BOOTS on the GRO a DAY in the LIFE of a BORDER SHERIFF by Melissa Del Bosque LOON STAR STATE I BEN SARGENT
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
OCTOBER 30, 2009 I $3.00 I OPENING THE EYES OF TEXAS SINCE 1954 11111kapih, -Nosita„,_ ---lwilkwykaibripaMPas, - BOOTS ON THE GRO A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BORDER SHERIFF By Melissa del Bosque LOON STAR STATE I BEN SARGENT mat SA~G~t1r. The Texas Observer OCTOBER 30, 2009 BOOTS ON THE GROUND by Melissa Del Bosque A day in the life of a border sheriff. 10 DIALOGUE 3 VIEWS OF THE FRONTIER 22 BORDER TEENS 32 David Cleaves on Literary El Paso. Mary Helen Specht on Jessica EDITORIAL 4 Lee Anderson's Border Crossing DOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS 23 and Diana Lopez's Confetti Girl. POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE 5 Emily DePrang on Helen Thorpe's Just Like Us. THE OYSTER IS HIS WORLD 34 JIM HIGHTOWER 16 Richard Holland on Robb Walsh's CULTURAL REVELATION 25 Sex, Death and Oysters. JUSTICE FOR THE DISPOSSESSED 8 Ryland Barton on Benjamin Judge William Wayne Justice remembered. Moser's Why This World. POETRY 35 by Lou Dubose by Jan Seale AMERICAN IDEAS 26 FALL BOOKS ISSUE Toni Palaima on William DON'T FENCE ME IN 36 Goetzman's Beyond the Revolution. Kirk Forrester on Steven Introduction by Michael May 18 Davis' J. Frank Dobie and HOLLYWOOD, TEXAS 28 Deanne Stillman's Mustang. SOUTH TOWARD HOME 18 Josh Rosenblatt on Robert An Excerpt from Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life Hinkle's Call Me Lucky and INTERVIEW 38 by Bill Minutaglio and W Michael Smith Gary Kent's Shadows & Light. Anis Shivani talks to Oscar Casares author of Amigoland. Cover photo by Eugenio Del Bosque 2 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 DIALOGUE THE TEXAS OBSERVER VOLUME 101, NO. 20 FIGHTING FOR THEIR RIGHTS Options:' Oct. 2). Everyone praised their A Journal of Free Voices Since 1954 This story about a prison riot ("The own health care system and its low cost FOUNDING EDITOR Ronnie Dugger Pecos Insurrection," Oct. 2) highlights (private sector!). They were outraged CEO/PUBLISHER Canton Carl the most important issue in the immi- that Americans might choose a public EDITOR Bob Moser gration debate. Regardless of which side option, citing specific examples from MANAGING EDITOR Chris Tomlinson you take on immigration issues, what Britain and Canada. The key is for all ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dave Mann BOOKS & CULTURE EDITOR Michael May often gets lost in the argument is that people to have health insurance and INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER Melissa del Bosque these immigration detainees are human for the government to highly regulate STAFF WRITER Forrest Wilder beings. As a country we need to respect prices. ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Julia Austin Camille Renshaw CIRCULATION/OFFICE MANAGER that. If compassion and respect for Candace Carpenter human rights are values we preach, why Posted at texasobserver.org ART DIRECTOR Daniel Lievens do we turn our backs when these are WEBMASTER Shane Pearson absent in our own country? Breaking the Most of the people I know with- POETRY EDITOR Naomi Shihab Nye COPY EDITOR Rusty Todd law by entering illegally is a problem. No out health insurance will be penal- INTERNS Ryland Barton, Sara Haji one denies that, but in detaining these ized by the Senate plan. They do not CONTRIBUTING WRITERS individuals, we also take responsibility have health insurance because they Nate Blakeslee, Robert Bryce, Emily DePrang, Michael Erard, James K. Galbraith, Patricia Kilday for them. As this story illustrates, we are can't afford it. Now they will be fined Hart, Steven G. Kellman, Robert Leleux, James E. McWilliams, Char Miller, Ruth Pennebaker, miserably failing in that regard. because they can't afford it. How did Kevin Sieff, Brad Tyer, Andrew Wheat A. Devan this become the Democratic position? CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Posted at texasobserver.org In my case (currently underemployed Jana Birchum, Alan Pogue, Steve Satterwhite CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS by someone who doesn't offer health Maggy Brophy, Michael Krone, Dusan Kwiatkowski, The criminals are running the institu- insurance), perhaps the proposed Alex Eben Meyer, Ben Sargent tion to the detriment of the "inmates." subsidies will make health insurance TEXAS DEMOCRACY FOUNDATION BOARD Lisa Blue, Melissa Jones, Susan Longley, The roles need to be reversed, and the affordable. Now about that supposedly Jim Marston, Mary Nell Mathis, Gilberto Ocanas, Jesse Oliver, Bernard Rapoport, Geoffrey Rips, neckties should be behind the bars. "private" (actually heavily regulated) Geronimo Rodriguez, Sharron Rush, Kelly White, Bob Higgins Dutch health care: No Republican Ronnie Dugger (Emeritus) IN MEMORIAM Posted at texasobserver.org or private insurance company in the Molly Ivins, 1944-2007, United States would accept it or call it Bob Eckhardt, 1913-2001, Cliff Olofson, 1931-1995, Frankie Carter Randolph, 1894-1972 The government has a choice in the anything but socialism. The Texas Observer (ISSN oo40-4519/USPS 541300), matters of these folks who are ill; it's Gary Denton entire contents copyrighted © 2009, is published biweekly except during April, June, October and called prosecutorial discretion. They Posted at texasobserver.org December, when there is a 4-week break between issues (22 issues per year) by the Texas Democracy don't have to spend taxpayer money to Foundation, a 5o1(c)3 nonprofit foundation, 307 W. 7th provide medical care. They can release A QUESTION OF INNOCENCE St., Austin TX, 78701. Telephone (512)477-0746, fax (512)474-1175, toll free (800)939-6620. these nonviolent folks to seek care on A person has one life to live. To be Email [email protected] , texasobserver.org . Periodicals Postage paid in Austin, TX, and at the outside. It's criminal to hold them locked up in prison falsely accused of additional mailing offices. in a place that cannot meet their medi- committing a crime is probably one of POSTMASTER Send address changes to: The Texas Observer, 307 cal needs. the most horrific things I can think of W. 7th St., Austin TX 78701. Subscriptions: yr $32, Nancy Kuznetsov ("I Was Just a Junkie," Oct. 2). Now, in 2 yr $59, 3 yr $84. Students $20. Foreign, add $13 to domestic price. Back issues $5. Airmail, foreign, Posted at texasobserver.org my mind, the three appeals court judges group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N Zeeb Rd, are just as guilty as arson investigators Ann Arbor MI 48106. This is the biggest pile of B.S. I have Torres and Selvera of keeping an inno- INDEXES The Texas Observer is indexed in Access: The read in a while. I live [in Reeves County] cent man in prison. Supplementary Index to Periodicals; Texas Index; but don't work at the prison. I think your Rob Greitens and, for the years 1954 through 1981, The Texas Observer Index. article was very liberal and slanted. I'll Posted at texasobserver.org Investigative reporting is supported in part by a just keep the name of your rag so that I grant from the Open Society Institute. never waste my time reading any more I work with a law enforcement agency. Books & the Culture is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a articles from you again. I see people who are coerced into saying grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts. Kelly Davis and doing things by officers. I try to dis- rijA , OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE Posted at texasobserver.org courage my law enforcement co-workers Soros routhlat:hh: Netveefk Tee. Commission from using such tactics. Some will never on the Arts (9. - Lie 4, qty DUTCH CARE? cease; too bad, we all will suffer when i=!1:111P kejf, .211, Recently I was in Amsterdam, and this happens! 141. their citizens were eager to discuss our Joe Roy health care reform headlines ("Public Posted at texasobserver.org OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 3 Burning Justice For decades, fire investigators walked into charred buildings in search of the What has been lost in the heat of the same clues, the same subtle traces, that they thought indicated arson: the furni- Willingham scandal is the original ture and windows buckled by extreme heat, the burn patterns on the floor and central issue: the veracity of the scorched by gasoline. Their methods weren't scientific. Investigators relied forensic arson evidence. on a set of assumptions—inherited knowledge passed from one generation Williamson County prosecutor Perry Texas was a criminal-justice innovator. to another—about how buildings burn. placed in charge of the commission, has Arson cases seemed the perfect place They used those pieces of evidence to not committed to restarting or complet- to start. Like the cases of Willingham and send thousands of defendants to prison. ing the Willingham probe. Ernest Ray Willis, who like Willingham And much of it was wrong. Suddenly there was the whiff of a was wrongly convicted of setting a fatal In the past 15 years, the science of cover-up, and the makings of a national fire— a 1986 blaze in West Texas—based detecting arson has undergone a revo- scandal. Critics accuse Perry of trying to on the same kind of flawed interpretation lution. Research has shown definitively subvert an investigation that might prove of burn patterns. (Willis, however, was that many of the assumptions fire inves- he oversaw the execution of an innocent luckier; he was exonerated in 2004 after tigators once employed to distinguish an man (he was told of the faulty foren- 17 years on death row.) intentionally set fire from an accidental sics before the execution). Meanwhile, Craig Beyler, a nationally respected fire one were false. anti-death penalty activists—sensing expert hired by the commission to study Yet those disproved forensics sent that Texas (of all places) might become Willingham and Willis, concluded in a Cameron Todd Willingham to the Texas the first state to admit putting an inno- recent report that he saw no evidence of death chamber on Feb.