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.