[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 2


TEXAS:

HENRY RAY CLARK, 1936-2006----Art turned around a troubled life


Henry Ray Clark, a convicted felon, turned his life around by making art.

After he was imprisoned at Huntsville in 1977 for assault with a deadly
weapon, Clark signed up for an art class. He drew with green, black and
red ball point pens on any scrap of paper he could find - envelopes to
prison menus. He described his gladiators and cosmic visions with
razor-sharp outlines, covering every millimeter of the surface with the
color inks.

"If anybody knows anything about my art, they know about my planets," he
explained once. "I know they are out there because I've been there. Every
night when I go to bed, I travel in my spaceship going to all the places I
put on these papers."

Clark went to prison more than once, but after his final release he made
Houston his home.

On July 13, Clark, 69, was shot in the arm and abdomen by 2 home invaders.
He was admitted to Ben Taub Hospital, where he remained in a coma and on
life support until his death Saturday.

Clark was born in Bartlett, near Temple, in 1936, dropped out of school in
the 7th grade and soon became known as the Magnificent Pretty Boy. He
adopted the moniker, he said, when "a girl told me I was pretty and
started giving me money and then I started gambling pretty good."

"For 41 years before I came to prison, I lived wrong every day of my
life," he told the Houston Chronicle in 1991. "And then I turn around and
shoot a fool who deserved it." The "fool" had tried to run off with
Clark's gambling take, he said. "But I had done so much wrong in the past,
I figured it was just my turn (for prison)."

Artist William Steen, a former Houston resident, found Clark's work in
1989 in the Huntsville prison art show and became his agent. Clark's work
has been exhibited by Hirschl & Adler Galleries in New York, at Houston's
Project Row Houses and in the traveling exhibit of folk art Passionate
Visions of the American South organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Critics gave him a place alongside other self-taught artists like Frank
Jones, who had also been an inmate in Huntsville.

"I can't draw nothing but things that come out of my mind," Clark said. He
believed that "there are many galaxies that our world has never come in
contact with yet," he said. "But one day when we do, I'm going to be up
there looking down at everybody saying, 'Here I am, the Magnificent Pretty
Boy.' " Houston artist Jack Massing has been helping Clark promote his
work over the past 4 years, and is in the process of co-curating an
exhibit with Clint Willour for the Galveston Arts Center. It will open
Nov. 25.

"I was going to show just the 7 or 10 drawings Henry was working on,"
Massing said. "I think it will be a memorial now that will also have his
poetry and mementos of his life."

Clark is survived by 5 nieces and nephews. Funeral arrangements are
pending at Ruffin Mortuary, which will accept donations for the burial and
family, 6911 Winton; 713-747-8120.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

****************************

County mental health care center hailed as model


While most Texas counties have struggled with the way they handle mentally
ill people caught up in the criminal justice system, Bexar County's Center
for Health Care Services has emerged as the gold standard for community
mental health care around the state and the country.

A presentation to county commissioners Tuesday included a 20-minute film
highlighting the center's programs, which have kept thousands of mentally
ill defendants out of jail and reduced costly hospitalizations.

"Bexar County Story," produced in part by drug maker AstraZeneca, which
has donated about $3 million to the center over the past three years, has
been shown around the country to mental health organizations seeking to
implement similar programs.

"The center was reduced to almost rubble until the Commissioners Court
rescued us and brought in University Health System to work with us," said
Dr. Roberto Jimenez, chairman of the center's board. "Now we are the top
community mental health center in Texas - by all measures."

In 2001, County Judge Nelson Wolff convened a health care summit that
asked law enforcement, the justice system and health care providers to
work together to get the mentally ill out of jail and into treatment.

The result was the Jail Diversion Program, and later, Cognitive Adaptive
Training, which sends social workers to the homes of those who have been
released from jail or the hospital to teach them ways to stay on their
medications and in society.

Typical police calls that bring officers in contact with the mentally ill
include disturbing the peace, loitering and other nonviolent minor
offenses. In the past, such offenders languished in jail for 2 to 3 times
longer than average inmates.

In just its first year, 2003, the program saved taxpayers between $3.8
million and $5 million, according to a policy report from the Center for
Pharmacoeconomic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and reduced
the jail stays or completely avoided incarceration of more than 1,700
people.

Since September of last year, the program has diverted 4,100 people, said
Gilbert Gonzales, director of the center's Crisis and Jail Diversion
Services.

Last year, the center opened a 24-hour crisis care facility aimed at
getting nonviolent detainees psychiatric help quickly while keeping them
from clogging emergency rooms and the jail.

The Crisis Care Center at the University Health Center-Downtown, in the
old Brady-Green hospital, also helps law enforcement by getting officers
back on the street more quickly. Previously, an officer could wait in an
emergency room with a detainee up to 15 hours.

The new drop-off center is set up to get officers back in service in an
average of 15 minutes.

Although only about 200 police officers have been through the center's
40-hour Crisis Intervention Training program, Gonzales said Police Chief
William McManus is committed to the program and plans on putting every
officer through the training starting next year.

(source: San Antonio Express-News)

****************************

'Our brothers, our children, our fathers, our neighbors'


Talk to Joyce Ann Brown about the years she spent in prison for a crime
she did not commit, and she usually begins by spitting out the exact time
served: "9 years, 5 months and 24 days."

It's been 16 years since she was cleared of the armed robbery in which a
Dallas store owner was killed.

Now, instead of serving a life sentence in the state penitentiary, she is
serving others who have spent time behind bars. Her work is through
Mothers/Fathers for the Advancement of Social Systems, a Dallas-based
organization she founded to help felons reintegrate into society.

Her group and the Austin-based Texas Inmate Families Association have
joined forces and opened an office in Fort Worth.

The 2 groups officially opened for business in Fort Worth on Tuesday, but
when I talked to Brown on Monday afternoon, more than 100 people had
already called to make appointments.

That response tells you how greatly probationers and ex-convicts need help
in becoming productive members of the community, staying out of trouble
and, thus, prison.

The two nonprofit agencies' track record was good enough to convince the
Sid Richardson Foundation to award them a one-time $160,000 grant for the
local operation.

Val Wilkie, the foundation's vice president, said it made sense to assist
those organizations considering that one group tries to connect families
while an inmate is still in prison and the other works to aid felons in
re-entering society by helping them find jobs, get training and locate
housing.

Referring to the "revolving door" in Texas prisons, Wilkie noted the
expense of housing a prisoner in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
-- "$30,000 to $40,000 a year, year after year."

One man who got up Tuesday morning headed for the new office was a
29-year-old former inmate I wrote about Sunday.

Avion Anderson (whose last name was incorrect in that Sunday column)
wasted no time in locating the Greater First Missionary Baptist Church, on
the city's east side, where the programs are housed.

Although the organizers insist that people make appointments, Anderson
arrived early enough that morning -- and he was so eager for help -- that
he said he was allowed to fill out an application.

This man, who was in despair just a few days earlier, said he left very
hopeful.

There is a feeling of hopelessness among many probationers, parolees and
ex-convicts who can't find jobs because of their criminal backgrounds.
Most apartments, including public housing, will not rent to them for the
same reason.

The new initiatives in Fort Worth coincide with a continuing effort begun
by Tarrant County Commissioner Roy Brooks, who a few months ago began
development of the Tarrant County Reentry Council, designed to identify
and assist other service providers who are working with former inmates
returning to the community.

Brooks is quick to point out that the 6,000 or so ex-convicts coming to
the area each year are not people "that the TDCJ is dumping on Tarrant
County."

"These are people who are coming back home," he said. "They are our
brothers, our children, our fathers, our neighbors. These are people who
belong here."

The Tarrant County program is patterned after one in Travis County, he
said.

"We didn't want to invent the wheel," he said, "We wanted to look at the
best practices in other parts of the country and rip them off in whole or
in part."

Last month, a standing-room-only crowd showed up at an ex-offender
re-entry community work session at O.D. Wyatt High School to help perfect
a strategy based on needs and objectives, including employment, housing,
substance-abuse issues, possible changes in legislation, other support
systems and additional funding.

During an interview, Brooks noted that in his precinct, "we put our money
where our mouth is."

"We've hired several ex-offenders, and we're training them to be equipment
operators. We believe in second chances," he said.

Many people have little or no sympathy for people who have been
incarcerated, assuming that they can't work because they don't really want
a job.

I'm sure some felons fit that mold, but most I've come in contact with are
really trying. Unfortunately, we keep making it harder and harder for them
by closing doors in their faces. And sadly, most people don't know just
how hard it is until someone they know and love gets caught up in the
criminal justice system.

That's why it's good to have more and more dedicated people who are
devoted to helping this population that much of society would like to see
thrown away.

"We're here, and we plan to work and work and work," Brown said at the
ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new offices. "I promise you we're going to
do a job for Fort Worth just like we did for Dallas."

We owe the Avion Andersons of this country a chance -- a chance to
contribute to our society rather than force them to keep taking from it.

After all, as the commissioner said, they are our brothers and fathers and
children and neighbors.

They are ours.

IN THE KNOW

More information

The Fort Worth offices of Mothers/Fathers for the Advancement of Social
Systems and the Texas Inmate Families Association are at 421 S. Ayers Ave.
817-535-3373

(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

*******************

Cantu case merits independent probe


Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed made the right move when she
opened an investigation into allegations that a San Antonio man may have
been wrongfully executed.

However, she now needs to step away from the probe into the Ruben Cantu
case and allow an independent investigator to take over.

Cantu was executed in 1993 for the Nov. 8, 1984, robbery and murder of
Mexican-born contractor Pedro Gomez.

The case was reopened after three witnesses, including a key eyewitness,
claimed firsthand knowledge of Cantu's innocence.

The increasing controversy sparked by the case leaves Reed in a no-win
situation.

Those opposed to her handling the case note that she ruled on the Cantu
appeal and set his execution date.

Technically, that is correct. She did rule on the appeal, but not in any
way that changed the final outcome.

She had no choice but to set his execution date.

As the judge of the 144th District Court, Reed was required to set an
execution date for Cantu. Judge Roy Barrera Jr. had tried the case in the
144th District Court. Reed inherited the case when she was elected to that
bench.

The law determines the parameters on setting an execution date, leaving
the judges who have jurisdiction over death penalty cases with little
leeway.

A state district judge earlier this summer ruled he had no power to remove
Reed from the investigation, but that does not prevent her from doing so
voluntarily.

A final report on the current investigation is not expected until late
fall. Regardless of the outcome, some people will be unhappy.

Reed's hard-nosed law enforcement attitude and determination not to walk
away from a tough situation could hurt her politically in the long term.

That is not reason enough to voluntary relinquish the case, but new
questions about her investigators are.

Recorded conversations between investigators from Reed's office and a
former police officer involved in the case have raised questions about
bias within her office. Her investigators belittled the claim that Cantu
was wrongfully executed, the Express-News and Houston Chronicle reported
in stories detailing the recordings.

Reed can erase questions about the objectivity of the probe by removing
her office from the proceedings and asking an independent law enforcement
agency to do it.

It's the right thing to do. The public must be confident that the
investigation is conducted without preconceived notions about the result.

(source: Editorial, San Antonio Express-News)






OHIO:

Disbar attorneys who provide poor defense


If left unchecked, this will act as a parasite that will grow until it is
destroyed. Let's restore order to the legal process.

One foundation of the American Bill of Rights is for someone to have a
speedy and public trial decided by an impartial jury of his or her peers
after being charged with a crime.

This also requires the right to an attorney - and a competent one - to
provide a proper defense against the charge, or charges.

This arguably increases considerably when it involves a murder trial.
Depending on the charges, facts of the case, and the state where the crime
was committed, the defendant could face the death penalty.

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that attorneys might
be enticed to provide a weak defense in death penalty cases since many
execution sentences are being overturned due to attorney incompetence.

"To put it bluntly, it might well appear to a disinterested observer that
the most incompetent and ineffective counsel that can be provided to a
convicted and death-eligible defendant is a fully investigated and
competent penalty-phase defense under the precedents of the Supreme Court
and of our court," Chief Judge Danny Boggs wrote.

It's unconscionable - and if true, these attorneys should be disbarred
from practicing law in Ohio.

The 6th Circuit Court hears appeals of federal cases in Ohio, Michigan,
Kentucky and Tennessee.

The unanimous ruling came after throwing out the death sentence for
Dewaine Poindexter. The Cincinnati man had a sentence pending for 21 years
after being convicted in the 1985 aggravated murder of the new boyfriend
of a former girlfriend.

An Associated Press analysis of this case and others reveal startling
details.

The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals blamed ineffective counsel 61 % of
the time, or 13 of the 21 death sentences it has overturned since 1981,
the year Ohio's new capital punishment law took effect.

Most recently, George Franklin of Cincinnati had his death sentence thrown
out in January 2006.

Not anyone can defend someone charged in a murder case. They must take
certain legal classes to demonstrate their ability to offer a sufficient
defense for someone facing these kind of charges.

More importantly, they have sworn an oath to give their best to their
client.

The Ohio Supreme Court, which oversees attorney discipline, should not
hesitate to name names of those guilty of this intolerable behavior. It
sullies the entire legal system.

These sentences that have been overturned also shake the level of
confidence in the ability of some judges. They act as referees of the
process to ensure justice.

Can't they tell when someone doesn't receive an adequate defense? If left
unchecked, this will act as a parasite that will grow until it is
destroyed.

Let's restore order to the legal process.

(source: The News-Herald)