Author: mopress

Selected as top story for State News at Harvey Kronberg’s Quorum Report, Feb. 10.

Hartnett Moves Forward with Questions about Democratic Voter Registrations, Holds Back On Issues Concerning Republican Attorneys

A Texas Civil Rights Review Editorial
By Greg Moses

ILCA Online

The two months of discovery in this case show that very little about the November 2004 election in District 149 has not been examined. If anything, this contest has pulled back the carpet and allowed the master, the parties, and the Select Committee to sweep away the dust to allow an in-depth examination of the problems of conducting a modern election in a mobile urban society, while guaranteeing access to the ballot box for all and ensuring the integrity of elections. (p. 16)
–excerpt from report of Master of Discovery Will Hartnett in the Vo election contest

Master of Discovery Will Hartnett (R-Dallas) ruled Monday that after two months of thorough investigation, facts show that Hubert Vo still wins his election by 16 votes [we predicted 13].

Within hours of the report’s release, Talmadge Heflin withdrew his challenge, reports Kristen Mack of the Houston Chronicle.

While Hartnett did a great job protecting Vo’s right to a fair hearing, we wonder if voters’ rights have been equally well served. In particular, we are concerned about Hartnett’s efforts to minimize troubling practices of Republican attorneys who pursued this elusive contest for too long in too many questionable ways.

While Hartnett had no qualms forwarding some findings for further investigation, he confines other issues to footnotes, to be held in fine print so long as the Vo victory stands. But why are some issues worthy of further investigation right away, while other issues are either ignored or buried in dependent clauses? The answer seems to depend on whether the possible wrongdoing concerns Democratic voters or Republican attorneys.

To begin with the matter of Democratic voters, Hartnett writes that voters with Nigerian surnames were re-registered without their knowledge into a nearby house district that featured a candidate of Nigerian heritage. To his credit, Hartnett refused to rule that the voters had cast illegal ballots when they voted at home, despite the fact that their registrations were in technical violation of election laws.

It is also to Hartnett’s credit that he forwarded evidence concerning the attempted “deportation” of these voters for further investigation by the Harris County District Attorney and Voter Registrar.

But in matters concerning the actions of Republican attorneys, the Master acted less aggressively. He ignored completely his own significant observations that written depositions submitted by Republican attorneys had been apparently “assisted” and that official voter rolls had been “adjusted” as a direct consequence of Republican pressure on the Voter Registrar’s office. Why did Hartnett not encourage further investigation on these issues as well?

Furthermore, in a footnote discussion about professional ethics, Hartnett noted that Republican attorneys bore ethical responsibility for tapes of alleged illegal voters that had been recorded by a polling firm without first informing people that they were being recorded. While the practice of recording conversations without permission is not illegal in Texas, it may be an unethical practice for attorneys. And since the poll was conducted at the request of attorneys, Hartnett concedes in a footnote that the issue might be worth re-visiting in the event that the tapes would be used politically to support findings of a Vo defeat. But what about the outcome of the process makes the tape recordings more or less ethical? And why didn’t Hartnett refer this possibly unethical practice for further investigation?

On the question of voter records adjusted during the course of investigation, Hartnett ruled that in some cases the Harris County Voter Registrar had mistakenly affirmed a voter’s legality and had therefore correctly removed the voter following meetings with Republican lawyers. It remains to be seen, however, if every change in voter records secured by Republican attorneys during the challenge was sustained by the Master. And an important question remains open in any case: is it proper for partisan attorneys in an election contest to be affecting the legal status of voters while the contest is underway?

As for depositions on which Hartnett noticed at least two colors of ink and two kinds of handwriting, not a word about this appears in the Master’s record. Hartnett does mention in a footnote that some depositions were alleged by Vo attorneys to have come in after the discovery deadline. Because the report finds in Vo’s favor, Hartnett holds that alleged violations of discovery rules would have no relevance. For Hartnett, the matter of late depositions might become relevant again only if Vo’s election were overturned. But since the tardy depositions also included the irregular answers, the issue seems to remain safely buried so long as the Vo victory stands.

Again, on the question of depositions that were possibly forged in part, what about the practice of submitting forged evidence would not be illegal in the event that the evidence fails to produce its intended result? Doesn’t the very appearance of irregular depositions, submitted in an attempt to overturn an election, demand further investigation in its own right?

In a statement to the Houston Chronicle, Heflin attorney Andy Taylor said: “We made a political decision not to ask for the select committee to overrule Rep. Hartnett . . . I didn’t think that would be in the best interest of the parties or the House.”

Aside from the best interests of high-powered players in this drama, there are some citizens whose rights need tending, and they are the voters themselves. The process of this election investigation was offensive to voters and interfered with their rights in several ways: subjecting them to unauthorized taped conversations that were placed into public record, removing some voters from official rolls as a direct result of partisan influence, making public record and posting on the internet more than 260 names of suspected illegal voters along with many of their voting preferences, intruding on their right to cast secret ballots, and producing apparently forged evidence in an attempt to overturn an election.

The challenger in this election contest conducted his investigation under pre-text of looking for voter fraud, but then admitted that looking for fraud would have hampered his investigation. Now that the contest has been withdrawn for lack of merit, who will pursue the damage done to voters who were wrongfully bothered in wrongful ways?

We are very happy that Vo has finally been declared the winner, but we remain concerned about the damage done to voter rights in Houston, and we wonder if there is a nonpartisan authority that can properly defend them.

Link to the pdf file of Hartnett’s report

By Nick Braune

Anti-death penalty activity has increased in the Rio Grande Valley recently, led by The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty chapter in the Valley. And one key figure in the local TCADP is Sylvia Garza, a working class woman whose son is on death row after a problematic conviction in a high-profile multiple murder case back in 2002.

Garza’s son was 19 when he was convicted under the vicious “law of parties” statute in Texas, where anyone having anything to do with a chain of happenings in certain serious criminal cases can receive a maximum penalty. (Garza lobbied against the law of parties in the last legislative session and was shocked to find out how few legislators themselves were aware of the wide net cast by the statute.) Incidentally, there also remains considerable confusion about a “confession” Garza’s son gave the police. Sylvia and several women friends who are spouses or moms of death row inmates have been getting their word out well over the last few years, but with more effectiveness recently.

In early November, the local chapter organized a Valley-wide speaking tour for Juan Melendez, who spent 18 years on death row in Florida before he was released by the intervention of the national Innocence Project. Melendez’ visit clearly energized the local organizers, who had arranged for him to speak at two campuses of South Texas College, at some churches, and at high schools. Since the tour, the women in the chapter have continued vigils on execution days, have visited local legislators, and done other organizing.

Last weekend, Garza and the TCADP chapter were joined by Gloria Rubac from the Death Penalty Abolition Movement, who was visiting from Houston. They held a workshop in Spanish and one in English at the Fifth Annual People for Peace and Justice Gathering in Weslaco. They also maintained a literature table at the event, joining a good number of other progressive organizations in the Valley. (Over 200 people attended the annual gathering.) Speaking with this reporter over the phone afterwards, Garza reported that she was really pleased with how many people stopped over at their table, and how many indicated they wanted to help.

At speaking engagements Garza frequently tells groups that before her son was picked up and charged she remembers hearing the priest in church urging people to pray for the end to the death penalty, but it simply didn’t hit her. But she and the other moms in her circle here have done a lot of attentive praying since and have made their presence felt politically. “I used to think my voice could never be heard, but now I know it can be,” she told this reporter. And she said that the day before the Gathering she and the group went over to Harlingen for the Texas Forensic Science Commission meeting.

Because the Commission was hoping no one would attend if they held their meeting in remote Harlingen, they were surely disappointed that Garza and other concerned citizens turned up holding protest signs. Here is a quick report on the meeting and why it drew visitors.

The January 29 Forensic Science Commission meeting could have been important, had it been chaired properly. The Houston Chronicle writer, Rick Casey, reported the meeting, opening his coverage this way:

“Friday started badly for John Bradley, the Williamson County district attorney selected last fall by Gov. Rick Perry to ride herd over the troublesome scientists on the Texas Forensic Science Commission. His [Bradley’s] first official act of the morning was to violate the state’s open meeting law. Then the day got worse.”

Although the Innocence Project, a national organization which has now freed 250 people through DNA testing, had anticipated live-stream video coverage, an Austin-based documentary crew was not allowed to film the meeting. The crew called the Attorney General’s office, and the office sent a message to Bradley. An hour and a half into the meeting, someone signaled Bradley. He called for a ten minute break and readmitted the film crew.

The Commission meeting was tense. Bradley had been picked by Governor Perry to head the commission last September, Perry having high-handedly reorganized the commission after it had shown some independence. Because Perry has overseen more executions than any American governor, even surpassing George Bush’s previous ghoulish total, and because Republicans and Democrats have begun rethinking capital punishment across the nation recently, Perry is sensitive and wants to hide any embarrassments on the issue. And one clear embarrassment involves the 2004 execution of Todd Cameron Willingham.

Forensics in Texas has a bad reputation anyhow, but the commission meeting was particularly haunted by the Willingham case. When Bradley was installed as chair back in September, he canceled a meeting scheduled for three days later which was intended to discuss the Willingham case and he did not call another meeting until the January 29 session in Harlingen. The cancelled September meeting was going to discuss the fact that an arson expert, hired by the commission, had verified charges that Willingham was falsely convicted.

Rick Casey of the Chronicle said, “The meeting had drawn national attention because the expert found that the arson investigation that had helped lead to the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham for the murder of his children was badly flawed. It was especially controversial because Perry had rejected a request to delay Willingham’s execution based on similar analysis.”

Chairman Bradley, no doubt with Perry’s best interests at heart, did not even allow the Willingham case to be placed on the January meeting agenda. (The McAllen Monitor quoted Gloria Rubac of the Abolition Movement: “I think it is a cover-up by Perry. The (gubernatorial) primary is in March, and their next meeting is not until April.”) And this gap in the agenda not only angered the protestors and those nationally who were following matters through the Innocence Project network; according to Sylvia Garza, it also seemed to irritate members of the committee who are growing suspicious of Chairman Bradley.

Garza and TCADP are planning a full day workshop on capital punishment in March to consolidate some of the new forces around them. For information: http://www.tcadp.org.

CALL FOR ACTION

Dallas real-estate developer Ralph Isenberg is announcing the formation of “Free the Children Now!”–a civil rights, civil liberties, and human rights coalition to end the imprisonment of children in America.

“Beginning next week, we’re going to be orchestrating nonviolent demonstrations in front of every single Congressional and Senatorial office across the state of Texas,” said Isenberg.

“And anytime anybody comes to Texas running for office they will be met by demonstrations asking the children to be freed from prison now.”

The first meeting of the coalition is scheduled for Thursday afternoon at Isenberg’s Dallas offices. He said a definite schedule will be released shortly after that meeting.

Along with pressure on Texas elected officials and candidates seeking support of Texas voters, Isenberg said the coalition will be asking activists and elected leaders in other states to join the drive.

“We will stop our demonstrations when every single facility that imprisons children is shut down,” said Isenberg Wednesday night in a telephone interview with the Texas Civil Rights Review.

“We’re asking all decent people to join us,” he said.

Ralph Isenberg can be reached at Hamtx44@aol.com