’re talking about.”
“The legislative plan is lacking in many elements,” says Hinojosa. “It is not addressing root problems identified by the trial court, especially when it comes to the inadequacy of state funding for students who are bilingual or economically disadvantaged.”
“And this plan doesn’t even include facilities, which are grossly inadequate and grossly inefficient,” added Hinojosa. “The plan fulfills a legacy in the legislature of failing to fulfill the educational needs of the children of Texas.”
March 13, 2005
After eleven years as a continuous student of the
law in the dungeons of America, and a graduate of one
of the most constitutionally oriented, conservative
Texas law schools (Baylor School of Law), I am unable
to prepare the necessary post-conviction remedy defense
for the re-opening of my federal case.
By administrative policy of the Bureau of Prisons, we are only
entitled to telephone communications of 300 minutes per month, or the
equivalence of ten minutes per day. At times, due to the importance of
the legal matter in which I am involved, I have used my entire 300
minutes in the first two weeks of the month, thus leaving me without
communications with the free world.
I ask that every attorney and/or professor
and scholar of law to place themselves in my present
position, and immediately react to the truthful and factual
matter of the application of one’s constitutional rights
under the Constitution of the United State of America.
The only legal reaction to my present constitutional law
situation is that it is in violation of the Due Process
Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of
the United States of America.
Presently, I am 62 years of age, and have been
imprisoned in one of the harshest core penitentiaries
(Leavenworth USP) for the last eleven years, facing the
essence — the actuality of a death sentence (life sentence
without parole). It is extremely difficult for me to
accept the violations and actions of the prison administrative
policies on the limitation of my right to counsel and my
constitutional right to prepare my defense in accordance
with all my constitutional rights within the practice and
rules of the federal courts.
I am not a criminal. I am a Mexicano political prisoner
of the 21st century. In order to present to the appropriate
jurisdictional federal court why my case should be reopened,
I must communicate by phone, in person, and through
correspondence. I must communicate with different attorneys,
investigators, politicians, constitutional defense rights
committees, legal constitutional professors, scholars,
and different law student associations involved in the
violation of human rights.
I am not requesting the
determination of my present legal position. I am demanding
that the laws and rights from the written constitution of
this country be applied to my case. Without a doubt, if
I were allowed to prepare an adequate defense with
the fulfillment of my constitutional rights, then I would
become a free man. Until the Bureau of Prisons or the
Federal Courts of the United States permit me to communicate
using unlimited telephone time, my constitutional rights
are in violation at this very minute of the night.
In other
words – to make it clearer – an injustice of the law applies
to my life every day and night in this mode of darkness.
Americans must realize that I am not confined in Iraq, but
here in the United States of America. Or am I?
I will immediately share further information pertaining
to this illegal cloud of injustice on my life…
Sent by Irma Muniz via email. March 23.
For more on Ramsey see: http://freeramsey.com/
With Republican lawyers checking a nearby room for files of new evidence Thursday, and a Texas Legislative Master of Inquiry saying that the legislature may take an interest in the “total number of illegal ballots” the election victory of Houston Representative Hubert Vo was narrowed but not overturned in the first day of a hearing that will continue into Friday.
Although official discovery period for the unusual legislative challenge ended on Jan. 15*, Republican attorneys produced 22 new depositions this week and in some cases held up the Thursday inquiry while they checked a nearby room to see if fresh depositions were there on file.
In the hearing that lasted until 7:30 Thursday evening, specially appointed Master of Inquiry for the election contest, Will Hartnett (R-Dallas) sifted through some 50 allegations of illegal voting, ruling informally that two of the cases were illegal ballots for the Republican challenger, while 12 were deducted from Vo’s side.
Those numbers were added to an initial roster of about 80 cases where lawyers for both sides agreed there were 36 illegal ballots cast for the Republican, 44 for Vo. At the end of the day a net 18 votes were deducted from Vo’s 33-vote election margin, narrowing the race, but not overturning it.
All rulings on Thursday were informal ones, with Harnett explaining his sense of the matter and inviting further arguments prior to his report which is expected next week.
Early in the day, Hartnett refused to admit tapes made by a polling firm hired to call alleged illegal voters and determine their vote. Vo attorney Larry Veselka of Houston argued that it would be difficult to authenticate the tapes and that often the questions were leading, with pollsters first asking: “Did you vote straight ticket Democrat?”
At one point in the hearing, Hartnett said the full report will go to the floor of the Texas House of Representatives. At that point, he warned, lawmakers may be interested in the total number of illegal ballots cast as they decide whether to seat Vo’s opponent or call a new election.
Note: *Date corrected.
MoPress 