Corruption inquiry letting Miller shine
Analysts say ethics, accountability are mayor's favorite themes
By GROMER JEFFERS Jr. / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - Laura Miller's got her groove back – for now.
That's what some political analysts are saying after observing the Dallas mayor respond to the FBI's ongoing corruption investigation at City Hall.
They point to Ms. Miller's attempt last week to persuade her City Council colleagues to oust embattled City Plan Commissioner D'Angelo Lee, one of the city officials whose name has been connected to the FBI probe.
"I don't really care how you vote," she told fellow council members as TV cameras rolled. "The public cares how you vote. ... I hope the public tries to do something on their own about the lack of ethics and the standard of personal conduct in this building."
Her colleagues chose to delay a vote to remove Mr. Lee, handing the mayor another apparent defeat.
At first glance, it was the latest in a series of political setbacks that began earlier this year when voters soundly rejected a ballot referendum that would have greatly expanded mayoral powers.
But analysts say the corruption probe has brought to front and center issues like ethics and accountability that historically have been Ms. Miller's favorite political themes and that could help her mend fences in her northern Dallas political base.
The City Hall investigation "did stabilize her from her free fall," said Cal Jillson, political science professor at Southern Methodist University. "She has found new life because her themes resonate in North Dallas."
But Mr. Jillson warned that while the corruption investigation could breathe new life into Ms. Miller's political career, she runs the risk of a backlash if her actions are perceived by the public to be being racially polarizing.
"She thrives when that difference between northern and southern sector policies are clearly in view," Mr. Jillson said. "But this is going to aggravate racial sensitivities in the city, but not nearly as much as [council member] James Fantroy's fantasies about riots in the streets."
Others don't think the investigation has helped Ms. Miller's political position.
"The net effect may be a wash," said Mark Davis, a popular radio talk show host. "If anything, she loses more than she gains because the people prone to dislike her could be pushed over the edge."
Before the FBI investigation was made public, her political enemies were already plotting her demise.
The same broad-based coalition that opposed the May 7 referendum on mayoral power had begun trolling for candidates to oppose her re-election bid in 2007.
But the corruption probe has changed the city's political landscape and may have eliminated at least one potential mayoral challenger.
Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill, who has been named in the FBI investigation, once was mentioned as a likely contender for mayor. Now he concedes that the taint of the investigation would make such a run difficult.
Ms. Miller's critics acknowledge the boost that the political scandal at City Hall has provided her. But they bemoan the tactics she has employed, including her move last week against Mr. Lee.
"She's a cat with 20 lives," said Pat Cotton, a North Dallas-based political consultant who is part of a group that was actively looking for candidates to run against Ms. Miller. "It was helpful for her to lose that vote Wednesday because it plays well in North Dallas. But I'm appalled at the way she did it. She wanted to hang him without a trial. She tried to shred what was left of Dallas."
Some analysts said the mayor now has the momentum to get public backing for a stronger-mayor proposal apparently headed for the November ballot. For now, however, Ms. Miller is sitting back and allowing her colleagues on the council to take the lead in drafting and promoting the plan.
Ms. Miller indicated last week that she is looking forward, even two years out, to a bid for a second term.
She says she hopes to run again in 2007, pointing out that "one or two" potential mayoral candidates are no longer viable.
"Everybody's running for mayor," she said shortly after the council rejected her bid to oust Mr. Lee. "Bring them on."
Council member Gary Griffith said he suspects Ms. Miller has targeted him for criticism because he's been mentioned as a possible mayoral contender for 2007.
At last week's meeting, she lashed out at Mr. Griffith when he initially spoke against removing Mr. Lee from the plan commission, arguing that it was an issue that should be decided by the city's ethics commission. Mr. Griffith, who said he has not considered a mayoral run, eventually supported the mayor's losing effort.
Ms. Miller said her criticism of Mr. Griffith has nothing to do with 2007 politics.
"What he said was the silliest thing and made no sense," she said.
Mayoral politics aside, Ms. Miller and the council could be headed toward more bitter racial battles ahead.
Mr. Fantroy has said the FBI probe is targeted at black leaders, because of black opposition to May's strong-mayor vote.
"As my daddy said, 'Any old mule can see this,' " he said.
Mr. Hill has responded to Miller criticism by contending that she has ethical lapses of her own.
The family of Brian Potashnik, whose Southwest Housing Development Co. is a focus of the FBI probe, is one of her biggest donors. It has given Ms. Miller's political campaigns $25,000 since 2002. They contributed $10,000 to the strong-mayor campaign.
The developer also was a member of the mayor's task force on affordable housing, and she has publicly praised his work.
Ms. Miller denies that she was in any way influenced by Mr. Potashnik's contributions.
She said that "no matter how much mud" is thrown her way, her push to remove Mr. Lee and desire to improve City Hall's ethical responsibility are not about race.
"They knew the only way to win was to play the race card," she said. "This has nothing to do about race."
But there are political risks for Ms. Miller, analysts say. In the context of a federal investigation that thus far has named only black officials, her strong calls for clean government could widen the already sizable racial divide on the council and in the city at large.
"It's the racial aspect of this that will make this tough for her," said Robert Ashley, a talk show host at KHVN radio in the city's southern sector. "The public perception is that this is a one-side investigation, and that will detract from her efforts to clean things up. There's merit to many of her positions, and she's on track. But she's always derailed by the city's polarization."
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Bouncing back after trauma
18 months after surgery, child is playful, prosthesis-free
By KATIE MENZER / The Dallas Morning News
BRECKENRIDGE, Texas – Some might call Jordan Brown, a toddler who nearly tore his foot off in a freak accident last year, a medical miracle. But his mother, who must struggle futilely to stop Jordan from leaping Superman-style off the family couch, has another name for him: rascal.
"If you jump off the furniture, you're going into a time-out in your room," Amanda Brown said as her son stood atop the sofa, poised to jump. "You're gonna crack your head open."
The threat held little weight. Ms. Brown couldn't help but smile as she watched her 4-year-old rambunctiously play in the living room of their home in Breckenridge, about 60 miles northeast of Abilene.
She can still remember the moment 18 months ago when she thought Jordan might never stand again.
Ms. Brown had just piled her two sons into a van on March 24, 2004, to run errands downtown with her mother. She didn't realize the kids were playing with a dog leash and one end had become wrapped around Jordan's left ankle. The other end had been closed in the van door and was dangling outside.
When she and her mom heard a crunch seconds after starting up the car, they thought maybe they had run over the family dog. That's when they turned to look at the boys in the back seat and saw Jordan's mangled leg.
The leash had snagged on one of the van's tires, pulling it tight and ripping through Jordan's ankle.
The flesh, joint and arteries had been sliced, and the foot was hanging loosely by a tendon at the back. Blood flow to the foot had been severed.
"He didn't cry or nothing," Ms. Brown said. "He just said, 'I got a boo-boo.' "
Ms. Brown said she leapt out of the van and pulled Jordan, who was almost 3, into her arms. Mother and son went into shock, but Jordan's grandmother corralled everyone back into the van and sped to the local hospital. A helicopter flew Jordan to Children's Medical Center Dallas while Ms. Brown followed behind by car.
By the time Jordan's mother reached Children's – she had never driven to Dallas before, and the three-hour trip east took the panicked mother close to five hours – it was well after dark and her son was in surgery.
Most hospitals wouldn't have tried to reattach the foot – opting instead to complete the amputation and fit him for a prosthesis – but Jordan was fortunate to be at the only hospital in the Southwest with a staff dedicated to handle such trauma injuries on demand.
Children's does about 40 replants a year, although most are for fingers. Jordan's complex foot reattachment surgery is the first anyone can remember at the facility.
The surgery took four to five hours. A team of surgeons placed a pin though the bottom of his foot into his bones to stabilize the ankle, then reattached his veins, arteries, tendons and ligaments before stitching the skin over his ankle together.
Although the surgeons told Ms. Brown there was only a 20 percent chance Jordan's foot would be functional, they were hopeful he would fare better.
Within days, Jordan was feeling well enough to demand his mother pull him around the hospital in a red wagon. Five days later, Jordan had healed enough to go home.
"There was never a hiccup, never a gurgle," said Jim Thornton, a plastic surgeon at Children's and an assistant professor UT Southwestern Medical Center. "No complications whatsoever. It went by the book."
The doctors removed the pin in about six weeks, but Jordan would not take more than a couple steps. He preferred instead to scoot around the floor on his bottom, propelling himself by his hands and one foot.
For four months, Ms. Brown said she worried Jordan would not walk again.
"Then, one day, he just got up and ran outside," said Ms. Brown. "He hasn't slowed down since."
That's typical of childhood traumatic injuries, said Phil Wilson, Jordan's orthopedic surgeon at Children's and an assistant professor UT Southwestern.
"Kids don't get chronic pain issues," he said. "One day they just figure to take off and it will all be OK."
Jordan's ankle will always be a little swollen, and it aches when it rains, but the scar that encircles his leg is beginning to fade as he grows.
He runs, jumps and tries – on occasion – to fly off furniture, and his mother calls him her "little monkey." He spends most of his time playing outside. He wants to be a fireman when he grows up.
"He shouldn't be limited in any way," Dr. Wilson said.
Jordan will start preschool this week. He tends to be shy around strangers, but when prodded, he'll tell you a dog bit off his foot and doctors had to sew it back on.
His mother is still in awe.
"It's just amazing what they can do nowadays," she said.
MONA REEDER/Dallas Morning News
Jordan Brown was given a 20 percent chance of successful surgery after the 2004 accident. Today, the 4-year-old has full use of his foot.
18 months after surgery, child is playful, prosthesis-free
By KATIE MENZER / The Dallas Morning News
BRECKENRIDGE, Texas – Some might call Jordan Brown, a toddler who nearly tore his foot off in a freak accident last year, a medical miracle. But his mother, who must struggle futilely to stop Jordan from leaping Superman-style off the family couch, has another name for him: rascal.
"If you jump off the furniture, you're going into a time-out in your room," Amanda Brown said as her son stood atop the sofa, poised to jump. "You're gonna crack your head open."
The threat held little weight. Ms. Brown couldn't help but smile as she watched her 4-year-old rambunctiously play in the living room of their home in Breckenridge, about 60 miles northeast of Abilene.
She can still remember the moment 18 months ago when she thought Jordan might never stand again.
Ms. Brown had just piled her two sons into a van on March 24, 2004, to run errands downtown with her mother. She didn't realize the kids were playing with a dog leash and one end had become wrapped around Jordan's left ankle. The other end had been closed in the van door and was dangling outside.
When she and her mom heard a crunch seconds after starting up the car, they thought maybe they had run over the family dog. That's when they turned to look at the boys in the back seat and saw Jordan's mangled leg.
The leash had snagged on one of the van's tires, pulling it tight and ripping through Jordan's ankle.
The flesh, joint and arteries had been sliced, and the foot was hanging loosely by a tendon at the back. Blood flow to the foot had been severed.
"He didn't cry or nothing," Ms. Brown said. "He just said, 'I got a boo-boo.' "
Ms. Brown said she leapt out of the van and pulled Jordan, who was almost 3, into her arms. Mother and son went into shock, but Jordan's grandmother corralled everyone back into the van and sped to the local hospital. A helicopter flew Jordan to Children's Medical Center Dallas while Ms. Brown followed behind by car.
By the time Jordan's mother reached Children's – she had never driven to Dallas before, and the three-hour trip east took the panicked mother close to five hours – it was well after dark and her son was in surgery.
Most hospitals wouldn't have tried to reattach the foot – opting instead to complete the amputation and fit him for a prosthesis – but Jordan was fortunate to be at the only hospital in the Southwest with a staff dedicated to handle such trauma injuries on demand.
Children's does about 40 replants a year, although most are for fingers. Jordan's complex foot reattachment surgery is the first anyone can remember at the facility.
The surgery took four to five hours. A team of surgeons placed a pin though the bottom of his foot into his bones to stabilize the ankle, then reattached his veins, arteries, tendons and ligaments before stitching the skin over his ankle together.
Although the surgeons told Ms. Brown there was only a 20 percent chance Jordan's foot would be functional, they were hopeful he would fare better.
Within days, Jordan was feeling well enough to demand his mother pull him around the hospital in a red wagon. Five days later, Jordan had healed enough to go home.
"There was never a hiccup, never a gurgle," said Jim Thornton, a plastic surgeon at Children's and an assistant professor UT Southwestern Medical Center. "No complications whatsoever. It went by the book."
The doctors removed the pin in about six weeks, but Jordan would not take more than a couple steps. He preferred instead to scoot around the floor on his bottom, propelling himself by his hands and one foot.
For four months, Ms. Brown said she worried Jordan would not walk again.
"Then, one day, he just got up and ran outside," said Ms. Brown. "He hasn't slowed down since."
That's typical of childhood traumatic injuries, said Phil Wilson, Jordan's orthopedic surgeon at Children's and an assistant professor UT Southwestern.
"Kids don't get chronic pain issues," he said. "One day they just figure to take off and it will all be OK."
Jordan's ankle will always be a little swollen, and it aches when it rains, but the scar that encircles his leg is beginning to fade as he grows.
He runs, jumps and tries – on occasion – to fly off furniture, and his mother calls him her "little monkey." He spends most of his time playing outside. He wants to be a fireman when he grows up.
"He shouldn't be limited in any way," Dr. Wilson said.
Jordan will start preschool this week. He tends to be shy around strangers, but when prodded, he'll tell you a dog bit off his foot and doctors had to sew it back on.
His mother is still in awe.
"It's just amazing what they can do nowadays," she said.
MONA REEDER/Dallas Morning News
Jordan Brown was given a 20 percent chance of successful surgery after the 2004 accident. Today, the 4-year-old has full use of his foot.
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A process of juror elimination
Dallas prosecutors say they don't discriminate, but analysis shows they are more likely to reject black jurors.
By STEVE MCGONIGLE, HOLLY BECKA, JENNIFER LAFLEUR and TIM WYATT / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - Racial discrimination was once so raw in Dallas County that a black college president who tried to serve on a jury was flung headfirst down the courthouse steps while sheriff's deputies watched.
This past March, nearly 70 years later, a young black man had to show a judge his teeth in order to serve.
The all-white jury – that enduring image of Jim Crow justice – is a fading sight around the Frank Crowley Courts Building. But while times, laws and leaders have changed, race still matters.
Prosecutors excluded eligible blacks from juries at more than twice the rate they rejected eligible whites, The Dallas Morning News found. In fact, being black was the most important personal trait affecting which jurors prosecutors rejected, according to the newspaper's statistical analysis. Jurors' attitudes toward criminal justice issues also played an important role, but even when blacks and whites answered key questions the same way, blacks were rejected at higher rates.
District Attorney Bill Hill denied that his prosecutors exclude, or strike, jurors on the basis of race.
"The statistics may show we strike more blacks, but it's not because they're black," he said. "It's because for one reason or another, they [prosecutors] don't think they are going to be fair and impartial."
But the son of Dallas County's most famous district attorney said prosecutors continue to pick juries based on race, albeit in less obvious ways.
"I think it's institutional," said state District Judge Henry Wade Jr., whose father's office was cited repeatedly for race discrimination in jury selection.
Supervisors may no longer preach racial stereotyping, and some try to combat it, Judge Wade said, but it remains a part of the office's culture. "I think informally prosecutors talk and say, you know, 'What can we do to get minorities off the jury panel?' "
The News' study showed that blacks served on Dallas juries in proportion to their population – because prosecutors did not eliminate all blacks and defense attorneys excluded white jurors at three times the rate they rejected blacks.
The dueling tactics of prosecution and defense have produced only an illusion of equal rights, and one that flouts the intent of several U.S. Supreme Court rulings, legal experts said.
"We're talking about the court of law, and there is blatant disregard and violation of the law going on," said law professor David Baldus, a nationally recognized expert on race bias in jury selection. "If one doesn't care about the Constitution, then one won't be fazed by it."
The president of the Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association said the newspaper's findings confirmed his courtroom experiences.
"It's shocking that race continues to play a significant role in the dynamics of the jury system in Dallas County," Peter Barrett said. "Justice should not be motivated by partisanship or race or any other factor which is prohibited by equal protection of the Constitution."
As part of its two-year investigation, The News examined 108 non-capital felony cases tried in 2002. Reporters interviewed prosecutors, defense lawyers, jurors, judges and scholars. They reviewed more than 6,500 juror information cards, read transcripts of juror questioning and analyzed lawyers' strike patterns.
Several experts said the newspaper's analysis was the most thorough to document race bias in jury selection, the last vestiges of which the Supreme Court sought to abolish in its 1986 landmark decision, Batson vs. Kentucky.
That ruling made it illegal to exclude even one black juror because of race and said it could be grounds for a new trial. The court later ruled that race discrimination also violated jurors' constitutional rights.
In June, the high court overturned a 19-year-old death penalty case, declaring former District Attorney Henry Wade's office a symbol of race discrimination in jury selection. It was the third time in two decades the high court had highlighted racism in the Wade administration.
No one disputes race is an issue in the criminal justice system, but none of Mr. Hill's prosecutors said it was a problem in jury selection.
But Phillip Hayes, who was a prosecutor under Mr. Hill for five years, said he learned from supervisors and more experienced peers to be wary of blacks.
"No one ever came out and said it aloud – or put it in writing – but the pervasive side was that many didn't think that African-Americans made good jurors for the state," said Mr. Hayes, who left the district attorney's office last year under disputed circumstances. He is now a defense attorney.
Jeanine Howard, who worked until the 1990s for Mr. Hill's immediate predecessor, said her supervisors taught her to make up excuses that would allow strikes against blacks to stand.
As a defense attorney, she now sees Mr. Hill's staff offering the same explanations.
"Having been on both sides, I know what they're doing," Ms. Howard said. "They know there are techniques you can use."
Juan Sanchez, another former prosecutor-turned-defense attorney, said he saw disturbing patterns. "When I represent black clients, the black people get struck [from the jury pool]. I think it's more than a coincidence."
In trials examined by The News, prosecutors sometimes cited fashions or physical traits associated with black culture, such as gold teeth, to justify their rejection of black jurors.
Mr. Hill said that his prosecutors don't make up excuses to strike jurors and that the newspaper's analysis was "unfair and biased." He agreed, however, with the newspaper's findings that defense attorneys strike a disproportionate number of whites.
A former track star with a country twang, Mr. Hill became district attorney in 1999 after 25 years as a criminal defense lawyer. Early in his career, he spent six years as an assistant to Mr. Wade, the district attorney from 1951 through 1986 best known for the prosecution of Jack Ruby and the abortion-rights case Roe vs. Wade.
Mr. Hill, 63, considers the late Mr. Wade a role model and has a large portrait of him hanging in his office. Still, he and his staff have tried to distance their office from any racial discrimination of the Wade era.
It was under Mr. Wade that the Dallas County district attorney's office was first embarrassed in 1973 by the disclosure of a stereotype-laced training paper on jury selection that instructed prosecutors on how to use their peremptory strikes. "You are not looking for any member of a minority group which may subject him to oppression – they almost always empathize with the accused."
Peremptories are one of three tools lawyers use to reduce jury pools to 12 jurors. In Texas, lawyers on each side can use their peremptory strikes to exclude up to 10 jurors for any reason, as long as it is not based on race or gender. Twelve other states allow lawyers at least 10 peremptories.
Lawyers also can excuse for cause those who cannot fulfill their legal duties, or can reach agreements with opposing counsel to excuse those jurors whom both sides prefer to avoid.
But the peremptory is by far the most controversial jury selection tactic. One Colorado judge has called it "the last best tool of Jim Crow," and two Supreme Court justices have wondered publicly about its abolition.
In 1986, The News revealed that Dallas prosecutors were using their peremptory strikes to exclude nearly all blacks from juries. Since then, strike rates of blacks have dropped from almost 90 percent to less than 60 percent. And training papers urging exclusion have been replaced by an official policy of racial equality.
"If I felt like I was dealing with lawyers who were holding on to those biases and prejudices from years ago, quite frankly, I don't think I'd be district attorney, or they wouldn't be working for me," Mr. Hill said.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
'It's what you say to me or what you don't say to me ... that matters'
When the Supreme Court this summer overturned the conviction of Thomas Joe Miller-El, it cited "a selection process replete with evidence that the prosecutors were selecting and rejecting potential jurors because of race."
The justices found prosecutors' explanations for striking blacks implausible. They noted the history of race discrimination in Dallas County juries, the reordering of jury panels to try to move blacks to the rear, and the different standards of questioning applied to black jurors and white jurors.
The court highlighted instances during Mr. Miller-El's 1986 trial of prosecutors rejecting blacks even when their answers to jury selection questions were similar to those of whites who were seated as jurors.
Two decades later, The News found that felony prosecutors were still using some jury selection tactics condemned by the Supreme Court.
Prosecutors maintain that it's how prospective jurors answer their questions, not race, that determines who gets selected and rejected.
"I don't care who you are," said Rick Jackson, a chief felony prosecutor. "It's what you say to me or what you don't say to me in answering the question that matters in whether or not you get struck."
Prosecutors say certain questions play a fundamental role in their screening of prospective jurors. For instance, Toby Shook, one of Mr. Hill's top assistants, said felony prosecutors don't want jurors who believe that rehabilitation, instead of punishment, is the main goal of sentencing.
"They are nice people. I want them to be my neighbors. I don't want them on my jury because they are going to give a guy a break, whatever race they are," he said.
Mr. Hill said his prosecutors seek jurors who have had positive encounters with authorities.
"A disproportionate number of minorities are struck by the prosecution not because of the color of their skin, but because their own negative experience with law enforcement, or that of a close friend or family member, may have tainted their view of the system as a whole," he said in a statement.
But the newspaper's analysis found that prosecutors treated the responses of blacks and whites to key questions differently. A review of transcripts of juror questioning, available in 59 of the 108 cases studied by The News, showed that:
•Juror views on rehabilitation were the most important factor in determining who was excluded, but prosecutors rejected 79 percent of the blacks who favored rehabilitation over punishment or deterrence, compared with 55 percent of the whites who gave the same answer.
•Prosecutors excluded 78 percent of the blacks who acknowledged that they or someone close to them had had contact with the criminal justice system, compared with only 39 percent of whites.
•About 2 percent of all jurors in the study said they or someone close to them had had a bad experience with police or the courts. Prosecutors rejected every black who gave that answer, compared with 39 percent of the whites.
"If a prosecutor's proffered reason for striking a black panelist applies just as well to a white panelist allowed to serve, that is evidence tending to prove purposeful discrimination," the Supreme Court ruled in its Miller-El decision.
Nineteen years ago in its Batson ruling, the court said purposeful discrimination was proof that a juror had been wrongfully excluded.
The justices also said prosecutors must be able to offer "race-neutral" reasons for excluding jurors. As a result, critics contend, prosecutors today use questions about jurors' contact with the legal system or their views on punishment as a subtle way to exclude blacks.
"I believe that prosecutors ask questions so that they can strike persons who can compromise their ability to win their case," said the Rev. L. Charles Stovall, who leads a group that monitors alleged police brutality and racial profiling.
Judge Wade said that when prosecutors ask jurors whether punishment, deterrence or rehabilitation is the main purpose of sentencing, the question is calculated to try to get blacks off juries.
"That's just a taught question," he said. "A lot of the minorities are going to say rehabilitation, so you strike everybody who says rehabilitation and you're covered under Batson. I think that's the only reason they ask it."
WEIGHING ALL FACTORS
Analysis of prosecutors' decisions considers all available factors
For its analysis, The News used logistic regression, a statistical tool that computes the relationship between variables such as a potential juror's race and whether the juror was struck by the prosecution.
While it's not possible to know everything that influenced a prosecutor's strike, the newspaper analyzed all factors in the public record, such as age, race, education, occupation, socioeconomic status and answers to questions that prosecutors say help them spot a good or bad juror.
Even after accounting for all available reasons that a potential juror might be struck, the newspaper's analysis showed that prosecutors rejected black jurors at higher rates than whites.
If the difference in strike rates between blacks and whites could have been explained by some other factor, the strength of race would have been greatly reduced when those factors were added to the analysis. But no factor reduced the importance of race.
Had race played a minor role, the analysis would have found no difference in the strike rates for blacks and whites with similar characteristics. But there were differences. Within each income group, for example, blacks were struck at about twice the rate of whites.
The News asked the nation's leading experts on jury selection to review its findings and give their opinions.
"Proof like this would make a prima facie case of systemic discrimination," Mr. Baldus said.
"I think you can say they are intentionally violating the law," he added.
Mary Rose, an assistant professor of sociology and law at the University of Texas at Austin, agreed that the study showed a clear pattern of exclusion. But that does not prove prosecutors intentionally discriminated, she said.
"It's hard for me to say that they are in their head going, 'Here comes a black person; no way in hell are they going to be on my jury,' " Ms. Rose said. "I just know the end result. And it doesn't look good."
Mr. Hill consulted two criminologists about The News' findings. Both praised the thoroughness of the analysis, but said it did not prove prosecutors were intentionally excluding blacks because of race.
"You see hardworking prosecutors who are trying to get the best jury they can to get a person convicted of a crime," said Robert Taylor, chairman of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of North Texas.
He theorized that race and socioeconomic status were so intertwined that prosecutors disproportionately struck minority jurors because they are poor and have greater contact with the criminal justice system.
The district attorney hired Mr. Taylor to review his office's operations after a fake-drug scandal in 2001 in which prosecutors sought drug convictions against Hispanics who had been framed by police. Based on his experience, Mr. Taylor said, he was convinced that racism was not an issue in Mr. Hill's office.
DEMEANOR
Prosecutors say they can tell a lot from jurors' behavior
Mr. Hill said The News' study failed to account for one important variable that could not be found in court transcripts: a juror's demeanor – how he looked and acted, how he reacted to defense attorneys and prosecutors.
"When we see a juror who looks like they want to wring our neck or spit in our face – things that don't show up [in the record] – we're going to strike that person," he said.
Courts have upheld demeanor as a legitimate reason to exclude a prospective juror. But the disparity in strike rates found by The News is too wide to be explained by demeanor alone, said Ms. Rose.
"It would be shocking to me if there were that many African-Americans making faces and not whites, because I've been to jury service, and no one's happy to be there," said Ms. Rose, whose study of peremptory challenges in North Carolina found similar strike patterns.
In the trials examined by The News, some judges allowed prosecutors to strike jurors for failing to make eye contact with the lawyer, smiling at the defense attorney or allegedly sleeping.
When attorneys suspect a juror has been rejected because of race, they can request what's known as a Batson hearing. In a review of all Batson transcripts available in cases studied by The News, prosecutors cited demeanor only seven times to justify their 51 strikes of minorities.
"It's a feeling you get from people. A guy with tattoos and a bandanna is probably not a guy that likes authority," said Nancy Mulder, a chief felony prosecutor.
On the other hand, she said, someone who has "been attentive ... smiled at me, nodded at things I've said – we're not going to have a problem."
The late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall worried that strikes for demeanor could become a cover for prosecutors whose perceptions are warped by their prejudices.
"A prosecutor's own conscious or unconscious racism may lead him easily to the conclusion that a prospective black juror is 'sullen' or 'distant,' a characterization that would not have come to his mind if a white juror had acted identically," he wrote in the Batson case.
For at least one member of the high court, those concerns have not diminished with time. In a concurring opinion to the Miller-El decision, Justice Stephen Breyer noted that in Dallas and elsewhere, "The use of race- and gender-based stereotypes in the jury selection process seems better organized and more systematized than ever before."
FUTILE CHALLENGES
Critics say DA's perfect record demonstrates weaknesses of Batson
In the six years Mr. Hill has been in office, none of the thousands of cases brought to trial has been reversed on a Batson challenge.
Batson objections were found in only 16 cases reviewed by The News. None was sustained by the trial judge, and only five made it to appeals courts.
Prosecutors say that proves they're following the law.
"I think we're doing it right," said Lori Ordiway, chief of the district attorney's appellate section. "There is nothing from which to make a claim."
Critics, however, say the lack of successful appeals merely proves how weak the Batson protections are.
"Very frankly, any attorney worth his salt can make up something to get over a Batson challenge," said Mike Byck, an assistant public defender in Dallas County. "And, literally, they do make it up. We do."
Although the Batson decision was meant to end racial discrimination in jury selection, the Supreme Court's ruling left open the question of what constituted a race-neutral strike.
In subsequent rulings, the high court made enforcing Batson more difficult, essentially declaring that judges should accept all but the most obviously racial reasons for a strike.
As a result, Texas appeals courts have allowed prospective jurors to be rejected for "body English"; gum chewing; wearing a pink hat, snakeskin belt or sunglasses; or having unkempt hair, mustaches or beards.
Ms. Howard, the former prosecutor, said her supervisors in the district attorney's office taught her how to get around Batson.
"Always say they're sleeping," said Ms. Howard, who now specializes in appeals. "I was told that."
The newspaper also found that when defense attorneys question whether race is the reason behind a prosecutor's strike, the lawyers often handle it informally and it is not made part of the trial record. Defense and prosecution also regularly agree off the record, sometimes with the judge's participation, about which jurors to excuse.
The reluctance to make a formal Batson challenge is not just the result of vague legal guidance, but a reflection of how unwilling most lawyers are to accuse colleagues of racism.
"Nobody likes to be accused of something as horrible as that," said Robert Hirschhorn, a nationally known jury consultant who is based in Lewisville and works mostly with the defense.
Prosecutors, judges and many defense attorneys have worked together for years, and collegiality is a hallmark of the Dallas County courthouse.
But Stephen Cooper, a Dallas appellate attorney, denounced such informal measures as an end-run around Batson that precludes the issue of race discrimination ever being raised on appeal.
Mr. Miller-El's attorneys set the foundation for a successful appeal of his death-penalty conviction by making their allegations of race bias in jury selection a part of the trial record.
TRACKING VIOLATIONS
Formal monitoring unnecessary, district attorney says
Mr. Hill said he does not track Batson challenges. If a prosecutor were found to have violated Batson, it would come up in the evaluation process or he would hear about it on the courthouse grapevine, Mr. Hill added.
One such incident caught his attention in March after The News requested a transcript of jury selection proceedings.
A felony court prosecutor had acknowledged to state District Judge Faith Johnson that stereotypes guided at least one of her strikes.
In response to a Batson challenge from the defense, Kerri New told the judge that she had rejected a 22-year-old black man because he had missing teeth and looked disheveled.
"It fits him into a socioeconomic stereotype, which the state feels is a group that's detrimental to the state," said Ms. New, who used nine of her strikes to exclude potential black jurors.
The judge had the young man brought back into court and asked him to show his teeth.
She disallowed the prosecutor's strike and put the man on the jury, which later convicted two young black men of robbery.
In May, Ms. New quit the district attorney's office. She declined in an interview to discuss the reasons for her departure but insisted she had mistaken the young man for an older black man seated in front of him.
Mr. Hill acknowledged that he demoted Ms. New, the first time in his six years in office that he has disciplined a prosecutor for a Batson-related issue. He said he disagreed with her philosophy on jurors.
"It doesn't make a difference how much money you have," he said.
The News also found two cases last year in which a judge ruled that another of Mr. Hill's prosecutors had violated Batson.
That prosecutor, Lara Peirce, rejected a black truck driver whom she described as "liberal" because he was wearing a gold chain with what she incorrectly described as a theater mask medallion. She also rejected a black secretary who she wrongly said was skeptical of police.
Ms. Peirce said that she alerted Mr. Hill to the incidents, had valid race-neutral reasons for excluding the jurors and did not understand why the judge found them unacceptable. "There's no problem with why I struck these people," she said in an interview.
Mr. Hill blamed the Batson rulings on a personality conflict between the state district judge and Ms. Peirce.
The judge, Mary E. Miller, disagreed. "It had absolutely nothing to do with personality conflict, and it had everything to do with following the law," Judge Miller said. "You have to look at whether it [the strike] is race-neutral, but you also have to look behind it and make sure they're not just making something up."
Six months after the second Batson ruling, Mr. Hill commended Ms. Peirce's performance in another case.
The district attorney said he does not necessarily make Batson violations part of employees' personnel files.
"We look at each individual case to determine whether there is some kind of deception or ill motive or something where there's an intentional or perceived intentional violation of Batson," Mr. Hill said. "We get objections sustained every day that we don't think are right."
STEREOTYPES
Does pressure to win cause prosecutors to fall back on them?
Mr. Hill strongly objected to any suggestion that he or his staff engage in racist behavior, and on the surface, his felony prosecutors seem a different breed from the Wade era.
Fourteen of the 93 felony court prosecutors are minorities. All but seven earned their law degrees after the 1986 Batson ruling.
New prosecutors in Mr. Hill's office receive a 45-page training paper devoted to jury selection, which instructs them to follow the law. All are instructed to follow a written policy prohibiting jury selection based on race.
"The kids now, they're being raised in a different culture," state District Judge Keith Dean said. "They don't have to consciously reject the lies that some of us were exposed to when we were younger."
State District Judge John Creuzot, one of only two black felony court judges in Dallas County, said he was surprised by The News' findings.
"They seem to be doing a very good job, from my perspective, of handling the cases in a fair and impartial manner," he said.
But several legal analysts said they believed that prosecutors unconsciously engage in unfair stereotyping because they are under immense pressure to win and often must rely on superficial information.
"Your job as a prosecutor is to get a conviction, just as your job as a defense attorney is to get an acquittal," said Marc Mauer, assistant director of The Sentencing Project, a reform organization based in Washington, D.C. "In your personal life, you may have very good relationships with African-Americans and other groups, but your number crunching tells you that your goal needs to be to get as many blacks off the jury as you possibly can.
"Racist or not, the end result is certainly a racist one."
There is also an entrenched belief among prosecutors and defense attorneys that racial stereotypes are still valid indicators of what makes a "good" juror, said Mr. Baldus, a death penalty opponent and a professor at the University of Iowa whom many academics regard as the nation's leading researcher on jury selection bias.
"Maybe they aren't aware that they are indulging in these stereotypes when it comes to race," he said. "[But] if it isn't conscious, it's based on perceptions that are highly correlated with race and race alone."
Prosecutors worry that blacks will empathize with defendants because research shows that blacks are more likely to have bad experiences with the legal system, such as racial profiling by police.
Mr. Hayes said that when he worked in Mr. Hill's office, the stereotypical profile of a black juror was someone who supported rehabilitation of criminals, favored lighter prison terms and had a higher rate of bad experiences with law enforcement and the justice system.
"Everybody with experience seemed to have a story of how a jury hung up when a black juror wouldn't put another black person in jail," he said.
Studies show that while black jurors may alter the tenor of deliberations and improve the thoroughness with which evidence is examined, their presence usually does not change a trial's outcome. There is a greater chance that black jurors will be more lenient in sentencing.
However, the amount of influence blacks can have on a verdict depends on their numbers in the jury, scholars say.
"The research shows that if you only have one, two or three blacks [on a jury] or as many as four, they don't have any real influence on the system," Mr. Baldus said.
In the 108 trials examined by The News, 101 had four or fewer black members. Ten juries contained no black members. Only one jury had a majority of black members; the defendant in that case was white. Blacks made up 56 percent of the defendants.
All-white juries have tended to be harsher on black defendants, said Phoebe Ellsworth, a professor of law and psychology at the University of Michigan.
"White people worry about being racist when they're reminded of it," she said. "But when it's all white people, it just doesn't occur to them to remember their egalitarian values."
Prosecutor Ada Brown, whose mother is white and father is black, believes it's best to talk to prospective jurors about race rather than have it surface later in deliberations.
"I have an 80-year-old grandfather who thinks everybody brown is of Satan," said Ms. Brown, the only one of 13 felony prosecutors interviewed by The News who acknowledged raising race during jury selection.
She has black relatives who distrust the state too much to be fair jurors, she added.
"I use those two extremes to try to get people discussing the topic that nobody wants to discuss – and that is, that race sometimes matters," Ms. Brown said.
CONSIDERING SOLUTIONS
Some judges and scholars say it's time to eliminate peremptory challenges
The Supreme Court has grappled with jury discrimination since the first decade after adoption of the Civil War Amendments to the Constitution, which guaranteed blacks the rights of full citizenship, including jury service.
Batson in 1986 was the first court ruling to put limits on how lawyers could use their discretionary strikes.
But Justice Marshall, the court's first black member, predicted that would not be enough and called for the abolition of peremptory strikes.
He had seen up close the consequences of race discrimination in jury selection. In 1938, as counsel to the NAACP, he came to Dallas to investigate an attack on George Porter, the president of Wiley Junior College who was thrown down the courthouse steps after refusing to be excused from jury service.
"Even if all parties approach the court's mandate with the best of conscious intentions," Justice Marshall wrote almost 50 years after that incident, "that mandate requires them to confront and overcome their own racism on all levels – a challenge I doubt all of them can meet."
Two decades later, writing in the Miller-El case, Justice Breyer recalled Justice Marshall's warning and said it was time "to reconsider Batson's test and the peremptory challenge system as a whole."
Some judges and legal scholars believe that the only way to eliminate discrimination in jury selection is to do away with peremptory strikes – or at least limit them. Having 10 strikes per side, they say, gives lawyers too much leeway.
Beyond the constitutional debate over peremptory challenges, community leaders say race discrimination in jury selection tells an entire group of people that it's unfit to serve and undermines the foundation of the justice system.
"The end results are that you exclude a category of people," said Hank Lawson, chairman of the South Dallas Weed and Seed Committee, which works with police to prevent crime. "You can't get around that."
Dallas prosecutors say they don't discriminate, but analysis shows they are more likely to reject black jurors.
By STEVE MCGONIGLE, HOLLY BECKA, JENNIFER LAFLEUR and TIM WYATT / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - Racial discrimination was once so raw in Dallas County that a black college president who tried to serve on a jury was flung headfirst down the courthouse steps while sheriff's deputies watched.
This past March, nearly 70 years later, a young black man had to show a judge his teeth in order to serve.
The all-white jury – that enduring image of Jim Crow justice – is a fading sight around the Frank Crowley Courts Building. But while times, laws and leaders have changed, race still matters.
Prosecutors excluded eligible blacks from juries at more than twice the rate they rejected eligible whites, The Dallas Morning News found. In fact, being black was the most important personal trait affecting which jurors prosecutors rejected, according to the newspaper's statistical analysis. Jurors' attitudes toward criminal justice issues also played an important role, but even when blacks and whites answered key questions the same way, blacks were rejected at higher rates.
District Attorney Bill Hill denied that his prosecutors exclude, or strike, jurors on the basis of race.
"The statistics may show we strike more blacks, but it's not because they're black," he said. "It's because for one reason or another, they [prosecutors] don't think they are going to be fair and impartial."
But the son of Dallas County's most famous district attorney said prosecutors continue to pick juries based on race, albeit in less obvious ways.
"I think it's institutional," said state District Judge Henry Wade Jr., whose father's office was cited repeatedly for race discrimination in jury selection.
Supervisors may no longer preach racial stereotyping, and some try to combat it, Judge Wade said, but it remains a part of the office's culture. "I think informally prosecutors talk and say, you know, 'What can we do to get minorities off the jury panel?' "
The News' study showed that blacks served on Dallas juries in proportion to their population – because prosecutors did not eliminate all blacks and defense attorneys excluded white jurors at three times the rate they rejected blacks.
The dueling tactics of prosecution and defense have produced only an illusion of equal rights, and one that flouts the intent of several U.S. Supreme Court rulings, legal experts said.
"We're talking about the court of law, and there is blatant disregard and violation of the law going on," said law professor David Baldus, a nationally recognized expert on race bias in jury selection. "If one doesn't care about the Constitution, then one won't be fazed by it."
The president of the Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association said the newspaper's findings confirmed his courtroom experiences.
"It's shocking that race continues to play a significant role in the dynamics of the jury system in Dallas County," Peter Barrett said. "Justice should not be motivated by partisanship or race or any other factor which is prohibited by equal protection of the Constitution."
As part of its two-year investigation, The News examined 108 non-capital felony cases tried in 2002. Reporters interviewed prosecutors, defense lawyers, jurors, judges and scholars. They reviewed more than 6,500 juror information cards, read transcripts of juror questioning and analyzed lawyers' strike patterns.
Several experts said the newspaper's analysis was the most thorough to document race bias in jury selection, the last vestiges of which the Supreme Court sought to abolish in its 1986 landmark decision, Batson vs. Kentucky.
That ruling made it illegal to exclude even one black juror because of race and said it could be grounds for a new trial. The court later ruled that race discrimination also violated jurors' constitutional rights.
In June, the high court overturned a 19-year-old death penalty case, declaring former District Attorney Henry Wade's office a symbol of race discrimination in jury selection. It was the third time in two decades the high court had highlighted racism in the Wade administration.
No one disputes race is an issue in the criminal justice system, but none of Mr. Hill's prosecutors said it was a problem in jury selection.
But Phillip Hayes, who was a prosecutor under Mr. Hill for five years, said he learned from supervisors and more experienced peers to be wary of blacks.
"No one ever came out and said it aloud – or put it in writing – but the pervasive side was that many didn't think that African-Americans made good jurors for the state," said Mr. Hayes, who left the district attorney's office last year under disputed circumstances. He is now a defense attorney.
Jeanine Howard, who worked until the 1990s for Mr. Hill's immediate predecessor, said her supervisors taught her to make up excuses that would allow strikes against blacks to stand.
As a defense attorney, she now sees Mr. Hill's staff offering the same explanations.
"Having been on both sides, I know what they're doing," Ms. Howard said. "They know there are techniques you can use."
Juan Sanchez, another former prosecutor-turned-defense attorney, said he saw disturbing patterns. "When I represent black clients, the black people get struck [from the jury pool]. I think it's more than a coincidence."
In trials examined by The News, prosecutors sometimes cited fashions or physical traits associated with black culture, such as gold teeth, to justify their rejection of black jurors.
Mr. Hill said that his prosecutors don't make up excuses to strike jurors and that the newspaper's analysis was "unfair and biased." He agreed, however, with the newspaper's findings that defense attorneys strike a disproportionate number of whites.
A former track star with a country twang, Mr. Hill became district attorney in 1999 after 25 years as a criminal defense lawyer. Early in his career, he spent six years as an assistant to Mr. Wade, the district attorney from 1951 through 1986 best known for the prosecution of Jack Ruby and the abortion-rights case Roe vs. Wade.
Mr. Hill, 63, considers the late Mr. Wade a role model and has a large portrait of him hanging in his office. Still, he and his staff have tried to distance their office from any racial discrimination of the Wade era.
It was under Mr. Wade that the Dallas County district attorney's office was first embarrassed in 1973 by the disclosure of a stereotype-laced training paper on jury selection that instructed prosecutors on how to use their peremptory strikes. "You are not looking for any member of a minority group which may subject him to oppression – they almost always empathize with the accused."
Peremptories are one of three tools lawyers use to reduce jury pools to 12 jurors. In Texas, lawyers on each side can use their peremptory strikes to exclude up to 10 jurors for any reason, as long as it is not based on race or gender. Twelve other states allow lawyers at least 10 peremptories.
Lawyers also can excuse for cause those who cannot fulfill their legal duties, or can reach agreements with opposing counsel to excuse those jurors whom both sides prefer to avoid.
But the peremptory is by far the most controversial jury selection tactic. One Colorado judge has called it "the last best tool of Jim Crow," and two Supreme Court justices have wondered publicly about its abolition.
In 1986, The News revealed that Dallas prosecutors were using their peremptory strikes to exclude nearly all blacks from juries. Since then, strike rates of blacks have dropped from almost 90 percent to less than 60 percent. And training papers urging exclusion have been replaced by an official policy of racial equality.
"If I felt like I was dealing with lawyers who were holding on to those biases and prejudices from years ago, quite frankly, I don't think I'd be district attorney, or they wouldn't be working for me," Mr. Hill said.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
'It's what you say to me or what you don't say to me ... that matters'
When the Supreme Court this summer overturned the conviction of Thomas Joe Miller-El, it cited "a selection process replete with evidence that the prosecutors were selecting and rejecting potential jurors because of race."
The justices found prosecutors' explanations for striking blacks implausible. They noted the history of race discrimination in Dallas County juries, the reordering of jury panels to try to move blacks to the rear, and the different standards of questioning applied to black jurors and white jurors.
The court highlighted instances during Mr. Miller-El's 1986 trial of prosecutors rejecting blacks even when their answers to jury selection questions were similar to those of whites who were seated as jurors.
Two decades later, The News found that felony prosecutors were still using some jury selection tactics condemned by the Supreme Court.
Prosecutors maintain that it's how prospective jurors answer their questions, not race, that determines who gets selected and rejected.
"I don't care who you are," said Rick Jackson, a chief felony prosecutor. "It's what you say to me or what you don't say to me in answering the question that matters in whether or not you get struck."
Prosecutors say certain questions play a fundamental role in their screening of prospective jurors. For instance, Toby Shook, one of Mr. Hill's top assistants, said felony prosecutors don't want jurors who believe that rehabilitation, instead of punishment, is the main goal of sentencing.
"They are nice people. I want them to be my neighbors. I don't want them on my jury because they are going to give a guy a break, whatever race they are," he said.
Mr. Hill said his prosecutors seek jurors who have had positive encounters with authorities.
"A disproportionate number of minorities are struck by the prosecution not because of the color of their skin, but because their own negative experience with law enforcement, or that of a close friend or family member, may have tainted their view of the system as a whole," he said in a statement.
But the newspaper's analysis found that prosecutors treated the responses of blacks and whites to key questions differently. A review of transcripts of juror questioning, available in 59 of the 108 cases studied by The News, showed that:
•Juror views on rehabilitation were the most important factor in determining who was excluded, but prosecutors rejected 79 percent of the blacks who favored rehabilitation over punishment or deterrence, compared with 55 percent of the whites who gave the same answer.
•Prosecutors excluded 78 percent of the blacks who acknowledged that they or someone close to them had had contact with the criminal justice system, compared with only 39 percent of whites.
•About 2 percent of all jurors in the study said they or someone close to them had had a bad experience with police or the courts. Prosecutors rejected every black who gave that answer, compared with 39 percent of the whites.
"If a prosecutor's proffered reason for striking a black panelist applies just as well to a white panelist allowed to serve, that is evidence tending to prove purposeful discrimination," the Supreme Court ruled in its Miller-El decision.
Nineteen years ago in its Batson ruling, the court said purposeful discrimination was proof that a juror had been wrongfully excluded.
The justices also said prosecutors must be able to offer "race-neutral" reasons for excluding jurors. As a result, critics contend, prosecutors today use questions about jurors' contact with the legal system or their views on punishment as a subtle way to exclude blacks.
"I believe that prosecutors ask questions so that they can strike persons who can compromise their ability to win their case," said the Rev. L. Charles Stovall, who leads a group that monitors alleged police brutality and racial profiling.
Judge Wade said that when prosecutors ask jurors whether punishment, deterrence or rehabilitation is the main purpose of sentencing, the question is calculated to try to get blacks off juries.
"That's just a taught question," he said. "A lot of the minorities are going to say rehabilitation, so you strike everybody who says rehabilitation and you're covered under Batson. I think that's the only reason they ask it."
WEIGHING ALL FACTORS
Analysis of prosecutors' decisions considers all available factors
For its analysis, The News used logistic regression, a statistical tool that computes the relationship between variables such as a potential juror's race and whether the juror was struck by the prosecution.
While it's not possible to know everything that influenced a prosecutor's strike, the newspaper analyzed all factors in the public record, such as age, race, education, occupation, socioeconomic status and answers to questions that prosecutors say help them spot a good or bad juror.
Even after accounting for all available reasons that a potential juror might be struck, the newspaper's analysis showed that prosecutors rejected black jurors at higher rates than whites.
If the difference in strike rates between blacks and whites could have been explained by some other factor, the strength of race would have been greatly reduced when those factors were added to the analysis. But no factor reduced the importance of race.
Had race played a minor role, the analysis would have found no difference in the strike rates for blacks and whites with similar characteristics. But there were differences. Within each income group, for example, blacks were struck at about twice the rate of whites.
The News asked the nation's leading experts on jury selection to review its findings and give their opinions.
"Proof like this would make a prima facie case of systemic discrimination," Mr. Baldus said.
"I think you can say they are intentionally violating the law," he added.
Mary Rose, an assistant professor of sociology and law at the University of Texas at Austin, agreed that the study showed a clear pattern of exclusion. But that does not prove prosecutors intentionally discriminated, she said.
"It's hard for me to say that they are in their head going, 'Here comes a black person; no way in hell are they going to be on my jury,' " Ms. Rose said. "I just know the end result. And it doesn't look good."
Mr. Hill consulted two criminologists about The News' findings. Both praised the thoroughness of the analysis, but said it did not prove prosecutors were intentionally excluding blacks because of race.
"You see hardworking prosecutors who are trying to get the best jury they can to get a person convicted of a crime," said Robert Taylor, chairman of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of North Texas.
He theorized that race and socioeconomic status were so intertwined that prosecutors disproportionately struck minority jurors because they are poor and have greater contact with the criminal justice system.
The district attorney hired Mr. Taylor to review his office's operations after a fake-drug scandal in 2001 in which prosecutors sought drug convictions against Hispanics who had been framed by police. Based on his experience, Mr. Taylor said, he was convinced that racism was not an issue in Mr. Hill's office.
DEMEANOR
Prosecutors say they can tell a lot from jurors' behavior
Mr. Hill said The News' study failed to account for one important variable that could not be found in court transcripts: a juror's demeanor – how he looked and acted, how he reacted to defense attorneys and prosecutors.
"When we see a juror who looks like they want to wring our neck or spit in our face – things that don't show up [in the record] – we're going to strike that person," he said.
Courts have upheld demeanor as a legitimate reason to exclude a prospective juror. But the disparity in strike rates found by The News is too wide to be explained by demeanor alone, said Ms. Rose.
"It would be shocking to me if there were that many African-Americans making faces and not whites, because I've been to jury service, and no one's happy to be there," said Ms. Rose, whose study of peremptory challenges in North Carolina found similar strike patterns.
In the trials examined by The News, some judges allowed prosecutors to strike jurors for failing to make eye contact with the lawyer, smiling at the defense attorney or allegedly sleeping.
When attorneys suspect a juror has been rejected because of race, they can request what's known as a Batson hearing. In a review of all Batson transcripts available in cases studied by The News, prosecutors cited demeanor only seven times to justify their 51 strikes of minorities.
"It's a feeling you get from people. A guy with tattoos and a bandanna is probably not a guy that likes authority," said Nancy Mulder, a chief felony prosecutor.
On the other hand, she said, someone who has "been attentive ... smiled at me, nodded at things I've said – we're not going to have a problem."
The late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall worried that strikes for demeanor could become a cover for prosecutors whose perceptions are warped by their prejudices.
"A prosecutor's own conscious or unconscious racism may lead him easily to the conclusion that a prospective black juror is 'sullen' or 'distant,' a characterization that would not have come to his mind if a white juror had acted identically," he wrote in the Batson case.
For at least one member of the high court, those concerns have not diminished with time. In a concurring opinion to the Miller-El decision, Justice Stephen Breyer noted that in Dallas and elsewhere, "The use of race- and gender-based stereotypes in the jury selection process seems better organized and more systematized than ever before."
FUTILE CHALLENGES
Critics say DA's perfect record demonstrates weaknesses of Batson
In the six years Mr. Hill has been in office, none of the thousands of cases brought to trial has been reversed on a Batson challenge.
Batson objections were found in only 16 cases reviewed by The News. None was sustained by the trial judge, and only five made it to appeals courts.
Prosecutors say that proves they're following the law.
"I think we're doing it right," said Lori Ordiway, chief of the district attorney's appellate section. "There is nothing from which to make a claim."
Critics, however, say the lack of successful appeals merely proves how weak the Batson protections are.
"Very frankly, any attorney worth his salt can make up something to get over a Batson challenge," said Mike Byck, an assistant public defender in Dallas County. "And, literally, they do make it up. We do."
Although the Batson decision was meant to end racial discrimination in jury selection, the Supreme Court's ruling left open the question of what constituted a race-neutral strike.
In subsequent rulings, the high court made enforcing Batson more difficult, essentially declaring that judges should accept all but the most obviously racial reasons for a strike.
As a result, Texas appeals courts have allowed prospective jurors to be rejected for "body English"; gum chewing; wearing a pink hat, snakeskin belt or sunglasses; or having unkempt hair, mustaches or beards.
Ms. Howard, the former prosecutor, said her supervisors in the district attorney's office taught her how to get around Batson.
"Always say they're sleeping," said Ms. Howard, who now specializes in appeals. "I was told that."
The newspaper also found that when defense attorneys question whether race is the reason behind a prosecutor's strike, the lawyers often handle it informally and it is not made part of the trial record. Defense and prosecution also regularly agree off the record, sometimes with the judge's participation, about which jurors to excuse.
The reluctance to make a formal Batson challenge is not just the result of vague legal guidance, but a reflection of how unwilling most lawyers are to accuse colleagues of racism.
"Nobody likes to be accused of something as horrible as that," said Robert Hirschhorn, a nationally known jury consultant who is based in Lewisville and works mostly with the defense.
Prosecutors, judges and many defense attorneys have worked together for years, and collegiality is a hallmark of the Dallas County courthouse.
But Stephen Cooper, a Dallas appellate attorney, denounced such informal measures as an end-run around Batson that precludes the issue of race discrimination ever being raised on appeal.
Mr. Miller-El's attorneys set the foundation for a successful appeal of his death-penalty conviction by making their allegations of race bias in jury selection a part of the trial record.
TRACKING VIOLATIONS
Formal monitoring unnecessary, district attorney says
Mr. Hill said he does not track Batson challenges. If a prosecutor were found to have violated Batson, it would come up in the evaluation process or he would hear about it on the courthouse grapevine, Mr. Hill added.
One such incident caught his attention in March after The News requested a transcript of jury selection proceedings.
A felony court prosecutor had acknowledged to state District Judge Faith Johnson that stereotypes guided at least one of her strikes.
In response to a Batson challenge from the defense, Kerri New told the judge that she had rejected a 22-year-old black man because he had missing teeth and looked disheveled.
"It fits him into a socioeconomic stereotype, which the state feels is a group that's detrimental to the state," said Ms. New, who used nine of her strikes to exclude potential black jurors.
The judge had the young man brought back into court and asked him to show his teeth.
She disallowed the prosecutor's strike and put the man on the jury, which later convicted two young black men of robbery.
In May, Ms. New quit the district attorney's office. She declined in an interview to discuss the reasons for her departure but insisted she had mistaken the young man for an older black man seated in front of him.
Mr. Hill acknowledged that he demoted Ms. New, the first time in his six years in office that he has disciplined a prosecutor for a Batson-related issue. He said he disagreed with her philosophy on jurors.
"It doesn't make a difference how much money you have," he said.
The News also found two cases last year in which a judge ruled that another of Mr. Hill's prosecutors had violated Batson.
That prosecutor, Lara Peirce, rejected a black truck driver whom she described as "liberal" because he was wearing a gold chain with what she incorrectly described as a theater mask medallion. She also rejected a black secretary who she wrongly said was skeptical of police.
Ms. Peirce said that she alerted Mr. Hill to the incidents, had valid race-neutral reasons for excluding the jurors and did not understand why the judge found them unacceptable. "There's no problem with why I struck these people," she said in an interview.
Mr. Hill blamed the Batson rulings on a personality conflict between the state district judge and Ms. Peirce.
The judge, Mary E. Miller, disagreed. "It had absolutely nothing to do with personality conflict, and it had everything to do with following the law," Judge Miller said. "You have to look at whether it [the strike] is race-neutral, but you also have to look behind it and make sure they're not just making something up."
Six months after the second Batson ruling, Mr. Hill commended Ms. Peirce's performance in another case.
The district attorney said he does not necessarily make Batson violations part of employees' personnel files.
"We look at each individual case to determine whether there is some kind of deception or ill motive or something where there's an intentional or perceived intentional violation of Batson," Mr. Hill said. "We get objections sustained every day that we don't think are right."
STEREOTYPES
Does pressure to win cause prosecutors to fall back on them?
Mr. Hill strongly objected to any suggestion that he or his staff engage in racist behavior, and on the surface, his felony prosecutors seem a different breed from the Wade era.
Fourteen of the 93 felony court prosecutors are minorities. All but seven earned their law degrees after the 1986 Batson ruling.
New prosecutors in Mr. Hill's office receive a 45-page training paper devoted to jury selection, which instructs them to follow the law. All are instructed to follow a written policy prohibiting jury selection based on race.
"The kids now, they're being raised in a different culture," state District Judge Keith Dean said. "They don't have to consciously reject the lies that some of us were exposed to when we were younger."
State District Judge John Creuzot, one of only two black felony court judges in Dallas County, said he was surprised by The News' findings.
"They seem to be doing a very good job, from my perspective, of handling the cases in a fair and impartial manner," he said.
But several legal analysts said they believed that prosecutors unconsciously engage in unfair stereotyping because they are under immense pressure to win and often must rely on superficial information.
"Your job as a prosecutor is to get a conviction, just as your job as a defense attorney is to get an acquittal," said Marc Mauer, assistant director of The Sentencing Project, a reform organization based in Washington, D.C. "In your personal life, you may have very good relationships with African-Americans and other groups, but your number crunching tells you that your goal needs to be to get as many blacks off the jury as you possibly can.
"Racist or not, the end result is certainly a racist one."
There is also an entrenched belief among prosecutors and defense attorneys that racial stereotypes are still valid indicators of what makes a "good" juror, said Mr. Baldus, a death penalty opponent and a professor at the University of Iowa whom many academics regard as the nation's leading researcher on jury selection bias.
"Maybe they aren't aware that they are indulging in these stereotypes when it comes to race," he said. "[But] if it isn't conscious, it's based on perceptions that are highly correlated with race and race alone."
Prosecutors worry that blacks will empathize with defendants because research shows that blacks are more likely to have bad experiences with the legal system, such as racial profiling by police.
Mr. Hayes said that when he worked in Mr. Hill's office, the stereotypical profile of a black juror was someone who supported rehabilitation of criminals, favored lighter prison terms and had a higher rate of bad experiences with law enforcement and the justice system.
"Everybody with experience seemed to have a story of how a jury hung up when a black juror wouldn't put another black person in jail," he said.
Studies show that while black jurors may alter the tenor of deliberations and improve the thoroughness with which evidence is examined, their presence usually does not change a trial's outcome. There is a greater chance that black jurors will be more lenient in sentencing.
However, the amount of influence blacks can have on a verdict depends on their numbers in the jury, scholars say.
"The research shows that if you only have one, two or three blacks [on a jury] or as many as four, they don't have any real influence on the system," Mr. Baldus said.
In the 108 trials examined by The News, 101 had four or fewer black members. Ten juries contained no black members. Only one jury had a majority of black members; the defendant in that case was white. Blacks made up 56 percent of the defendants.
All-white juries have tended to be harsher on black defendants, said Phoebe Ellsworth, a professor of law and psychology at the University of Michigan.
"White people worry about being racist when they're reminded of it," she said. "But when it's all white people, it just doesn't occur to them to remember their egalitarian values."
Prosecutor Ada Brown, whose mother is white and father is black, believes it's best to talk to prospective jurors about race rather than have it surface later in deliberations.
"I have an 80-year-old grandfather who thinks everybody brown is of Satan," said Ms. Brown, the only one of 13 felony prosecutors interviewed by The News who acknowledged raising race during jury selection.
She has black relatives who distrust the state too much to be fair jurors, she added.
"I use those two extremes to try to get people discussing the topic that nobody wants to discuss – and that is, that race sometimes matters," Ms. Brown said.
CONSIDERING SOLUTIONS
Some judges and scholars say it's time to eliminate peremptory challenges
The Supreme Court has grappled with jury discrimination since the first decade after adoption of the Civil War Amendments to the Constitution, which guaranteed blacks the rights of full citizenship, including jury service.
Batson in 1986 was the first court ruling to put limits on how lawyers could use their discretionary strikes.
But Justice Marshall, the court's first black member, predicted that would not be enough and called for the abolition of peremptory strikes.
He had seen up close the consequences of race discrimination in jury selection. In 1938, as counsel to the NAACP, he came to Dallas to investigate an attack on George Porter, the president of Wiley Junior College who was thrown down the courthouse steps after refusing to be excused from jury service.
"Even if all parties approach the court's mandate with the best of conscious intentions," Justice Marshall wrote almost 50 years after that incident, "that mandate requires them to confront and overcome their own racism on all levels – a challenge I doubt all of them can meet."
Two decades later, writing in the Miller-El case, Justice Breyer recalled Justice Marshall's warning and said it was time "to reconsider Batson's test and the peremptory challenge system as a whole."
Some judges and legal scholars believe that the only way to eliminate discrimination in jury selection is to do away with peremptory strikes – or at least limit them. Having 10 strikes per side, they say, gives lawyers too much leeway.
Beyond the constitutional debate over peremptory challenges, community leaders say race discrimination in jury selection tells an entire group of people that it's unfit to serve and undermines the foundation of the justice system.
"The end results are that you exclude a category of people," said Hank Lawson, chairman of the South Dallas Weed and Seed Committee, which works with police to prevent crime. "You can't get around that."
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Woman may face death penalty
Capital murder case opening today marks a first for Nueces County
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) – For the first time in the nearly 160-year history of Nueces County, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a woman.
Fourteen jurors, two of them alternates, were to report today for the capital murder case against Maria Raquel Rivas, whom prosecutors and her lawyer describe as a professional prostitute. Ms. Rivas, 30, is accused of handing a knife to her boyfriend last year so he could kill a Liberty County man. Her boyfriend was convicted but wasn't sentenced to death.
"It is kind of unusual," Grant Jones, Ms. Rivas' lawyer, said of the possible punishment facing his client. "I'm not sure they've picked the right case here, but we'll see."
Gender not a factor
The prosecutor, Gail Gleimer, said gender is not a factor and that the death penalty is an option even though Ms. Rivas is not accused in the actual killing.
"The guy was the stabber; but the evidence was she brought him back and she handed him the knife, so she had a big participation," Ms. Gleimer said. "There are other factors that are going to come into evidence that will show her state of mind, her history and her intent to make it not that difficult for the jury to see she's a primary person."
Ms. Rivas' boyfriend, Leonard Haskins, was convicted of killing James Haynes in March 2004. Mr. Haynes, 44, of Dayton, Texas, was in Corpus Christi on a construction job when he was robbed and stabbed after Ms. Rivas brought him to Mr. Haskins' apartment for sex.
Mr. Haynes, according to testimony, ran from the apartment, got into his truck and drove off, eventually running into a utility pole. An emergency medical crew responding to what they thought was a traffic accident found him slumped over the steering wheel. They also found he had been stabbed in the chest. He never regained consciousness.
Mr. Haskins, 21, identified by authorities as a crack dealer, was convicted in June of capital murder. A Nueces County jury, however, spurned the death sentence and instead gave Mr. Haskins a life prison term, meaning he's not eligible for parole for at least 40 years.
If jurors convict Ms. Rivas, they will choose punishment of either life in prison or death. A new law signed in June by Gov. Rick Perry that gives jurors a third option of life without parole applies to murders committed on or after Sept. 1.
Nueces County was created in 1846 out of San Patricio County, where on Nov. 13, 1863, Chepita Rodriguez was hanged for the ax killing of a South Texas rancher. It would be 135 years before another woman was executed in the state.
Karla Faye Tucker was put to death in 1998 for using a 3-foot-long pickax to hack to death a Houston man during a 1983 burglary. Two years later, 62-year-old great-grandmother Betty Lou Beets went to the death chamber for fatally shooting her fifth husband to collect insurance and pension benefits.
Next month, Frances Newton is scheduled for lethal injection for the 1987 shooting deaths of her husband and two children at their Houston apartment.
In Ms. Rivas' case, court files indicate she had been kicked out of school for marijuana-related reasons and tested positive for cocaine when she was brought to an emergency room by her mother in 1990 after suffering a seizure. She was 14 at the time, medical records showed.
Drug problems
By 2001, when she was hospitalized for infected wounds on her body, records show she had a $50-a-day cocaine habit, also was dealing drugs and told medical personnel she had had been freebasing cocaine at age 15.
Ms. Rivas has previous convictions for burglary and cocaine possession and was released from a state jail in 2003 after a conviction of possession of a controlled substance, Texas Department of Criminal Justice records show. She's been jailed in Corpus Christi since her arrest about three weeks after Mr. Haynes was killed.
In the fall, Nueces County prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty in the trial of another woman, Angela Cruz Rodriguez, 31. She is charged in the July 2004 stabbing death of a Corpus Christi convenience store clerk who was robbed of $1.25.
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DEATH ROW INMATES BY THE NUMBERS
410 inmates on Texas death row
9 who are women
347 people executed in Texas since 1982
2 who were women
Capital murder case opening today marks a first for Nueces County
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) – For the first time in the nearly 160-year history of Nueces County, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a woman.
Fourteen jurors, two of them alternates, were to report today for the capital murder case against Maria Raquel Rivas, whom prosecutors and her lawyer describe as a professional prostitute. Ms. Rivas, 30, is accused of handing a knife to her boyfriend last year so he could kill a Liberty County man. Her boyfriend was convicted but wasn't sentenced to death.
"It is kind of unusual," Grant Jones, Ms. Rivas' lawyer, said of the possible punishment facing his client. "I'm not sure they've picked the right case here, but we'll see."
Gender not a factor
The prosecutor, Gail Gleimer, said gender is not a factor and that the death penalty is an option even though Ms. Rivas is not accused in the actual killing.
"The guy was the stabber; but the evidence was she brought him back and she handed him the knife, so she had a big participation," Ms. Gleimer said. "There are other factors that are going to come into evidence that will show her state of mind, her history and her intent to make it not that difficult for the jury to see she's a primary person."
Ms. Rivas' boyfriend, Leonard Haskins, was convicted of killing James Haynes in March 2004. Mr. Haynes, 44, of Dayton, Texas, was in Corpus Christi on a construction job when he was robbed and stabbed after Ms. Rivas brought him to Mr. Haskins' apartment for sex.
Mr. Haynes, according to testimony, ran from the apartment, got into his truck and drove off, eventually running into a utility pole. An emergency medical crew responding to what they thought was a traffic accident found him slumped over the steering wheel. They also found he had been stabbed in the chest. He never regained consciousness.
Mr. Haskins, 21, identified by authorities as a crack dealer, was convicted in June of capital murder. A Nueces County jury, however, spurned the death sentence and instead gave Mr. Haskins a life prison term, meaning he's not eligible for parole for at least 40 years.
If jurors convict Ms. Rivas, they will choose punishment of either life in prison or death. A new law signed in June by Gov. Rick Perry that gives jurors a third option of life without parole applies to murders committed on or after Sept. 1.
Nueces County was created in 1846 out of San Patricio County, where on Nov. 13, 1863, Chepita Rodriguez was hanged for the ax killing of a South Texas rancher. It would be 135 years before another woman was executed in the state.
Karla Faye Tucker was put to death in 1998 for using a 3-foot-long pickax to hack to death a Houston man during a 1983 burglary. Two years later, 62-year-old great-grandmother Betty Lou Beets went to the death chamber for fatally shooting her fifth husband to collect insurance and pension benefits.
Next month, Frances Newton is scheduled for lethal injection for the 1987 shooting deaths of her husband and two children at their Houston apartment.
In Ms. Rivas' case, court files indicate she had been kicked out of school for marijuana-related reasons and tested positive for cocaine when she was brought to an emergency room by her mother in 1990 after suffering a seizure. She was 14 at the time, medical records showed.
Drug problems
By 2001, when she was hospitalized for infected wounds on her body, records show she had a $50-a-day cocaine habit, also was dealing drugs and told medical personnel she had had been freebasing cocaine at age 15.
Ms. Rivas has previous convictions for burglary and cocaine possession and was released from a state jail in 2003 after a conviction of possession of a controlled substance, Texas Department of Criminal Justice records show. She's been jailed in Corpus Christi since her arrest about three weeks after Mr. Haynes was killed.
In the fall, Nueces County prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty in the trial of another woman, Angela Cruz Rodriguez, 31. She is charged in the July 2004 stabbing death of a Corpus Christi convenience store clerk who was robbed of $1.25.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DEATH ROW INMATES BY THE NUMBERS
410 inmates on Texas death row
9 who are women
347 people executed in Texas since 1982
2 who were women
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Federal probe freezes DISD vendor's funding
By DAN RONAN / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Two Dallas Independent School District trustees and a technology director are now under federal investigation as questions have grown concerning the district's relationship with Micro Systems Enterprises. While the probe is underway, the Universal Service Administrative Company has frozen payments to the computer company that serves as one of the district's prime vendors.
DISD's technology director, Ruben Bohuchot, has taken numerous trips aboard the $800,000 Sir Veza II, which is owned by a Delaware corporation headed by three Micro System executives. Micro System has done millions of dollars worth of work for the district and Bohuchot is also a close friend with Frankie Wong, the company's CEO and president.
Micro System Enterprises supplies computer hardware in hundreds of DISD classrooms and federal grants paid the bill. Over the last seven years, the total was in the tens of millions of dollars.
Now the federal government's USAC - which collects and administers technology funding - wants answers. They sent a letter to the school district last week that said they "will subject DISD applications and invoices associated with DISD to heightened scrutiny."
The USAC said Bohuchot and trustees Ron Price and Hollis Brashear were among DISD employees and officials allegedly receiving kickbacks, gifts and political donations from vendors. They are also among those with alleged questionable relationships with vendors.
While DISD refused to speak on camera, the district released a statement that read, "We are drafting a response to their questions and will respond appropriately."
Also, Brashear did not return phone calls and Price is out of town but said he has not seen the letter from USAC. However, he recently spoke highly of Micro System Enterprises.
"This is a case of another vendor upset because they did not win the award," said Price about the complaints aimed at the technology company.
The letter from USAC said DISD could be forced to repay $55 million in federal funding because of allegations of bid rigging. A DISD critic said the public could be left holding the bag.
"You guys just put me on the hook for $55 Million while the federal government tries to find out how much we have to pay back," said Allen Gwinn, publisher of Dallas.org.
Bohuchot was suspended with pay, but a DISD source said the USAC letter could result in his termination.
By DAN RONAN / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Two Dallas Independent School District trustees and a technology director are now under federal investigation as questions have grown concerning the district's relationship with Micro Systems Enterprises. While the probe is underway, the Universal Service Administrative Company has frozen payments to the computer company that serves as one of the district's prime vendors.
DISD's technology director, Ruben Bohuchot, has taken numerous trips aboard the $800,000 Sir Veza II, which is owned by a Delaware corporation headed by three Micro System executives. Micro System has done millions of dollars worth of work for the district and Bohuchot is also a close friend with Frankie Wong, the company's CEO and president.
Micro System Enterprises supplies computer hardware in hundreds of DISD classrooms and federal grants paid the bill. Over the last seven years, the total was in the tens of millions of dollars.
Now the federal government's USAC - which collects and administers technology funding - wants answers. They sent a letter to the school district last week that said they "will subject DISD applications and invoices associated with DISD to heightened scrutiny."
The USAC said Bohuchot and trustees Ron Price and Hollis Brashear were among DISD employees and officials allegedly receiving kickbacks, gifts and political donations from vendors. They are also among those with alleged questionable relationships with vendors.
While DISD refused to speak on camera, the district released a statement that read, "We are drafting a response to their questions and will respond appropriately."
Also, Brashear did not return phone calls and Price is out of town but said he has not seen the letter from USAC. However, he recently spoke highly of Micro System Enterprises.
"This is a case of another vendor upset because they did not win the award," said Price about the complaints aimed at the technology company.
The letter from USAC said DISD could be forced to repay $55 million in federal funding because of allegations of bid rigging. A DISD critic said the public could be left holding the bag.
"You guys just put me on the hook for $55 Million while the federal government tries to find out how much we have to pay back," said Allen Gwinn, publisher of Dallas.org.
Bohuchot was suspended with pay, but a DISD source said the USAC letter could result in his termination.
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West Nile cases appear to be on rise
By JIM DOUGLAS / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Dallas County health officials have reported four people infected with the West Nile Virus this year. While there are no known cases in Collin or Denton County, Tarrant County has two human cases confirmed. But that number may be going up with reports of six more possible infections, which if positive would change that number from two to eight.
There are reports of three probable cases each in Arlington and North Richland Hills. And there has been one case confirmed in Fort Worth and Bedford.
North Richland Hills does spray to attack mosquitoes and while Arlington does not, they did send people to speak with citizens door-to-door.
Since June, 45 mosquito samples have tested positive for the virus. But, only about 20 percent of those who get the virus ever develop symptoms. Experts also said that less than one percent ever get serious symptoms.
"Some of these eight cases were hospitalized and some of them may still be in the hospital," said Dr. Elvin Adams, with Tarrant County Public Health. "Others were not hospitalized, but when diagnosed were sent home because they were not sufficiently ill to stay in the hospital."
Last year there were only two confirmed cases of West Nile in Tarrant County, but in 2003 there were 22 cases.
By JIM DOUGLAS / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Dallas County health officials have reported four people infected with the West Nile Virus this year. While there are no known cases in Collin or Denton County, Tarrant County has two human cases confirmed. But that number may be going up with reports of six more possible infections, which if positive would change that number from two to eight.
There are reports of three probable cases each in Arlington and North Richland Hills. And there has been one case confirmed in Fort Worth and Bedford.
North Richland Hills does spray to attack mosquitoes and while Arlington does not, they did send people to speak with citizens door-to-door.
Since June, 45 mosquito samples have tested positive for the virus. But, only about 20 percent of those who get the virus ever develop symptoms. Experts also said that less than one percent ever get serious symptoms.
"Some of these eight cases were hospitalized and some of them may still be in the hospital," said Dr. Elvin Adams, with Tarrant County Public Health. "Others were not hospitalized, but when diagnosed were sent home because they were not sufficiently ill to stay in the hospital."
Last year there were only two confirmed cases of West Nile in Tarrant County, but in 2003 there were 22 cases.
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High-speed chase ends in arrest of Dallas officer
DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - An off-duty Dallas police officer is hospitalized after leading authorities on a high speed chase.
It started late this afternoon at a house in Arlington and from there the chase went south on Highway 287 into Mansfield. It then moved back north to Interstate 20 and west to 287. The chase ended at Rosedale Street in Fort Worth.
The woman hit a guardrail and stopped but did not get out. Police approached slowly using a patrol car for protection. They then punched out the driver's side window and pulled her from the pickup.
The officer, 33-year-old Tracey Nichols, is a six-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department. Nichols' mother, who feared her daughter was suicidal, had called police to check on her daughter.
Nichols was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital with an injured leg.
WFAA ABC 8
A swarm of officers take an off-duty policewoman into custody.
DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - An off-duty Dallas police officer is hospitalized after leading authorities on a high speed chase.
It started late this afternoon at a house in Arlington and from there the chase went south on Highway 287 into Mansfield. It then moved back north to Interstate 20 and west to 287. The chase ended at Rosedale Street in Fort Worth.
The woman hit a guardrail and stopped but did not get out. Police approached slowly using a patrol car for protection. They then punched out the driver's side window and pulled her from the pickup.
The officer, 33-year-old Tracey Nichols, is a six-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department. Nichols' mother, who feared her daughter was suicidal, had called police to check on her daughter.
Nichols was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital with an injured leg.
WFAA ABC 8
A swarm of officers take an off-duty policewoman into custody.
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Range fires burn in Hill County
BLUM, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - Four volunteer fire departments battled multiple brush fires in rural Hill County Monday afternoon.
The fires raged near the community of Blum, which is just over the Johnson County line about 10 miles south of Cleburne.
Farm buildings and livestock were threatened by the advancing flames.
A Hill County Sheriff's Department spokesman said volunteers from Blum, Covington, Lakeview and Whitney were fighting the fire in 100-degree heat and oppressive humidity.
Cleburne firefighters were also assisting.
Homeowners used front loaders and backhoes in an effort to douse the flames with dirt.
Smoke from the fire could be seen as far away as Burleson.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
While burn bans have been enacted in all the surrounding counties, there was no burn ban in place in Hill County on Monday, according to the Texas Forest Service.
WFAA ABC 8
Volunteers used mobile tankers to attack the advancing flames.
BLUM, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - Four volunteer fire departments battled multiple brush fires in rural Hill County Monday afternoon.
The fires raged near the community of Blum, which is just over the Johnson County line about 10 miles south of Cleburne.
Farm buildings and livestock were threatened by the advancing flames.
A Hill County Sheriff's Department spokesman said volunteers from Blum, Covington, Lakeview and Whitney were fighting the fire in 100-degree heat and oppressive humidity.
Cleburne firefighters were also assisting.
Homeowners used front loaders and backhoes in an effort to douse the flames with dirt.
Smoke from the fire could be seen as far away as Burleson.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
While burn bans have been enacted in all the surrounding counties, there was no burn ban in place in Hill County on Monday, according to the Texas Forest Service.
WFAA ABC 8
Volunteers used mobile tankers to attack the advancing flames.
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Citizen's call leads to arrests, seizures
By REBECCA LOPEZ / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Several alleged drug dealers are off the street after Dallas police made three big drug busts and one citizen made a call.
The suspects were rounded up in the southwest part of Dallas and officers confiscated dozens of pounds of drugs, weapons and more than $89,000 dollars in cash.
Vicki Keene said she was fed up with what she suspected was a drug house in her neighborhood and decided she would place a call to police.
"We can't be afraid," she said. "We can't let them win. If you give up and move away because you don't like the neighborhood then they have won."
That same day she called in the tip, southwest patrol sent a crime response team made up of seven officers. Keene said she was impressed with the quick response.
"I am just amazed, shocked and very happy that we got this done," she said. "I got this kind of response."
Police arrested a few people and seized methamphetamines, guns and cash. And that was not the only house that was subjected to a search and seizure. In recent days, the crime response team has shut down several drug houses. In just one month they said they have recovered 24 weapons and more than 30 pounds of cocaine, marijuana, meth and heroin.
Police said they shut down drug houses because of their impact on other crimes.
"Bring down the drug houses, bring down the suppliers and lower the crime rate," said Lt. Thon Overstreet.
Keene said she is now a believer and that she feels safer knowing police are watching and quickly responding when they believe drug dealers have taken over a neighborhood.
By REBECCA LOPEZ / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Several alleged drug dealers are off the street after Dallas police made three big drug busts and one citizen made a call.
The suspects were rounded up in the southwest part of Dallas and officers confiscated dozens of pounds of drugs, weapons and more than $89,000 dollars in cash.
Vicki Keene said she was fed up with what she suspected was a drug house in her neighborhood and decided she would place a call to police.
"We can't be afraid," she said. "We can't let them win. If you give up and move away because you don't like the neighborhood then they have won."
That same day she called in the tip, southwest patrol sent a crime response team made up of seven officers. Keene said she was impressed with the quick response.
"I am just amazed, shocked and very happy that we got this done," she said. "I got this kind of response."
Police arrested a few people and seized methamphetamines, guns and cash. And that was not the only house that was subjected to a search and seizure. In recent days, the crime response team has shut down several drug houses. In just one month they said they have recovered 24 weapons and more than 30 pounds of cocaine, marijuana, meth and heroin.
Police said they shut down drug houses because of their impact on other crimes.
"Bring down the drug houses, bring down the suppliers and lower the crime rate," said Lt. Thon Overstreet.
Keene said she is now a believer and that she feels safer knowing police are watching and quickly responding when they believe drug dealers have taken over a neighborhood.
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New Dallas program aims to increase recycling
By JEFF BRADY / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - A new wave in waste called single-stream recycling has some hoping to increase Dallas recycling participants and save landfill space.
Like most cities, Dallas has required separate bags for recycling. Those who want to recycle use a blue container for bottles and cans and paper sacks for paper. However, only about one in four households participate in recycling, which is well below the national average.
But in the new single-stream process, paper, plastic, glass and aluminum come in together to be recycled and are then sifted apart. The program is aimed to simplify recycling in an attempt to attract more participants in the program.
Allen and McKinney allow residents to dump all recyclables into one container, which resulted in an increase in participants.
"In those cities the volume went up over 100 percent, from 25 pounds per home per month, to over 50," said Greg Roemer, president and owner of Community Waste Disposal.
The new objective is for Dallas to do the same. Dallas residents can already start putting all recyclable materials together in one bag. Homeowners will see a four cent increase in the water bill this fall to accommodate the change. And next year, the city will provide each home with a large blue cart for the single-stream recycling program.
"If we recycle at the rate that this program allows, we could save two months of landfill space every year," said Mary Nix, assistant director with the City of Dallas Department of Sanitation.
Single-stream recycling is a complex process that is starting by hand with a series of rumbling trays and conveyor belts to divide the waste and package it for sale. Plastic is pressed into 1,500 pound bales.
"This is a revenue source," Roemer said. "So, the cleaner we can make it, the more revenue we can create out of the materials."
Community Waste Disposal just spent $5 million upgrading their plant to accommodate the single-stream process.
By JEFF BRADY / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - A new wave in waste called single-stream recycling has some hoping to increase Dallas recycling participants and save landfill space.
Like most cities, Dallas has required separate bags for recycling. Those who want to recycle use a blue container for bottles and cans and paper sacks for paper. However, only about one in four households participate in recycling, which is well below the national average.
But in the new single-stream process, paper, plastic, glass and aluminum come in together to be recycled and are then sifted apart. The program is aimed to simplify recycling in an attempt to attract more participants in the program.
Allen and McKinney allow residents to dump all recyclables into one container, which resulted in an increase in participants.
"In those cities the volume went up over 100 percent, from 25 pounds per home per month, to over 50," said Greg Roemer, president and owner of Community Waste Disposal.
The new objective is for Dallas to do the same. Dallas residents can already start putting all recyclable materials together in one bag. Homeowners will see a four cent increase in the water bill this fall to accommodate the change. And next year, the city will provide each home with a large blue cart for the single-stream recycling program.
"If we recycle at the rate that this program allows, we could save two months of landfill space every year," said Mary Nix, assistant director with the City of Dallas Department of Sanitation.
Single-stream recycling is a complex process that is starting by hand with a series of rumbling trays and conveyor belts to divide the waste and package it for sale. Plastic is pressed into 1,500 pound bales.
"This is a revenue source," Roemer said. "So, the cleaner we can make it, the more revenue we can create out of the materials."
Community Waste Disposal just spent $5 million upgrading their plant to accommodate the single-stream process.
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Texans fare poorly in obesity study
By DAVE CASSIDY / WFAA ABC 8
WASHINGTON/DALLAS, Texas — America is losing the fight against obesity, and Texans aren't setting a good example for the rest of the nation.
A new report shows that adults in the Lone Star State are the sixth most obese in the United States, tied with Michigan.
The 2005 Obesity Report prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the government needs to take action because almost no progress is being made.
The numbers aren't pretty: 25 percent of Americans are obese; another 40 percent are considered to be overweight.
We know what's causing obesity. We eat too much of the wrong foods and we get too little exercise.
Those factors are creating all kinds of health problems.
"This can lead to diabetes, this can lead to heart attack, this can lead to stroke, this can lead to certain types of cancers," said Dr. Donald Palmissano of the American Medical Association.
According to the study, 64 percent of Americans were overweight in 2000, compared to 47 percent in 1980.
During that same period, the number of overweight American children doubled, and the number of overweight teenagers tripled.
"The bottom line is, we got too many kids overweight," said former President Bill Clinton who has joined the campaign to fight obesity.
"I always battled my weight," Clinton said. "When I was 13, I was 5-foot-8 and weighed 185 pounds."
Quadruple bypass heart surgery kept him alive and got him thinking. "I thought it was a chance where I could save the most lives, do the most good and also do something that I understood from my own experience," he said.
Even if you're not overweight, you will still face the impact of the obesity epidemic.
It now costs $117 billion to treat fat-related illnesses. That's 11 cents from every dollar spent on health care, a cost that impacts every American taxpayer.
The CDC report says state and federal governments can have a positive impact on the diets of young people because they provide so much education money that goes to school lunch menus.
As this school year starts, we're hearing more about schools serving healthier foods and getting healthier drinks into school vending machines.
The report says employers can help, too, by providing routine obesity screening and by offering benefits for things like exercise classes and nutritional guidance.
The report says those expenses will be more than offset by an overall reduction in health care costs.
But the experts say that ultimately, the government can't force people to make healthier choices.
By DAVE CASSIDY / WFAA ABC 8
WASHINGTON/DALLAS, Texas — America is losing the fight against obesity, and Texans aren't setting a good example for the rest of the nation.
A new report shows that adults in the Lone Star State are the sixth most obese in the United States, tied with Michigan.
The 2005 Obesity Report prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the government needs to take action because almost no progress is being made.
The numbers aren't pretty: 25 percent of Americans are obese; another 40 percent are considered to be overweight.
We know what's causing obesity. We eat too much of the wrong foods and we get too little exercise.
Those factors are creating all kinds of health problems.
"This can lead to diabetes, this can lead to heart attack, this can lead to stroke, this can lead to certain types of cancers," said Dr. Donald Palmissano of the American Medical Association.
According to the study, 64 percent of Americans were overweight in 2000, compared to 47 percent in 1980.
During that same period, the number of overweight American children doubled, and the number of overweight teenagers tripled.
"The bottom line is, we got too many kids overweight," said former President Bill Clinton who has joined the campaign to fight obesity.
"I always battled my weight," Clinton said. "When I was 13, I was 5-foot-8 and weighed 185 pounds."
Quadruple bypass heart surgery kept him alive and got him thinking. "I thought it was a chance where I could save the most lives, do the most good and also do something that I understood from my own experience," he said.
Even if you're not overweight, you will still face the impact of the obesity epidemic.
It now costs $117 billion to treat fat-related illnesses. That's 11 cents from every dollar spent on health care, a cost that impacts every American taxpayer.
The CDC report says state and federal governments can have a positive impact on the diets of young people because they provide so much education money that goes to school lunch menus.
As this school year starts, we're hearing more about schools serving healthier foods and getting healthier drinks into school vending machines.
The report says employers can help, too, by providing routine obesity screening and by offering benefits for things like exercise classes and nutritional guidance.
The report says those expenses will be more than offset by an overall reduction in health care costs.
But the experts say that ultimately, the government can't force people to make healthier choices.
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UT slaying suspect found in Mexico
By MICHAEL MENDOZA / KVUE ABC 24
AUSTIN, Texas - The suspect in a homicide in the West Campus area near the University of Texas has been captured.
Colton Pitonyak, 22, is accused of murdering Jennifer Cave, 21, in his apartment.
The Austin American-Statesman reports U.S. marshals took Pitonyak into custody early Tuesday in Eagle Pass after Mexico deported him. The newspaper reports Pitonyak was deported on an immigration violation.
Cave's body was found at the Orange Tree apartments in the 2500 block of Rio Grande Thursday night. According to the arrest affidavit, her body was found in the bathtub, and she had been stabbed and shot.
Police suspect Pitonyak in the homicide.
"At this point of the investigation we believe he's the only one involved," said Sgt. Jessica Robledo, A.P.D. Homicide.
Pitonyak's arrest warrant shows Cave called her mother on Tuesday. She told her that she had just accepted a new job and was going out to dinner with a man she identified as "Colton."
Cave later called other friends, letting them know that Colton had started acting strangely. The warrant says Pitonyak had tried to break into someone's car and that he had become upset that he lost his cell phone. Pitonyak even called Cave's mother, saying they had gotten into a fight and the last time he saw her was midnight.
Cave's mother filed a missing person's report, which led police to Cave's mutilated body.
According to Pitonyak's arrest warrant, police found a receipt from a hardware store the day after his date with Cave. Among the items he bought -- carpet cleaner, a hacksaw, ammonia, an odor eliminator and latex gloves.
Police say they tracked Pitonyak's cell phone with the help of U.S. Marshals. It showed Pitonak's cell phone was last used in Monterrey, Mexico on the day Cave's body was found.
So far, there's no word on a motive for the killing.
By MICHAEL MENDOZA / KVUE ABC 24
AUSTIN, Texas - The suspect in a homicide in the West Campus area near the University of Texas has been captured.
Colton Pitonyak, 22, is accused of murdering Jennifer Cave, 21, in his apartment.
The Austin American-Statesman reports U.S. marshals took Pitonyak into custody early Tuesday in Eagle Pass after Mexico deported him. The newspaper reports Pitonyak was deported on an immigration violation.
Cave's body was found at the Orange Tree apartments in the 2500 block of Rio Grande Thursday night. According to the arrest affidavit, her body was found in the bathtub, and she had been stabbed and shot.
Police suspect Pitonyak in the homicide.
"At this point of the investigation we believe he's the only one involved," said Sgt. Jessica Robledo, A.P.D. Homicide.
Pitonyak's arrest warrant shows Cave called her mother on Tuesday. She told her that she had just accepted a new job and was going out to dinner with a man she identified as "Colton."
Cave later called other friends, letting them know that Colton had started acting strangely. The warrant says Pitonyak had tried to break into someone's car and that he had become upset that he lost his cell phone. Pitonyak even called Cave's mother, saying they had gotten into a fight and the last time he saw her was midnight.
Cave's mother filed a missing person's report, which led police to Cave's mutilated body.
According to Pitonyak's arrest warrant, police found a receipt from a hardware store the day after his date with Cave. Among the items he bought -- carpet cleaner, a hacksaw, ammonia, an odor eliminator and latex gloves.
Police say they tracked Pitonyak's cell phone with the help of U.S. Marshals. It showed Pitonak's cell phone was last used in Monterrey, Mexico on the day Cave's body was found.
So far, there's no word on a motive for the killing.
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Pastor arrested over urine test
By HOLLY YAN / The Dallas Morning News
ARLINGTON, Texas - An Arlington pastor accused of sexually assaulting three women was arrested again last week after failing to provide a urine test.
The Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, who founded the Agape Christian Fellowship Church in Arlington, was booked into the Tarrant County Jail on Friday.
Mr. Hornbuckle was indicted in March on four counts of sexual assault. Two of the women, one of whom was 17 at the time, said Mr. Hornbuckle gave them a date-rape drug.
Mr. Hornbuckle was arrested again May 11, accused of violating the terms of his bail. A May 5 test found illegal drugs in Mr. Hornbuckle's system, Tarrant County probation officials said. A judge later ordered Mr. Hornbuckle into rehab.
No bail was set after last week's arrest.
By HOLLY YAN / The Dallas Morning News
ARLINGTON, Texas - An Arlington pastor accused of sexually assaulting three women was arrested again last week after failing to provide a urine test.
The Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, who founded the Agape Christian Fellowship Church in Arlington, was booked into the Tarrant County Jail on Friday.
Mr. Hornbuckle was indicted in March on four counts of sexual assault. Two of the women, one of whom was 17 at the time, said Mr. Hornbuckle gave them a date-rape drug.
Mr. Hornbuckle was arrested again May 11, accused of violating the terms of his bail. A May 5 test found illegal drugs in Mr. Hornbuckle's system, Tarrant County probation officials said. A judge later ordered Mr. Hornbuckle into rehab.
No bail was set after last week's arrest.
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KEGL-FM switching to Mexican format
By SPENCER MICHLIN / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - KEGL-FM (97.1) will change formats again at 6 a.m. Thursday. The radio station will still play music of the '70s, '80s and '90s, but now it will be regional Mexican hits from those decades.
Formerly a hard-rock station called "The Eagle," 97.1 has since May 2004 been known as "Sunny 97.1 FM". Henceforth, it will be called "La Preciosa," said J.D. Freeman, regional vice president of Clear Channel Radio, which owns the station.
He said Clear Channel has had success with La Preciosa in Bakersfield and San Jose, Calif., where it is the No. 1 Spanish-language format, and in Las Vegas, where it is currently No. 2. Clear Channel also broadcasts the format in Monterey, Santa Barbara and Santa Maria, Calif., and calls the stations La Preciosa Network.
Mr. Freeman said Anna de Harro in Dallas will provide local news and information and Jamie Alejandro will join the station as operations manager and afternoon-drive-time host.
The station, which will be 100 percent Spanish-language, marks Clear Channel's first entry into the Dallas Hispanic marketplace.
Mr. Freeman said John Tesh's syndicated show will move from Sunday through Friday nights on KEGL to KDMX Mix 102.9 FM, where it will begin at 7 p.m.
By SPENCER MICHLIN / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - KEGL-FM (97.1) will change formats again at 6 a.m. Thursday. The radio station will still play music of the '70s, '80s and '90s, but now it will be regional Mexican hits from those decades.
Formerly a hard-rock station called "The Eagle," 97.1 has since May 2004 been known as "Sunny 97.1 FM". Henceforth, it will be called "La Preciosa," said J.D. Freeman, regional vice president of Clear Channel Radio, which owns the station.
He said Clear Channel has had success with La Preciosa in Bakersfield and San Jose, Calif., where it is the No. 1 Spanish-language format, and in Las Vegas, where it is currently No. 2. Clear Channel also broadcasts the format in Monterey, Santa Barbara and Santa Maria, Calif., and calls the stations La Preciosa Network.
Mr. Freeman said Anna de Harro in Dallas will provide local news and information and Jamie Alejandro will join the station as operations manager and afternoon-drive-time host.
The station, which will be 100 percent Spanish-language, marks Clear Channel's first entry into the Dallas Hispanic marketplace.
Mr. Freeman said John Tesh's syndicated show will move from Sunday through Friday nights on KEGL to KDMX Mix 102.9 FM, where it will begin at 7 p.m.
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Some question Miller's power
Dallas: Southern sector council members secure in unity; mayor unfazed
By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - There was Dallas City Council member Leo Chaney, looking like he'd just spun slot wheels that had flashed triple sevens.
Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill grinned with pride, patting a glowing council member Maxine Thornton-Reese on the back as they walked out of their meeting room.
For the second week in a row, Mayor Laura Miller had fought to pass a contentious initiative over the will of Dallas' southern sector representatives. And for the second week in a row, they thwarted her – with the help of a few northern sector representatives.
"You saw the unity. You see the unity. We can come together and beat her, now and tomorrow," council member James Fantroy said after the council voted 9-6 Wednesday in defeating a motion by the mayor to remove embattled City Plan Commissioner D'Angelo Lee, appointed by Mr. Hill.
The FBI is investigating Mr. Lee, along with the council's four longest-tenured members: Mr. Hill, Mr. Fantroy, Dr. Thornton-Reese and Mr. Chaney.
No charges have been brought against any official during the two-month-long public corruption inquiry.
On Aug. 10, after a tense debate with racial overtones, a coalition of north and south council members, led by Mr. Hill and Dr. Thornton-Reese, blocked Ms. Miller's effort to strip more than $1 million in federal community development grants from a slumping southern sector economic development organization in order to repair city buildings.
Interviews with five of Dallas' six southern sector representatives reveal a confidence among them that they can cobble together the eight votes needed to win on an issue – and block Ms. Miller at will.
Several council members also wondered aloud whether Ms. Miller remains the body's true leader, given voters' overwhelming rejection of the strong-mayor proposition in May that she supported – all 14 sitting council members opposed it – along with her two defeats this month at City Hall.
They also questioned whether she retains enough influence to deliver eight votes on issues that don't already enjoy broad council consensus.
This could mean more attention placed on issues such as southern sector economic growth, street repair and social programs, Mr. Fantroy and Mr. Hill suggested. Any lasting coalition of council members wouldn't simply play an obstructionist role, they said.
"Laura, she's still the mayor. She still has faithful support out there, I know," Mr. Hill said. "But this City Council is clearly a better leader than the mayor alone. You're going to see different people leading on different issues, and their leaderships in some way may usurp or be more than what the mayor offers on some issues."
Said council member Ed Oakley, "If you don't have one person leading, you will have a coalition of people leading, and Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill and Deputy Mayor Pro Tem [Elba] Garcia are good leaders."
Ms. Miller said she has no regrets in trying to unseat Mr. Lee or redistribute the Southern Dallas Development Corp.'s funding.
"Clearly, the southern-sector coalition that defeated those items is not ready for those changes. That doesn't mean I won't continue to push for them," Ms. Miller wrote in an e-mail. "Change is hard, and the southern-sector coalition that resists it will continue to falsely paint all attempts as divisive and racist. But change will come. It has to – the public deserves it."
To that end, the mayor said she will present the council next month with a plan, of whichshe is not yet discussing details, to reform the city's planning and zoning process.
Council member Ron Natinsky sided with Ms. Miller during the votes on the development corporation and Mr. Lee, but he doesn't consider himself a member of a northern-sector coalition.
"I won't go into any situation with any preconceived notions until I hear the debate," Mr. Natinsky said. "I would hope that people would not blindly vote a certain way because the mayor wants something or doesn't want something. And I hope things haven't gotten to the point where you're either in one camp or another."
Council cooperation
Strip away the fiery council debates of recent weeks and evidence that this group can cooperate is clear.
Council members met in January in a Dallas Arboretum conference room to reaffirm the five city priorities – economic development, staff accountability, public safety, quality of life issues and the Trinity River Corridor project – that they established a year before.
A professional moderator the city hired, not the mayor or an elected official, ran the meeting. In less than eight hours, the council reached a consensus on its policy philosophy and realigned its committee structure to reflect it.
The council has used that template to guide its overarching policy decisions ever since, not the least of which is determining how the city budget should be funded next fiscal year.
At the council's behest, City Manager Mary Suhm this year allocated money according to city priority, not department by department. And there's effectively no dissent among council members over, for example, hiring more police officers, pouring city resources into downtown and southern sector economic revitalization programs and limiting property tax rate growth.
"The oldest political game at City Hall is, 'Who is the most powerful?' It is kind of an updated 'Mirror, mirror on the wall,' " Ms. Miller said. "But we work together beautifully as a unit on the big goals because we are all professionals, and we have to act professionally if we are going to accomplish what we have promised the citizens we'd do.
"On the projects that matter most," she said, "we are going to push them forward together."
Council member Bill Blaydes credits Ms. Miller for displaying deft and sophisticated leadership in helping solidify an entire council behind a vision for Dallas.
"She's made political mistakes. I don't always agree with her," Mr. Blaydes said. "But she's led us to where we are today, and she's probably the greatest fundraiser who ever sat in that chair for the arts, the Trinity River and the reinvention for downtown Dallas. She's done what she's set out to do."
Mayor's future
Beyond the city's priorities, however, Ms. Miller may face a trying two years ahead, leading up to what could be her third run for mayor in 2007, Southern Methodist University political science professor Matthew Wilson said. Expect matters that intimately affect the southern sector or even indirectly involve racial issues to occasionally flare during council meetings.
"If the mayor offered a resolution that the sky was blue, she'd probably have four or five votes against it because it was her declaration," Dr. Wilson said. "The southern sector has circled the wagons, and the climate is more explicitly racial now than it even has been."
Dallas: Southern sector council members secure in unity; mayor unfazed
By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - There was Dallas City Council member Leo Chaney, looking like he'd just spun slot wheels that had flashed triple sevens.
Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill grinned with pride, patting a glowing council member Maxine Thornton-Reese on the back as they walked out of their meeting room.
For the second week in a row, Mayor Laura Miller had fought to pass a contentious initiative over the will of Dallas' southern sector representatives. And for the second week in a row, they thwarted her – with the help of a few northern sector representatives.
"You saw the unity. You see the unity. We can come together and beat her, now and tomorrow," council member James Fantroy said after the council voted 9-6 Wednesday in defeating a motion by the mayor to remove embattled City Plan Commissioner D'Angelo Lee, appointed by Mr. Hill.
The FBI is investigating Mr. Lee, along with the council's four longest-tenured members: Mr. Hill, Mr. Fantroy, Dr. Thornton-Reese and Mr. Chaney.
No charges have been brought against any official during the two-month-long public corruption inquiry.
On Aug. 10, after a tense debate with racial overtones, a coalition of north and south council members, led by Mr. Hill and Dr. Thornton-Reese, blocked Ms. Miller's effort to strip more than $1 million in federal community development grants from a slumping southern sector economic development organization in order to repair city buildings.
Interviews with five of Dallas' six southern sector representatives reveal a confidence among them that they can cobble together the eight votes needed to win on an issue – and block Ms. Miller at will.
Several council members also wondered aloud whether Ms. Miller remains the body's true leader, given voters' overwhelming rejection of the strong-mayor proposition in May that she supported – all 14 sitting council members opposed it – along with her two defeats this month at City Hall.
They also questioned whether she retains enough influence to deliver eight votes on issues that don't already enjoy broad council consensus.
This could mean more attention placed on issues such as southern sector economic growth, street repair and social programs, Mr. Fantroy and Mr. Hill suggested. Any lasting coalition of council members wouldn't simply play an obstructionist role, they said.
"Laura, she's still the mayor. She still has faithful support out there, I know," Mr. Hill said. "But this City Council is clearly a better leader than the mayor alone. You're going to see different people leading on different issues, and their leaderships in some way may usurp or be more than what the mayor offers on some issues."
Said council member Ed Oakley, "If you don't have one person leading, you will have a coalition of people leading, and Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill and Deputy Mayor Pro Tem [Elba] Garcia are good leaders."
Ms. Miller said she has no regrets in trying to unseat Mr. Lee or redistribute the Southern Dallas Development Corp.'s funding.
"Clearly, the southern-sector coalition that defeated those items is not ready for those changes. That doesn't mean I won't continue to push for them," Ms. Miller wrote in an e-mail. "Change is hard, and the southern-sector coalition that resists it will continue to falsely paint all attempts as divisive and racist. But change will come. It has to – the public deserves it."
To that end, the mayor said she will present the council next month with a plan, of whichshe is not yet discussing details, to reform the city's planning and zoning process.
Council member Ron Natinsky sided with Ms. Miller during the votes on the development corporation and Mr. Lee, but he doesn't consider himself a member of a northern-sector coalition.
"I won't go into any situation with any preconceived notions until I hear the debate," Mr. Natinsky said. "I would hope that people would not blindly vote a certain way because the mayor wants something or doesn't want something. And I hope things haven't gotten to the point where you're either in one camp or another."
Council cooperation
Strip away the fiery council debates of recent weeks and evidence that this group can cooperate is clear.
Council members met in January in a Dallas Arboretum conference room to reaffirm the five city priorities – economic development, staff accountability, public safety, quality of life issues and the Trinity River Corridor project – that they established a year before.
A professional moderator the city hired, not the mayor or an elected official, ran the meeting. In less than eight hours, the council reached a consensus on its policy philosophy and realigned its committee structure to reflect it.
The council has used that template to guide its overarching policy decisions ever since, not the least of which is determining how the city budget should be funded next fiscal year.
At the council's behest, City Manager Mary Suhm this year allocated money according to city priority, not department by department. And there's effectively no dissent among council members over, for example, hiring more police officers, pouring city resources into downtown and southern sector economic revitalization programs and limiting property tax rate growth.
"The oldest political game at City Hall is, 'Who is the most powerful?' It is kind of an updated 'Mirror, mirror on the wall,' " Ms. Miller said. "But we work together beautifully as a unit on the big goals because we are all professionals, and we have to act professionally if we are going to accomplish what we have promised the citizens we'd do.
"On the projects that matter most," she said, "we are going to push them forward together."
Council member Bill Blaydes credits Ms. Miller for displaying deft and sophisticated leadership in helping solidify an entire council behind a vision for Dallas.
"She's made political mistakes. I don't always agree with her," Mr. Blaydes said. "But she's led us to where we are today, and she's probably the greatest fundraiser who ever sat in that chair for the arts, the Trinity River and the reinvention for downtown Dallas. She's done what she's set out to do."
Mayor's future
Beyond the city's priorities, however, Ms. Miller may face a trying two years ahead, leading up to what could be her third run for mayor in 2007, Southern Methodist University political science professor Matthew Wilson said. Expect matters that intimately affect the southern sector or even indirectly involve racial issues to occasionally flare during council meetings.
"If the mayor offered a resolution that the sky was blue, she'd probably have four or five votes against it because it was her declaration," Dr. Wilson said. "The southern sector has circled the wagons, and the climate is more explicitly racial now than it even has been."
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FBI: Race isn't factor in City Hall probe
Dallas: Some feel better about investigation; others still seething
By GROMER JEFFERS JR. / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - As tensions over the City Hall public corruption investigation rise, the FBI met Monday with black leaders to assure them its investigation was not targeting officials based on their race.
The investigation involves the City Council's four black members – James Fantroy, Leo Chaney, Maxine Thornton-Reese and Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill – and centers on possible bribes related to affordable housing projects in southern Dallas.
No one has been charged or accused of a crime.
After meeting with FBI officials, the Dallas chapter of the NAACP and other civil rights and activist organizations had an emotional community meeting to allow the public to air concerns.
"I felt a lot better after the [FBI] meeting," Bob Lydia, president of the Dallas NAACP, said outside an Oak Cliff recreation center. "They talked about process, and we just wanted to be assured that they were not targeting the African-Americans."
FBI Special Agent Lori Bailey said agency supervisors met with NAACP officials to assure them they were running their investigation by the book.
She said the small group of supervisory agents included Guadalupe Gonzalez, special agent in charge of the FBI's Dallas field office.
"We just talked about how the FBI works in public corruption investigations and the checks and balances in place to assure an investigation's integrity," Agent Bailey said Monday night.
She declined to comment on whether Monday's talks were prompted by claims made last week that investigators were targeting black city leaders and officials.
Most residents who attended the community meeting were concerned and at times outraged at the investigation.
Claude Watson said the FBI should not have conducted parts of its investigation in such a public manner, saying agents created a show. Agents swarmed the City Hall offices of Mr. Hill as news cameras attempted to capture their actions.
"There are ways to investigate, but creating a show, doing a photo op does not seem to me to be the way to conduct a professional investigation," he said. "The reputations of those who have been subject to this have been tarnished and irreparably damaged. Someone who had a bright political career has lost everything."
Mr. Lydia said the FBI explained their much-publicized City Hall raid, along with their public searches of cars and homes.
"They had to serve people, and they had to go get the documents," he said. "They couldn't do it in the secret of night."
He added that the FBI told him they were making strides that would end the investigation.
"They are moving, and they are making some progress," he said. "There are some things we promised we wouldn't talk about, but I feel better about the process."
But Dr. Mamie McKnight, director of Black Dallas Remembered, said: "I have never seen this kind of disrespect for the black community. What I would hope all of us would do is to be unified and committed to make sure this never happens again."
Robert Rhames, who moved to Dallas less than two years ago, said the investigation shocked him.
"It's just like stepping back in time," he said. "It's almost as if I've stepped back into the Reconstruction period."
He said black residents should not let the investigation drive them away from public service.
"We're not going to make it better by sitting down with apathy," he said. "The only way we're going to make the situation better is by actively participating."
Mayor Laura Miller was a major point of contention at the meeting, as some residents vowed to beat her at the ballot box, while others blasted the group of ministers who said recently that they had enough signatures to recall the mayor but didn't for the good of the city.
Joyce Foreman, president of the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference, urged the audience to take another approach.
"She needs prayer," Ms. Foreman said of Ms. Miller and her attempts to lead a fractured city. "She needs a lot of prayer."
Staff writer Tim Wyatt contributed to this report.
Dallas: Some feel better about investigation; others still seething
By GROMER JEFFERS JR. / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - As tensions over the City Hall public corruption investigation rise, the FBI met Monday with black leaders to assure them its investigation was not targeting officials based on their race.
The investigation involves the City Council's four black members – James Fantroy, Leo Chaney, Maxine Thornton-Reese and Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill – and centers on possible bribes related to affordable housing projects in southern Dallas.
No one has been charged or accused of a crime.
After meeting with FBI officials, the Dallas chapter of the NAACP and other civil rights and activist organizations had an emotional community meeting to allow the public to air concerns.
"I felt a lot better after the [FBI] meeting," Bob Lydia, president of the Dallas NAACP, said outside an Oak Cliff recreation center. "They talked about process, and we just wanted to be assured that they were not targeting the African-Americans."
FBI Special Agent Lori Bailey said agency supervisors met with NAACP officials to assure them they were running their investigation by the book.
She said the small group of supervisory agents included Guadalupe Gonzalez, special agent in charge of the FBI's Dallas field office.
"We just talked about how the FBI works in public corruption investigations and the checks and balances in place to assure an investigation's integrity," Agent Bailey said Monday night.
She declined to comment on whether Monday's talks were prompted by claims made last week that investigators were targeting black city leaders and officials.
Most residents who attended the community meeting were concerned and at times outraged at the investigation.
Claude Watson said the FBI should not have conducted parts of its investigation in such a public manner, saying agents created a show. Agents swarmed the City Hall offices of Mr. Hill as news cameras attempted to capture their actions.
"There are ways to investigate, but creating a show, doing a photo op does not seem to me to be the way to conduct a professional investigation," he said. "The reputations of those who have been subject to this have been tarnished and irreparably damaged. Someone who had a bright political career has lost everything."
Mr. Lydia said the FBI explained their much-publicized City Hall raid, along with their public searches of cars and homes.
"They had to serve people, and they had to go get the documents," he said. "They couldn't do it in the secret of night."
He added that the FBI told him they were making strides that would end the investigation.
"They are moving, and they are making some progress," he said. "There are some things we promised we wouldn't talk about, but I feel better about the process."
But Dr. Mamie McKnight, director of Black Dallas Remembered, said: "I have never seen this kind of disrespect for the black community. What I would hope all of us would do is to be unified and committed to make sure this never happens again."
Robert Rhames, who moved to Dallas less than two years ago, said the investigation shocked him.
"It's just like stepping back in time," he said. "It's almost as if I've stepped back into the Reconstruction period."
He said black residents should not let the investigation drive them away from public service.
"We're not going to make it better by sitting down with apathy," he said. "The only way we're going to make the situation better is by actively participating."
Mayor Laura Miller was a major point of contention at the meeting, as some residents vowed to beat her at the ballot box, while others blasted the group of ministers who said recently that they had enough signatures to recall the mayor but didn't for the good of the city.
Joyce Foreman, president of the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference, urged the audience to take another approach.
"She needs prayer," Ms. Foreman said of Ms. Miller and her attempts to lead a fractured city. "She needs a lot of prayer."
Staff writer Tim Wyatt contributed to this report.
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TexasStooge
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Deaths spur quick action on barriers
By KARIN KELLY / WFAA ABC 8
AZLE, Texas - Brothers Brandyn and Matthew Lunsford were killed when their car crossed over the median of Highway 199 in Azle last week, but their deaths may have helped speed the construction of barriers that will likely prevent more accidents.
Right after the accident, Azle police called TxDOT officials and requested help for the stretch of highway, which carries 40,000 drivers each day.
The agency realized it already had the concrete barriers in stock, allowing for a fast turnaround. Tuesday, nearly 100 barriers - each weighing seven tons - were hoisted into place to create a wall between the eastbound and westbound lanes of Highway 199.
"I think this will certainly keep the cars on their own side of the road," said Azle police chief Steve Myers.
The highway is busy, with a 60 mile-per-hour speed. Officials hope to sharply reduce the number of accidents like the three-car collision that led to the Lunsfords' death, and a similar wreck one year ago that claimed the life of a 17-year-old girl.
"If a car does cross over and hit the barrier, they have a better chance of surviving," said Azle High graduate Jason Cook.
Residents are relieved the barrier has been extended west by a half-mile from Denver Trail, where it stopped.
"(We) can't bring our two men back, but if we save another life that's what it's all about," said Azle High principal Laura Bynum.
TxDOT is now studying Highway 199 to find other ways they could improve it, including reductions in speed and texturizing the road surface.
Friends said the Lunsford family is coping, trying to make life normal for their four remaining children.
"I would assume they are thankful that people are looking into the future, and trying to prevent somthing like this happening in the future," said Wesley Shotwell of Ash Creek Baptist Church.
By KARIN KELLY / WFAA ABC 8
AZLE, Texas - Brothers Brandyn and Matthew Lunsford were killed when their car crossed over the median of Highway 199 in Azle last week, but their deaths may have helped speed the construction of barriers that will likely prevent more accidents.
Right after the accident, Azle police called TxDOT officials and requested help for the stretch of highway, which carries 40,000 drivers each day.
The agency realized it already had the concrete barriers in stock, allowing for a fast turnaround. Tuesday, nearly 100 barriers - each weighing seven tons - were hoisted into place to create a wall between the eastbound and westbound lanes of Highway 199.
"I think this will certainly keep the cars on their own side of the road," said Azle police chief Steve Myers.
The highway is busy, with a 60 mile-per-hour speed. Officials hope to sharply reduce the number of accidents like the three-car collision that led to the Lunsfords' death, and a similar wreck one year ago that claimed the life of a 17-year-old girl.
"If a car does cross over and hit the barrier, they have a better chance of surviving," said Azle High graduate Jason Cook.
Residents are relieved the barrier has been extended west by a half-mile from Denver Trail, where it stopped.
"(We) can't bring our two men back, but if we save another life that's what it's all about," said Azle High principal Laura Bynum.
TxDOT is now studying Highway 199 to find other ways they could improve it, including reductions in speed and texturizing the road surface.
Friends said the Lunsford family is coping, trying to make life normal for their four remaining children.
"I would assume they are thankful that people are looking into the future, and trying to prevent somthing like this happening in the future," said Wesley Shotwell of Ash Creek Baptist Church.
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TexasStooge
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Student arrested in teen's shooting
LANCASTER, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - An 18-year-old Carter High School student was arrested and charged with aggravated assault Tuesday in connection with the shooting of a Lancaster girl.
Jeffrey Wayne Chavers, Jr. had been in class when he was taken into custody just before 9:00 a.m. at the school in South Dallas by Lancaster detectives, along with officers from the Lancaster ISD Police Department, Dallas Police Department and Dallas ISD Police Department.
The shooting occurred late Saturday night in the parking lot of a Waffle House in the 1400 block of the northbound Interstate 35E service road. Officers were responding to a call about a fight shortly after 10:00 p.m., and while in route they were informed that shots had been fired. Upon arrival, officers discovered that the 16-year-old Lancaster High School student had been shot in the arm by a male who had left the scene in a white Buick.
According to witnesses, the white Buick had stopped in the adjoining parking lot of a service station when the driver and at least one passenger, got out and confronted a group of teenagers who were attempting to go inside the restaurant. The occupants of the Buick approached the group and threatened to fight them all; the passenger then produced a handgun and fired one shot into the group, striking the girl.
Restaurant employees called for help as soon as they saw the girl had been injured; the driver and his passenger then got back into the car and left the location.
The victim was taken to Methodist Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and was scheduled to undergo surgery on Monday.
If convicted, Chavers faces anywhere from two to twenty years in prison and a fine up to $10,000.
The investigation continues to attempt to identify the driver of the white Buick. Anyone with information is urged to call Lancaster Police at 972-227-4006.
LANCASTER, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - An 18-year-old Carter High School student was arrested and charged with aggravated assault Tuesday in connection with the shooting of a Lancaster girl.
Jeffrey Wayne Chavers, Jr. had been in class when he was taken into custody just before 9:00 a.m. at the school in South Dallas by Lancaster detectives, along with officers from the Lancaster ISD Police Department, Dallas Police Department and Dallas ISD Police Department.
The shooting occurred late Saturday night in the parking lot of a Waffle House in the 1400 block of the northbound Interstate 35E service road. Officers were responding to a call about a fight shortly after 10:00 p.m., and while in route they were informed that shots had been fired. Upon arrival, officers discovered that the 16-year-old Lancaster High School student had been shot in the arm by a male who had left the scene in a white Buick.
According to witnesses, the white Buick had stopped in the adjoining parking lot of a service station when the driver and at least one passenger, got out and confronted a group of teenagers who were attempting to go inside the restaurant. The occupants of the Buick approached the group and threatened to fight them all; the passenger then produced a handgun and fired one shot into the group, striking the girl.
Restaurant employees called for help as soon as they saw the girl had been injured; the driver and his passenger then got back into the car and left the location.
The victim was taken to Methodist Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and was scheduled to undergo surgery on Monday.
If convicted, Chavers faces anywhere from two to twenty years in prison and a fine up to $10,000.
The investigation continues to attempt to identify the driver of the white Buick. Anyone with information is urged to call Lancaster Police at 972-227-4006.
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TexasStooge
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Teen on trial for daycare crash
By CYNTHIA VEGA / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - She was too young to be behind the wheel. On Tuesday morning, the 14-year-old girl accused of crashing a car into a Southeast Dallas daycare center stood before a judge and jury at the Henry Wade Juvenile Justice Center.
She is charged with eight counts of injury to a child.
The youngsters, ages 2-10, were hurt when the Kia sedan smashed through the front window of the Dream House Learning Center on May 24.
The defense team for the unlicensed driver—whose name is not being reported because of her age—outlined a scenario suggesting that a 17-year-old girl who was a front seat passenger in the car may have had a hand in causing the wreck by grabbing the steering wheel.
Prosecutors contended the older teen was only trying to help. In testimony on Tuesday, the girl agreed that by the time she intervened, the 14-year-old had already hit the curb and lost control.
The 17-year-old testified that the girls were on a joyride. She said they had first driven around an elementary school and later a junior high school before the crash at the daycare center.
"It's a shocking feeling that you would never believe," the 17-year-old said, admitting that she had initially lied to police about being in the car at the time in the crash.
With the jury out of the courtroom, Judge John L. Sholden reviewed a home video showing the chaos in the minutes following the crash. He was to rule whether it could be admitted as evidence.
Jurors did hear an audio tape of a 911 call asking for emergency help with screams in the background.
Testimony continued Tuesday afternoon.
By CYNTHIA VEGA / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - She was too young to be behind the wheel. On Tuesday morning, the 14-year-old girl accused of crashing a car into a Southeast Dallas daycare center stood before a judge and jury at the Henry Wade Juvenile Justice Center.
She is charged with eight counts of injury to a child.
The youngsters, ages 2-10, were hurt when the Kia sedan smashed through the front window of the Dream House Learning Center on May 24.
The defense team for the unlicensed driver—whose name is not being reported because of her age—outlined a scenario suggesting that a 17-year-old girl who was a front seat passenger in the car may have had a hand in causing the wreck by grabbing the steering wheel.
Prosecutors contended the older teen was only trying to help. In testimony on Tuesday, the girl agreed that by the time she intervened, the 14-year-old had already hit the curb and lost control.
The 17-year-old testified that the girls were on a joyride. She said they had first driven around an elementary school and later a junior high school before the crash at the daycare center.
"It's a shocking feeling that you would never believe," the 17-year-old said, admitting that she had initially lied to police about being in the car at the time in the crash.
With the jury out of the courtroom, Judge John L. Sholden reviewed a home video showing the chaos in the minutes following the crash. He was to rule whether it could be admitted as evidence.
Jurors did hear an audio tape of a 911 call asking for emergency help with screams in the background.
Testimony continued Tuesday afternoon.
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TexasStooge
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Houston man executed for fatal stabbing
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (The Dallas Morning News/AP) – A suburban Houston man who was 19 when he was arrested for fatally stabbing and beating a woman at her home, then robbing her and taking her car nearly 11 years ago was executed Tuesday evening.
Robert Alan Shields, 30, was the 12th prisoner executed in Texas this year.
A Galveston County jury condemned him for the killing of Paula Stiner, 27, who had been repeatedly stabbed with a knife from her own kitchen and beaten with a hammer when she was found by her husband as he returned home from work Sept. 21, 1994. The couple had lived at the home in Friendswood, southeast of Houston, for only about three months.
Shields, whose parents lived next door, was arrested three days later.
“The world will be a better place without him, that's for sure,” said Michael Guarino, the former Galveston County district attorney who prosecuted Shields at his capital murder trial in 1995. “It was an extremely vicious, brutal murder.
“It was one of the worst capital murder scenes I've seen, and I've seen many over 20 years as district attorney.”
When asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Shields responded twice, saying “No.”
He gasped, sputtered and made a slight groan before slipping into unconsciousness. He was pronounced dead eight minutes after receiving the lethal injection, at 6:15 p.m. His parents and his victim's parents were among those who watched the execution.
According to evidence at the trial, Shields' fingerprints and bloody shoeprints were in the laundry room where Stiner's body was found. About 90 minutes after Stiner was killed, Shields used her credit card to buy some clothes. And when he was arrested three days later about 50 miles away, he had her car.
Appeals lawyers contended Shields was trying to defend himself and never intended to kill Stiner, that the self-defense argument never was pursued by his attorneys at trial and that the U.S. Supreme Court should allow him another chance to prove his innocence.
“If Shields' jury had believed the self-defense claim, which was not presented at his trial, it would have meant that he would not have been found guilty of capital murder,” the petition seeking an 11th-hour reprieve from the high court said.
The effort failed. Justices rejected the petition a few hours before Shields' scheduled execution time.
The request had cited a pending Supreme Court case where a Tennessee a death row inmate wants a fresh opportunity to prove his innocence based on DNA testing.
“The question is he's not guilty of capital murder,” Shields' attorney, A. Richard Ellis, said.
Appeals lawyers also contended a state-appointed lawyer who initially handled Shields' appeal was inexperienced and incompetent.
In a letter posted on an anti-death penalty Web site, Shields described his prospects as “not looking good” and referred to his execution as a “state sanctioned murder.”
Testimony at his trial showed he probably broke in to the Stiners' home using a screwdriver taken from the garage at his parents' home, where unknown to them he spent the night before the slaying in their garage. Shields had moved out earlier, saying he couldn't live under his father's rules after a 1992 theft and burglary arrest resulted in probation, which he ignored. Police arrested him in The Woodlands in Montgomery County, where Shields had friends and was living in empty houses.
He had previous arrests for burglary and auto theft, including an auto theft arrest in Florida where he and some friends were accused of driving a stolen car and leaving a trail of shoplifting from there to Texas.
His mother testified at his trial that she and his father had changed the locks on their home at least twice to keep him from stealing from them. A social worker testified Shields drank alcohol continuously since he was 14 and focused much of his time since the age of 17 on drugs and alcohol.
At least 10 other Texas inmates have execution dates later this year, including Frances Newton, 40, set to die Sept. 14 for the 1987 fatal shootings of her husband and two children.
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (The Dallas Morning News/AP) – A suburban Houston man who was 19 when he was arrested for fatally stabbing and beating a woman at her home, then robbing her and taking her car nearly 11 years ago was executed Tuesday evening.
Robert Alan Shields, 30, was the 12th prisoner executed in Texas this year.
A Galveston County jury condemned him for the killing of Paula Stiner, 27, who had been repeatedly stabbed with a knife from her own kitchen and beaten with a hammer when she was found by her husband as he returned home from work Sept. 21, 1994. The couple had lived at the home in Friendswood, southeast of Houston, for only about three months.
Shields, whose parents lived next door, was arrested three days later.
“The world will be a better place without him, that's for sure,” said Michael Guarino, the former Galveston County district attorney who prosecuted Shields at his capital murder trial in 1995. “It was an extremely vicious, brutal murder.
“It was one of the worst capital murder scenes I've seen, and I've seen many over 20 years as district attorney.”
When asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Shields responded twice, saying “No.”
He gasped, sputtered and made a slight groan before slipping into unconsciousness. He was pronounced dead eight minutes after receiving the lethal injection, at 6:15 p.m. His parents and his victim's parents were among those who watched the execution.
According to evidence at the trial, Shields' fingerprints and bloody shoeprints were in the laundry room where Stiner's body was found. About 90 minutes after Stiner was killed, Shields used her credit card to buy some clothes. And when he was arrested three days later about 50 miles away, he had her car.
Appeals lawyers contended Shields was trying to defend himself and never intended to kill Stiner, that the self-defense argument never was pursued by his attorneys at trial and that the U.S. Supreme Court should allow him another chance to prove his innocence.
“If Shields' jury had believed the self-defense claim, which was not presented at his trial, it would have meant that he would not have been found guilty of capital murder,” the petition seeking an 11th-hour reprieve from the high court said.
The effort failed. Justices rejected the petition a few hours before Shields' scheduled execution time.
The request had cited a pending Supreme Court case where a Tennessee a death row inmate wants a fresh opportunity to prove his innocence based on DNA testing.
“The question is he's not guilty of capital murder,” Shields' attorney, A. Richard Ellis, said.
Appeals lawyers also contended a state-appointed lawyer who initially handled Shields' appeal was inexperienced and incompetent.
In a letter posted on an anti-death penalty Web site, Shields described his prospects as “not looking good” and referred to his execution as a “state sanctioned murder.”
Testimony at his trial showed he probably broke in to the Stiners' home using a screwdriver taken from the garage at his parents' home, where unknown to them he spent the night before the slaying in their garage. Shields had moved out earlier, saying he couldn't live under his father's rules after a 1992 theft and burglary arrest resulted in probation, which he ignored. Police arrested him in The Woodlands in Montgomery County, where Shields had friends and was living in empty houses.
He had previous arrests for burglary and auto theft, including an auto theft arrest in Florida where he and some friends were accused of driving a stolen car and leaving a trail of shoplifting from there to Texas.
His mother testified at his trial that she and his father had changed the locks on their home at least twice to keep him from stealing from them. A social worker testified Shields drank alcohol continuously since he was 14 and focused much of his time since the age of 17 on drugs and alcohol.
At least 10 other Texas inmates have execution dates later this year, including Frances Newton, 40, set to die Sept. 14 for the 1987 fatal shootings of her husband and two children.
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