From the Wool-sack
| Publication year | 1980 |
| Pages | 1186 |
| Citation | Vol. 9 No. 6 Pg. 1186 |
1980, June, Pg. 1186. From the Wool-Sack
1186
Mr. Dooley.
Although this column does not instruct in geography, my readers will remember the state of Virginia, which was described at some length in an earlier column(fn1) for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that its statutes describe unmarried couples who live together as living "lewdly and lasciviously," irrespective of their actual conduct and at least one of its judges believes that participants in such living arrangements should not be entitled to practice law in the state of Virginia. That column may have left the impression that Virginia is the only unenlightened state in the Union. That is obviously not the case, as the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Rummel v. Estelle, reported at 48 L.W. 4261, 3/18/80, demonstrates. That case came from the state of Texas.
For those of my readers who have lived in Colorado all their lives and not travelled widely, Texas is the state which in 1969 sentenced a black man to thirty years in the state prison for having sold an undercover agent one marijuana cigarette. Some commentators thought that the reason he received such a sentence was that he was a black man who was involved in civil rights activities. That is not true and casts aspersion on Texas. The reason he was sentenced to such a long term was that he was first and foremost a Texan. There is a suggestion in the way Texas justice is meted out that if you are going to do something bad in Texas, you would be wise to do something really bad rather than tinker around with the little stuff.
The big stuff such as murder seems to be dealt with fairly leniently in Texas when convictions are obtained. Evidence of that can be found in the case of United States v. Denson, 603 F.2d 1143 (5th Cir., Oct. 1979). In that case, three members of the Houston police department were convicted of conspiring to injure and intimidate Mr. Torres, which conspiracy resulted in his death. Without going into all the details, Mr. Torres was so badly beaten by his captors while handcuffed that when he and the officers arrived at the Houston...
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