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I'm not sure it would have mattered if this information had been admissible. Most of the Texans I have known had no sympathy for prisoners. I think this is at least partly because it's easy to be naive when you don't know people who are different from you, and the economic and cultural climate in Texas is highly self segregated.
My extended family is from Texas, but I grew up on the west coast, occasionally visiting relatives in Houston suburbs and other pleasant, relatively opulent areas. My aunts and uncles lived in nice neighborhoods and gated communities, and my grandparents house was on two acres next to a country club.
I moved to Texas as student and lived in Austin for a while, which was very enjoyable. However, I also traveled, and lived briefly in other parts of Texas, and was amazed at the degree to which people lived in different worlds from one another in the same state.
Outside of Austin and the nicer suburbs, a whole different picture started to emerge:
--I made friends who owed money to payday lenders and pawn shops, and friends that gave 5% of their income to check cashing stores because their credit wasn't good enough for banks.
--I started noticing people at work wearing anklets. One of them lost his job because he wasn't allowed to stay out past 9pm, and then couldn't pay his probation fees; I never saw him again.
--After I left Austin, I interacted with the police a lot, although I was never charged with any crime.
--I got handcuffed and searched because my license plate marker lights were the wrong color (white).
--I got searched because my vehicle “looked stolen.”
--When regular police or State Troops pulled me over, other mysterious authority figures sometimes showed up. I was searched on several occasions, sometimes with drug dogs, once by a man in a suit with an unmarked car and no badge.
--Police stings and paid citizen informants seemed common, and were often reported. A person who seemed like an obvious paid informant tried to get me to buy heroin, purchase a prostitute, and finally, in apparent desperation, give alcohol to a minor.
--I started hearing the N-word a lot but only from the poor whites, and especially regarding the jobs and other resources “they” were taking away from white people.
--Neighborhoods were highly segregated, and apparently self segregated by race, but only lower class people talked about which neighborhoods were “black neighborhoods” or “Asian neighborhoods.” (My suburban family members didn't bring this up.) When I made a delivery to the “Vietnamese neighborhood” my boss said: “watch out, or they'll eat your dog!” People said stuff like this all the time, and I got used to it.
--Every landlord used the same lease: a huge, crazy contract written by a state trade association. I was told that the terms of this lease couldn't be negotiated, because <something about state law??>.
--Protectionism seemed rampant. My family seemed to favor the “pro business” climate, and when I asked people if there is a difference between “pro business” and “pro market” I got blank stares.
In other words, when I left the opulent suburbs I was continually surrounded by craven scams and rent seeking behavior, but only a fraction of the people ever seemed to see the negative effects first hand, because most don't interact with people outside their class.
I guess you could say things like this about many places, but of all of the places I have been Texas seemed to me to be the most extreme. I have no idea if this is supported by evidence, or is merely an unrepresentative subjective impression (it would be interesting to figure that out somehow).
I think where people are less able to self segregate, people of different races and incomes sort of have to deal with each other, and have some face to face interaction that is beneficial to society. I live in NY at the moment, and local politics often involves acrimony over race and class. This may or may not be helpful, but at least it's harder to be as totally naive about how other people live as I was before I lived in Texas.
> I think where people are less able to self segregate ....
Texan here (of the politically-moderate-to-liberal variety). Honest question: How would you keep people from self-segregating --- especially when parents want to live in the best school-district neighborhoods they can afford.
(Texas, by the way, has a "Robin Hood" plan for funding schools, where wealthier districts must give part of their property-tax money to support poorer districts. This, incidentally, was due to a decision of the STATE supreme court, not the U.S. Supreme Court, back in the days before the Republican Party came to dominate state politics. [0])
> How would you keep people from self-segregating[?]
I probably wouldn't. I'm not sure what to do about this except to avoid policies that force people to do so, or create incentives for coercion, if there are any policies of that kind left; e.g. redlining, de-facto segregation of public housing[1].
Maybe we could start with structural reform (that improves social mobility) in areas where the government has already intervened on behalf of powerful incumbents.
Here are a few examples that come to mind:
--”Right to work” laws. These arguably forbid private parties from making mutually agreeable concessions[2].
--Anti Whistle-blower laws. Texas passed a bill criminalizing the photographing of private land[3] after a drone operator photographed a meat packing plant dumping waste into the trinity river[4].
--Protectionist mandates of various kinds[5].
--State Civil Asset Forfeiture laws[6] create bad incentives for the police.
Thanks for the link, I didn't know about that and it's very interesting.
[1]http://prospect.org/article/public-housing-government-sponso...
[2] https://texasattorneygeneral.gov/agency/right-to-work-laws-i...
[3] http://jurist.org/paperchase/2013/05/texas-lawmakers-give-fi...
[4] http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-02/privacy-and...
[5] http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/31/8694673/tesla-loses-fight-...
[6] http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/the-takeaway-texas-lax-ci...
Edit: How did I offend?
> How would you keep people from self-segregating --- especially when parents want to live in the best school-district neighborhoods they can afford.
An early step would probably be some sort of federal scheme for more evenly funding schools, to remove some of this incentive in the first place.
So if all schools get identical funding:
1) I would be annoyed if I paid 10x the property tax as other places and got none of the benefit. On the other hand there is plenty of money to go around, we can share the wealth some.
But:
2) would probabbly just do private school as the public school is no longer safe / a good place to get an education
I just moved out of Chicago because everyone has to do #2 to get a good school for their kids because of #1. I don't think this really works in the end.
I don't know what the answer is but trying to make all schools equal just ends up bad. Maybe a race blind IQ test to determine what school your kid gets in? But then you need to really be race and money and everything blind and strictly go by merrit.
I'm a native Texan (recently moved away to Washington State but with fresh memories) and most of what you described was also my experience. Texas has all of the same societal problems as the rest of the country, for sure, but the deep cultural divide really stands out to me. Most Texans, of all stripes, can be some of the kindest and most giving people you've ever met...as long as you're deemed "deserving" of that treatment. Woe be you if you are not.
I still remember somebody running for District Attorney (the title is used for the head criminal attorney in each county) who swore he would work hand-in-hand with his unofficial running mate--the person running for District Court judge in my part of the county--to make sure "those people" never see the light of day. His mailer was straight-up showing black men being led, in handcuffs, into the county jail. The Commissioner's Court--the head of county government--could just never seem to find the money for public health services in the county (that's why we didn't have a public hospital but Dallas County did; so we just shipped all of our indigent patients from the private hospitals there down to Dallas) but money for parks in the posh new water-district-funded[1] parts of the county? Oh, sure.
> Every landlord used the same lease: a huge, crazy contract written by a state trade association. I was told that the terms of this lease couldn't be negotiated, because <something about state law??>.
Ah yes, the Texas Apartment Association (TAA) lease. TAA leases are some of the most one-sided leases I've ever read. Nobody will "negotiate" the lease with a tenant for two reasons: 1) the license agreement with TAA prohibits it; and 2) Justices of the Peace automatically assume that TAA leases are binding and correctly done so the tenant is at a huge disadvantage in court.
The TAA lease did help me one time: A landlord got cheap and dropped out of the TAA. I wanted to end my lease early and happened to discover this while looking up his contact information on TAA's site. Any TAA lease signed by a non-TAA member becomes voidable at the tenant's option if the landlord stops being a member or never was in the first place.
1 - Water districts in Texas are a special level of shady. For the longest time, developers would just pay an existing water district a few hundred bucks an acre to "annex-deannex" the developer's land, thus forming a brand new taxing district that can issue millions in bonds. John Oliver, of course, recently did a segment on special districts that is very instructive.
Here's a recent article that gives a picture of Texas politics. It's too US-centric and political to be submitted here on its own, but I thought it was a rollicking read and may offer insight into some aspects of the criminal justice system in Texas. The thrust is that while Donald Trump is embarrassing to Republicans, current Texas Senator and US presidential candidate Ted Cruz is a lot more dangerous.
The closing paragraph gives a sense of the tone:
An orange-faced, thin-skinned, narcissistic, blow-hard
clown versus a truly scary, malevolent alien from the dark
side. Oh, and before I forget, gee, thanks for the choice.
But I gotta go with the clown. I have examined the clown
pretty closely, too, and I think I can outrun him. The
other guy, I’m not so sure.
Yeah that's a terrible [0] article. I have no doubt that Cruz is nuts, and I was hoping this was a straight-laced "here's what he actually believes with evidence" articles, but instead after 6 paragraphs I knew the author didn't like Cruz, but aside from "he's so far right he's in outer space" I had no idea why... The author comes off as nuts him/herself, waving their hands in the air and begging people to listen to them.
I think a plain telling of facts about Cruz would be scary enough. Someone should write that.
[0] but seriously I'm no one to judge.
I appreciated the article more for its style than its content. The author does get into some specifics later in the article, although it gets lost behind the imagery and ecstatic prose. I think the author chose to exaggerate his frantic hand waving to try to convey the degree of his terror.
Cruz pulled it off because he is very, very smart. But
never at any moment during his Senate campaign — nor at any
moment during this presidential primary race as far as we
can see from here in Texas — has Cruz ever once given any
indication that he does not believe in and hold to heart
every single word that comes out of his father’s sorcerous
mouth.
...
He means what he says about pushing 11 million people back
across the Mexican border, about using the government to
hound, harry and herd human beings based on their sex
lives, about stripping women of their physical autonomy,
and about all of the superstitious claptrap that issues
from his old man’s mouth on evolution, global warming and
science itself.
The Ivy League took none of that away from him. He held it
dear then and holds it dear now. It’s all right there in
front of you, not a millimeter beneath the surface. His
only bluff is that he shows you less than his full hand,
not that he fakes having more.
> She could not remember Marvin.
Jesus christ, that sentence hit hard. A child having been left alone with a parent that cares so little that the mother has literally no recollection of what kind of person her child was.
Where i come from the government will go so far as to send armed police to separate children from family just for not sending them to school, and i'm glad my country is like that.
At the end Marvin says the tattoo on his arm says "Bam, ... the name my mother called me". So, there's a chance that among her own psychological issues she just doesn't remember him by the name of Marvin.
I couldn't possibly understand the family dynamic these people lived, but this all supports the notion that prisoners like these need help. .. not death
But that seems like so much work...
Armed police for truancy - sounds great. Glad your government always knows whats best, otherwise that's a frightening prospect.
Assuming you are from the U.S., I have bad news: Your government does that, too. In every state, truancy is a criminal offense (usually chargeable against the parents) and people are arrested for it.
It really doesn't matter which country you're talking about. Introducing violence over truancy is a stupid idea.
Well, in one year one of your cops uses more bullets than our entire police force, and that's with the country being roughly 1/5 of yours in population. Also no death penalty. I'm reasonably confident my government has a better grip on these things than yours.
In one year a single American cop uses the amount of bullets in all of the (guessing German by your name) German police force?
Yeah, I believe you. This isn't a government pissing contest - I'm only saying armed response to truancy is stupid. If it happens in the US, it's stupid.
Well, to be fair. It wasn't truancy. It was unqualified parents insisting on home-schooling their gaggle of 4 or so kids, because they were very religious.
Ah. I see. Well that's definitely a thing in the US, I have family that are very religious and home-schooled.
I honestly disagree with their lifestyle and subjecting their kids to a lesser education, but that's not my place to decide for them. Nor, as I personally believe, is it my government's job. That's a dangerous road to go down in my opinion.
On the other hand, i find it is not any parent's place to decide their children may only have access to lesser education. The parents may be responsible for the first 18 years; but for the roughly 60 years after that their offspring and the rest of the country have to bear the burden of their bad decisions.
> tore at her skin in the belief that bugs were crawling on it.
symptom of meth use
This is deeply touching beyond comparison.
Deeply moving. People fighting the death penalty in Texas deserve our respect no matter where we fall on the issue.
They are willing to invest their soul in an uphill battle where the odds are heavily against them.
For everyone who is horrified by the details of the death of this single young man, consider: war is this, multiplied by the tens of hundreds of thousands, or even millions.
That's not to say that war is never justified. But it is always an almost incalculable tragedy.
Imagine a million young Marvins, brutally killed with even less justification then the victim here. A million parents whose political decisions doomed their children, in much the same way that Marvin's parents' decisions helped to doom him.
> “He was a good boy,” she answered. “Just like any other boy. A normal boy.”
Are they ever not? I don't recall ever hearing those who knew a multiple murderer as a child recalling him as bad or abnormal.
Edit: to clarify, I'm not saying that she was wrong in this case. This is just a general observation. It seems odd to me that I've never seen an interview with people who knew a mass murderer as a child where they say something like "that kid was a little shit who I knew would end up killing people".
Maybe this is an old article? I cannot find a Texas execution of a multiple-murderer in the last 4 years (that the author has been practicing at their current position) that matches the description (committed their crime before they could 'buy beer'; multiple victims).
Derrick Dewayne Charles seems to fit the description. Executed in 2015; black; Houston area; age 19 at offence; 3 victims.
Victims were his girlfriend, age 15, her mother, age 44, and her grandfather, age 77.
The mother had told police that Charles was having sex with the daughter. This upset Charles, so he killed the family.
The grandfather was beaten and strangled to death.
The daughter was choked with an extension cord, beaten with stereo speakers, and hit with a TV.
The mother was thrown into a bathtub filled with water and a plugged-in TV, but that failed to electrocute her, so he dragged her through the house, raped her, and then strangled her.
Previous conviction for burglary, for which he received three years in prison, but was paroled after eight months. Met once with his parole officer and then ignored subsequent required meetings, and so there was a warrant out for his arrest.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/12/derrick-charles-exe...
That could be it. I was assuming the case must have been nearer the beginning of the author's tenure in Houston. But it could have been just last year; nothing in the article contradicts that.
This puts a different light on the article. That case involved premeditated murder, rape, assault and strangulation. I find it harder to be empathetic with the defendant.
Can you not see past the first degree at all? Or does it just escape your mind that if the boy didn't grow up in the house and family he did these 3 wouldn't have endured such a tragic death?
Poverty and mental health. The two most taboo under-and-mis-treated topics in America.
The author didn't want you to feel bad for one guy, or his victims, the author wanted you to understand that the death machine isn't solving anything, she wanted you to understand that military grade armed police and pretending that economical imposed segregation doesn't exist don't absolve all of us of the problem. Eye for an eye doesn't build a better society and it def doesn't fix what's wrong. Oh and you're paying for it btw.
All of this has to end. We need basic income, we need a mental health system that by using it doesn't reward you with lost job and societal joining opportunities. Yet... in 2016, I have yet to hear one presidential candidate mention either one of those two topics, much less have I seen one citizen, journalist or blogger try to solicit a response from our politicians about it.
In 2016, it seems that even our privacy is in question giving one the feeling that we're headed backwards instead of forward in becoming a better society.
When you see someone who was sadistically abused until they became a sociopathic abuser, you don't feel any empathy?
"Harder"
The article was carefully written to engender empathy - no mention of the sociopathic tendencies. No mention of victims at all. Stress was on how much he liked sports.
But knowledge of all that he was, recasts that story irreparably. He was clearly sociopathic, lacking empathy. Any appearance of normality could not have been sustained. Even the stories of his supposed attachments were probably misinterpretations.
These are just observations. Please don't read it as an endorsement of Texas capital punishment, or callous disregard for those broken by a warped society.
Also, its not clear that sociopathic abuse was the problem. Empathy is learned before the age of 4(?) or not at all. His mother's mental problems were more likely at the root of it.
Whatever was the root of it, it'd be nice if just once, something was black and white. Life seems to be made of nothing but shades of gray, even though to hear people argue, you'd think everything was black and white. At the same time.
But that is actually one of the worst truths I've ever learned. I know several people who have this problem to various degrees. And yes, they don't really seem in control, at least not all of the time. Even if they are consciously aware of what they're doing and taking control of it, it takes years for that control to become a 99% thing.
I even think it's true that I wouldn't know these people if they didn't try to fix themselves, because otherwise a job would be out of the question, and without a job, they'd never be near me. I wonder how many there are that are just sitting by themselves, sinking deeper into problems and never even try to save themselves. I imagine it's a lot.
But there it is : people who get/got abused do not want the abuse to end, they want to become the abuser. This means that a significant fraction of them is dangerous. Lots of people who try to help are destroyed by this effect.