Joyce Ann Brown, R.I.P.

I'm informed that Joyce Ann Brown, one of Texas' earliest and most vocal exonerees whose case received national attention, has passed away. Grits is sorry to hear that, she was an iconoclast and an impassioned and outspoken advocate for justice. She and I sometimes disagreed on priorities or strategic approaches, but I respected her.

See here and here for background on Joyce Ann's false conviction and pre-DNA exoneration in 1990, spearheaded by the intrepid Centurion Ministries.

For many years, a lot of folks treated Brown's case as an outlier. After dozens of Texas DNA exonerations re-framed the debate around innocence, however, it's clear in hindsight her story was more prototype than aberration. She was a brave, passionate fighter and I'm proud to have known her.

See below a picture of Joyce Ann with Elizabeth Ramirez of the San Antonio Four in April at a screening of a documentary on that case in Dallas.

Photo via Mike Ware

MORE: From the Dallas News, and an editorial praising Brown and other exonerees who have fought for improvements in the system. AND MORE: Here's an extensive obituary/remembrance at the New York Times.

R.I.P., Emmett Solomon

Emmett Solomon, a long-time TDCJ chaplain and founder of the Restorative Justice Ministries Network, a well-regarded clearinghouse and advocate for Texas prison ministries, passed away this week in Huntsville. He was a gentle soul, a good man, and will be missed. See the Huntsville Item for an extended obituary and details on Saturday's memorial service.

Remembering Sputnik

I just received word that one of the most eclectic but effective public interest lobbyists in the state - Sputnik, founder and state chair of the Texas Motorcycle Rights Association - passed away at 5:30 am this morning."Please remember his wife, Gwen, their family, friends and the biker community in prayer in the loss of this man who served bikers tirelessly in the fight for our rights and freedoms," said the brief email notice. "Funeral arrangements will be announced."

Sputnik had over the years developed personal access to the most influential people in the capitol, with the ability to garner meetings with the Lt. Governor, Speaker and committee chairs that were frequently the envy of his allies. At the same time, though he knew how to play the insider game consummately, he portrayed himself as virtually an outlaw presence at the capitol, an image enhanced by his trademark mohawk, leather vest, missing appendages, and the word "Free" tattooed across his forehead. Most importantly, his base was large and well-organized, as demonstrated by Biker Day at the Lege when riders converge on Austin from all over the state for a lobby day preceding an annual weekend of partying.

My favorite Sputnik story from my own limited contacts with him over the years came during the push in 2005 to allow Texans to legally carry guns in their personal vehicles, a bill which never resulted in the predicted spike in road-rage deaths that naysayers direly anticipated. Sputnik believed carrying a gun was a constitutional right and that, for example, requiring a concealed carry permit turned that "right" into a "privilege" which could be then be taken away at the government's whim. I'll never forget him telling then-Chairman Terry Keel and the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee that he'd carried at least one gun wherever he went since he was nine years old, and that if he expected trouble he carried two! Pure genius. What's more, he announced, "I'll do that forever." (See his testimony here beginning at the 6:52:50 mark; FWIW, my own testimony on the bill immediately followed his.)


Sputnik was an unsung Texas hero and an American original. The capitol won't be quite the same without him.

Former capital litigator Bob Walt passes away

A reader lets me know via email that:

Regardless of your opinion of the Texas death penalty, one of the prime movers in the development of Capital punishment in Texas died on Friday. Anyone who has been involved for more than 10 years in Capital litigation in Texas can testify as to Bob’s contribution towards establishing the current system of Capital punishment.

He was also the nephew of the legendary Marine hero, General Lew Walt.

He was a fantastic and talented attorney, as well as being one hell of a nice guy.

You might want to open this up.

And so we do. Said a brief obituary in the Statesman:

Former assistant state attorney general Bob Walt, who once headed the state's capital litigation division, died Friday of cancer. He was 61.

Walt, who also worked as a lawyer at the Dallas County district attorney's office and the Texas Department of Insurance, was married to Kathy Walt, a longtime aide to Gov. Rick Perry.

Walt gave up the ghost after an extended battle with cancer, according to Jason Embry. His contributions to death penalty jurisprudence stemmed from his stint as assistant attorney general under Jim Mattox and Dan Morales handling capital litigation. That position frequently put him in the national spotlight, particularly during the Karla Faye Tucker case and on the losing end of the Johnny Paul Penry litigation, in which the US Supreme Court required special jury instructions before allowing the execution of the mentally retarded - a setback that forced resentencing of numerous capital defendants and whose impact reverberates to this day. (Years later, SCOTUS outright banned execution of the mentally retarded.)

My condolences go out to the family.

Judge William Wayne Justice, RIP 1920-2009

Having grown up in Tyler, the passing of the late, great federal Judge William Wayne Justice last week hit very close to home.

For readers of this blog, Judge Justice will be best known as the jurist who virtually controlled the Texas prison system for nearly two decades in the aftermath of the infamous Ruiz v. Estelle litigation. And just to put it out there, with 20/20 hindsight, it's easy to see that in that case, Judge Justice was right and all of his myriad critics were wrong. One need only look to California to see exactly where the state of Texas' prison system would be today if not for Judge Justice - segregated, overcrowded, and with its public policy enslaved to myriad special interests.

For a while Judge Justice was an unwelcome thorn in the side of state prison officials, to be sure, but as it turns out, the old saying is true that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In the decades since Ruiz was decided, Texas' prison population exploded. But thanks to Judge Justice, our prison system actually maintained a more professional, modern approach than in California during the massive recent expansion witnessed in both states. Now the Golden State is having to make very similar changes to those Judge Justice ordered in Ruiz, but they must do so with a prison population of 170,000 inmates; when Ruiz was decided, Texas had closer to 30,000 locked up.

Justice has already been the subject of a book-length biography and numerous obituaries have recounted episodes from his life's work, so I won't reiterate his judicial accomplishments here. I've had several friends who clerked for him who could do a much more able job of that task, so I won't attempt it for fear of embarrassing myself. But as a Tylerite, I should comment on the intense, often irrational hatred he endured while he lived and judged there.

In Tyler, Justice was held personally accountable by the public not just for this or that ruling someone disliked but as an anthropomorphic symbol of the cultural sea change that took place in America from the civil rights movement going forward. People despised him, frequently for things he actually had nothing to do with, or else for settlements by litigating parties that were reached in his court but which he did not craft.

Bill Hobby once said of Judge Justice that the best kind of scapegoat is one you can't do anything about - like a federal judge with a lifetime appointment. Justice became a perfect foil for Tylerites in the culture wars of the post-desegregation era. That part of East Texas was settled by descendants of the Confederacy who fled to the Texas frontier to escape Union occupation after the Civil War. (The Smith County Judge during most of my years growing up was a descendant of John C. Calhoun.) Though its demographics are changing now due to an influx of Dallas-area retirees and a Latino working class, during that pre-GOP era, Tyler's politics were dominated by folks who ultimately became "Reagan Democrats," shifting partisan allegiances largely as a result of the GOP's successful "southern strategy" - people who a generation earlier might have been identified in Texas as "Shivercrats." And for the most part, that group hated Judge Justice with a passion normally reserved for black folks who rape white women.

Justice's house near Bergfeld Park in Tyler was the first place I ever saw electronic surveillance cameras, which were installed because he received frequent and occasionally credible, physical threats. (I couldn't swear to it, but my recollection is that the surveillance cameras at Justice's house predated the first ones I ever saw at local banks.) I can vividly remember after Judge John Wood was murdered in San Antonio, Tylerites openly predicting of Judge Justice: "He's next." Others might turn tail and run in the face of that kind of animosity, but Justice was from there - he was an Athens native - and with a calm, professorial demeanor he withstood every attack with what outwardly seemed like aplomb, though I'm sure it was personally tough for him and his family.

What I remember most about Judge Justice from my childhood in Tyler, though, wasn't the animosity toward him from the public but the respect afforded him in my own own household, where my father was a workaday corporate defense attorney practicing frequently in his court. Notably, though my father and Justice came from ideologically very different places, my Dad would never let others - particularly non-attorneys - run Justice down in his presence, even when I was young. My Dad has told me many times that he admired Justice for being smart, respectful of the law, always well prepared, and most importantly, he always knew he'd get a fair trial in Justice's court, no matter who his client was. I can tell you for sure: A judge couldn't get much higher praise from my old man.

Vaya con Dios, Judge Justice. Texas is a better place for the lifetime of public service you devoted to her.

R.I.P. Jim Mattox, 1943-2008

James Albon "Jim" Mattox held many jobs in politics over the years dating all the way back to his election to the Texas House in 1972 as one of the "Dirty Thirty." But most folks remember him as Texas' last, honest-to-God liberal Attorney General, a post in which he served from 1982-1990. Mattox passed away yesterday at age 65. Ron DeLord of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas rightly told the Statesman that Mattox and Ann Richards, who died in 2006, are "probably the last of that last generation of Yellow Dog Democrats and people that were just bigger than life."

See Mattox's career recalled at Capitol Annex, the Dallas News, and the Houston Chronicle.

Roy Mersky, RIP

Claire Osborn has a nice and well-deserved obituary in the Austin Statesman for the late great Roy Mersky, who ran the UT-Austin law library since before I was born. Osborn writes:

Roy Mersky was a giant in his field who made the University of Texas law library one of the best in the nation, friends and colleagues said. Along the way, he taught worldwide, wrote prolifically and compiled a résumé more than 40 pages long.

"He was probably the most famous law librarian in the history of legal education," said Larry Sager, dean of the University of Texas School of Law.

Mersky, 82, died Tuesday at an Austin hospice. The director of the UT Tarlton Law Library had lymphoma and injured himself in a fall days before his death, his colleagues said.

Mersky had a "ruthless" determination to provide "absolutely magnificent" service to all library users, Sager said. "We may never see a heroic figure like Roy again."

Mersky, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, was interested in fighting for civil rights and religious freedom, UT President William Powers Jr. said. "He saw the law as a vehicle for doing that."

Mersky built an extensive collection of legal research and rare books at the library, Powers said.

Mersky also established a system so that each law school faculty member had a librarian to help with research, Powers said.

"I cannot imagine the profession without him. ... He was a legend," said Taylor Fitchett, director of the law library at the University of Virginia and a friend of Mersky's for 30 years. A book that Mersky helped write, "The Fundamentals of Legal Research," is the bible of legal research, she said.

Mersky, who was married with three children, became director of the library in 1965 after receiving three degrees at the University of Wisconsin, including a law degree. He pushed the people he trained at the library to teach and publish so that they got top jobs across the country, said Bob Berring, a law professor at the University of California-Berkeley.

The Tarlton Library has long been a gem for legal and political researchers, and more than most other university law libraries it's been a leader in putting useful information online. I only met Professor Mersky a couple of times (he once helped me as a background source on a story), but I knew enough from those encounters to say he was more than just a librarian, a teacher and a scholar, he was an unsung Texas hero. Probably no one will ever know the full extent of his quiet contributions. We may mourn his passing, but should also celebrate a life well lived.

RELATED: Roy Mersky Remembered.

El Paso's Sheriff Leo Samaniego, R.I.P.

Spare months after announcing his retirement, long-time El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego (see his pdf bio prepared by El Paso County) passed away yesterday, succumbing to cancer that had not been previously disclosed. While this blog disagreed with Samaniego on certain policies (particularly his desire for the local Sheriff to enforce immigration laws), by all accounts he was a man of integrity, an old-school cop who acted on what he believed in rather than just talk about it. In choosing politicians, I've learned from bitter experience to prefer pols with integrity who may disagree with me to spineless ones who say what I want to hear, and Samaniego, to my mind, always fell in the former category. El Paso was lucky to have him, and I hope his family and friends will accept Grits' bloggerly condolences as they honor the Sheriff and a full life devoted to public service.

R.I.P. Victor Montano: Houston graffiti artist

A Houston graffiti artist was killed while being chased by a police officer in New Orleans (I'd linked to a clip about the incident at the end of this post).

The photo at left from the Times Picayune is the piece he was working on when he was interrupted, beginning the chain of events that ultimately killed him. Dirty Third Streets, a Houston blog focused on graffiti and street art, lamented the tragedy:

Sounds like it was an accident. But also sounds like it most definitely did not have to happen the way it did.

Here’s a photo of the kid’s work, courtesy of Zudokato. If anyone knows of any other pieces around town, hit me up so I can run and snap a photo.

Sad day. Sad day, indeed.

I agree it sounds like an accident, but I also think that the case suggests possible policy changes that might have prevented it. Here's a synopsis of what happened from the Times Picayune:

Victor Montano from Houston had been in the New Orleans area for about two weeks, Kenner Police Chief Steve Caraway said Friday.

An East Jefferson Levee District police officer caught the boy spraying graffiti on the floodwall Thursday about 4 p.m. along the floodwall south of Vintage Drive. ...

"When he saw the police officer approaching, the male took off running," Kenner Police Chief Steve Caraway said Thursday.

The officer followed in his Levee District sport utility vehicle, and it appeared that the youth was going to jump a fence, Caraway said.

As the officer's vehicle followed, the youth tripped and fell in front of the truck, which hit him.

What a tragedy. I have several questions. None of them are meant to be accusatory, I'm just seeking to draw lessons from the event.

First, I mentioned recently that many cities were giving over certain public spaces to graffiti artists as a concession to keep graffiti out of areas that harm businesses and neighborhood culture. Aren't storm drains and flood walls precisely the kind of public space where it doesn't really matter if the wall is blank or painted? Perhaps consideration should be given to turning such areas into graffiti-friendly spaces .

More to the point, is stopping the activity worth risking the kind of worst case outcome experienced here? I don't think so. If it's really that important to keep the wall clean, the Graffitibuster truck is the way to go. Developing capacity to powerwash off graffiti pleases businesses and discourages taggers who's goal is to place graffiti where, over time, in the words of a Dirty Third commenter (see below), they'll still be "going strong." Rapid response cleanup eliminates incentives. Giving graffiti artists substantial public space adds a carrot to the stick.

Something else comes to mind here: New Orleans is in a full-blown public safety crisis, short on officers, jail space, public defenders, you name it. The murder rate there is the highest in the country and then some, making the bloodiest regions of Latin America look tame by comparison. Why expend resources chasing this guy? Can officers exercise no cost benefit analysis or discretion at all?

I don't blame the officer, I'm sure he did exactly what he was trained to do. But that training and departmental policy led to a terrible outcome, so perhaps, with 20/20 hindsight, there's a better way to handle such matters.

I don't know all the answers, but this case shows the stakes are sometimes higher than just who does jail time or what's written on the walls. In fact, this reminds me to remind readers. Never, ever run from police. I don't care what is your reason or whether you've got a gun or drugs on you. Don't run! A lot of people (including those who run, police officers, and also innocent bystanders) die or get seriously injured in police chases (as evidenced in this instance, even on foot).

Plus, as comedian Chris Rock puts it, if an officer has to chase you, he's usually bringing an ass-whipping with him. That's especially true for young people. Running invites a worst outcome - this is just one example among many.

For those in Houston, another Dirty Third Streets commenter and fellow Houston tagger suggested where to see Mr. Montano's extant work, declaring:

man this is sad. most of his throw ups were in great spots and some are still going strong. i mostly see his work on highway 6 and clay road and some on barker cypress, and west little york going to barker (look up, its on a building top). ill try to get some more pics too. sad day indeed.

If I see more pictures of Montano's work (both of the above items are his, via Dirty 3rd), I'll add them to the end of this post as an update.

R.I.P. Daryl Janes

I hope when I die somebody says of me, as Harvey Kronberg said of Daryl Janes: "He was a writer with printer's ink in his blood; words were his business."

I've still got a big stack of old copies of The Daryl Herald - the publication he and Daryl Slusher operated in the '80s - in a box somewhere that I never could bring myself to throw out. I hadn't seen him in a few years, but Harvey nailed it. Janes was a writer's writer, and if he were a few years younger he'd have made a helluva blogger. I was sorry to hear of his passing.

R.I.P. Judge William Steger

I didn't know until I heard Rep. Bryan Hughes' resolution read yesterday on the floor of the Texas House that Eastern US District Judge William Steger passed away last year at the age of 85. Here's the House memorial resolution passed in his honor. I met Judge Steger a few times growing up, but my attorney father tried many cases in Steger's courtroom in Tyler and always spoke of him with the greatest respect.

I knew Steger was a Republican but I certainly didn't know (until reading the resolution) that he was the Republican nominee for Texas Governor in 1960! Indeed, in retrospect his candidacy was very important for Texas Republicans, since it earned Texas the right to have its first ever GOP presidential primary in 1964, the resolution informs us. That's the year that Karl Rove, Pete O'Donnell, and other future prominent Texas political figures all cut their teeth in Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign, but they wouldn't have gotten the chance to have a Republican presidential primary here that year it weren't for William Steger. That makes him a more important character than I understood in the history of the conservative movement in Texas. (See his Wikipedia entry.)

Despite that partisan background, Steger came from a generation of jurists for whom party labels weren't nearly as important as the law, precedent, and respect for the integrity of the system that's so often lacking in some Texas courts. Judge Steger was respected by everyone I've known who ever spoke to me about him, and I was sorry to hear of his passing.