A salute to fallen warriors

The Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association will honor its fallen warriors this morning at 11:00 a.m. in the Trial Ready Room on the 7th floor of the Harris County Criminal (In)justice Center.

The Honorable Michael T. McSpadden, the presiding judge of the 209th Judicial District Court will speak and past HCCLA President Robb Fickman will read the names being added to the plaque.

Here are the names of those who will be honored for fighting to defend the Constitution and the rights of the accused:

Frank Alvarez, Jr.

Frank Briscoe

Charles C. Cates

John R. Coe

John L. Denninger

Thomas Barker "Tody" Dupont

Rosemary Garza

William Hatten

Marguerite Hudig

Phil Jenkins

Stuart Kinard

Benjamin Levy

Miron Love

Robert Most

Joe Roach, Jr.

Jose Rojo

Felix Salazar

Don Shipley

Robert J. Sussman

Bob Tarrant

David A. Wills

On statistics and the death penalty

Doug Berman over at Sentencing Law and Policy presents us a new statistic to measure the efficiency of state death machines - "Executions per Death Sentence" or EPDS as the sabermetricians would say.

The Death Penalty Information Center calculated the number of death sentences handed down by state and the number of inmates each state murdered since the death penalty was reinstituted in 1976. Contrary to what you might think, Texas and Ohio do not head the list.

The old commonwealth, Virginia, heads up the list with an EPDS of .725, meaning that for every 100 death sentences handed down, 72.5 executions are carried out. Texas does pop up at number two on the list with an EPDS of .498, however. The national rate, by the way, is .150.

At the bottom of the list of states that have murdered at least one inmate since 1976 are Pennsylvania (.008), California (.015) and Idaho (.025).

If we look at the murder rates by state in 2009 we find that Virginia had a murder rate of 4.4 homicides per 100,000 people while Texas had a murder rate of 5.4 homicides per 100,000 people. Pennsylvania's murder rate was 5.2 homicides per 100,000, California's was 5.3 and Idaho had a rate of 1.4.

Since 1976, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Kansas are alone in not murdering inmates. New York's murder rate was 4.0. New Jersey's was 3.7. Kansas rate was 4.2 and New Hampshire brought up the rear with a murder rate of .08.

So, based on the data at hand, there would appear to be little or no correlation between the number of executions carried out and the homicide rate in any given state. But, of course, having a reputation as a killer works wonders for the candidates on the right running for the White House.

Just ask George W. Bush or Governor Goodhair.

Praise God and pass the ammunition

The right wing propaganda machine has been puffing overtime as we approach the 10th anniversary of the attacks on 9/11 telling us that Islam isn't a religion but an ideological cover for warmongering. We hear the constant chatter that it is a religion of hate and that it preaches destruction of anyone who doesn't worship in the same manner.

And then there's Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) who takes hypocrisy to a new level with his call for the Air Force to bring back the "Christian just war instruction." But just where does this idea come from? Could it be from the days when the Romans were looking for ways in which to whip the populace into a frenzy for a coming war? Could it have been a rationalization for the Crusades in which the armies of the Church invaded the Middle East and slaughtered untold numbers of people because they worshipped in a different manner?

Public Bible-thumpers like Senator Cornyn might want to take a second look at the Ten Commandments. I believe one of them is "Thou shalt not kill." Now, Senator, correct me if I'm wrong, but that commandment isn't modified in any way, shape or form, is it?

Sen. Cornyn, like most like-minded cowards in Washington (on both sides of the aisle), is only too willing to seek justification for sending our nation's young men to their deaths to achieve political goals. Cloaking his delusions of destruction in the words of the Bible only serves to show the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the hucksters in the pulpits.

A view of the wildfires from outer space

This is a view of the wildfires burning in Texas from the space station.

If you read Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, you'll find out that over the course of history, wildfires sparked by lightning strikes made the Central Texas soil fertile enough to farm. As more and more people moved into the Hill Country, nature's cycle of destruction and new life was interrupted and the soils lost a good deal of their fertility. The increase in population also made the natural occurrence of wildfires more dangerous and destructive.

Texas Fight!

I will be road-tripping up to Austin today with my oldest daughter for the UT season opener against Rice. This will be my daughter's first trip to Austin for a Texas football game. I can't wait to show her around the campus so she can get a feel for what football's supposed to be.

After the long hours and frustration of work, this is what life is all about. I will be such a proud dad as we walk hand-in-hand through the gate and up to our seats tonight. It's a night I hope she'll never forget.

Into the belly of the beast

The other day I had the opportunity to go on a tour of the DPS Houston Crime Lab up on the northwest side of town. I would like to thank Mr. Robert Prince, Jr. for taking me around, not just the facilities in the new building, but also through the old lab next door.

We started off in the old work area. The lab moved earlier this year but there is still some equipment and furniture left across the parking lot (in the blue building you can see from 290). With the dim light and the old equipment lying around, the room looked like the perfect setting for a horror movie or a chase scene in some thriller -- you know, the scene where the girl finds herself running from the bad guy in the abandoned building.

We took a look at the old gas chromatograph which Mr. Prince opened up so I could see the columns inside. He pointed out the injector port, the Y-splitter and the flame ionization detector. I've read about the machines and I've seen pictures in both lectures and in books, but this was the first time I'd ever seen one up close.

As an aside, I'm always amazed when I see a machine that performs a complex task and think about how someone dreamed it up. There is an elegance to the machine. If you understand how it works, when you look at the components you can see a genius at work.

We looked at the old refrigerator where blood samples were stored. We went to the intake room. We saw the room where samples were stored after they were tested. Then it was on to the new building.

As it turns out, through coaching soccer I know a couple of guys who work at the architecture firm that designed the new building. It is a stunning building both inside and out.

Since my ticket to the tour was a court order allowing me to see the machine that my client's blood sample was tested in and the room in which the machine was housed, I didn't get to see the storage areas in the new building.

Mr. Prince showed me how the biological hood worked -- it's almost like something out of Get Smart. I saw the autosampler and he showed me how he seals the vials that are placed in the autosampler for testing. Again, you can read about the process all you want and look at pictures until your heart's content, but it's no substitute for actually looking at the equipment.

On budgets, hurricanes and God

Nothing like taking a hurricane and trying to turn it to your advantage. Of course Michele Bachmann wasn't content to just use the storm as a metaphor. Nope. Ms. Bachmann, who wants to be our next president, claimed that God had visited Hurricane Irene upon the eastern seaboard as retribution for a profligate Congress.

"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending." -- Michele Bachmann

Really, Ms. Bachmann? God would send a storm that has claimed some 41 lives and left millions without electricity because she was upset about Congress' fiscal policy? Silly me, I thought the era of the vengeful god was long past. I guess I was wrong.

To be fair, Ms. Bachmann now claims her comments to be a joke. Let's see, anytime someone is quoted saying something stupid on Twitter, Facebook, the radio or on television it's always a misunderstanding, or it was taken out of context or it was meant to be a joke.

Sorry, Ms. Bachmann, I don't think any of the folks affected by Hurricane Irene are laughing. And even if it was a joke, it certainly wasn't very funny.

Besides, if God were so pissed at Congress that she felt some natural disaster was in order -- why not just have a tornado strike the Capitol while Congress is in session? The folks in the path of Hurricane Irene certainly had nothing to do with the fact that Ms. Bachmann and her colleagues can't control a budget. That's right, you're included in this, too, Michele.

Assuming there is a god, just how much time would she really spend contemplating contemporary American politics? Furthermore, why would she even care?

The scary thing is that there are people out there who are more than willing to pull the lever for Ms. Bachmann. It's even scarier to realize that these same folks may be on your next jury panel.