Jan. 30
TEXAS:
Panel to tap crime lab investigator this week -- Group delays announcing
its final decision until Wednesday
The committee in charge of selecting who will take on the massive job of
investigating the problems of the Houston Police Department crime lab is
close to making a decision. However, the final choice will not be revealed
until Wednesday, according to a statement issued by the panel Saturday.
After meeting Saturday to interview several firms interested in the job,
members of the Crime Lab Stakeholders Committee decided the formal
announcement of the winning bid will not be made public until midweek.
"The committee feels very strongly that taking the additional time will
best serve the interest of justice by ensuring that the best possible
candidate is chosen," said committee member Rocky Robinson in an e-mailed
statement released by the HPD media office.
"The additional time is necessary to allow the committee to more
thoroughly review the proposals and to verify the listed credentials and
references," said Robinson, who is also president of the Houston Bar
Association.
In recent weeks, Police Chief Harold Hurtt and Mayor Bill White have
received criticism, accused of not moving fast enough to deal with
problems at the crime lab. Last week, after pressure from the state
Legislature, Hurtt agreed to allow investigators from the Texas Rangers to
begin their own probe. A team of Rangers is expected to be on-site at the
department this week.
The department's DNA laboratory has been closed since December 2002 after
an independent audit found widespread problems including shoddy science,
substandard facilities and poorly trained analysts. The audit prompted the
retesting of DNA evidence originally processed by the police lab in close
to 400 cases.
Problems have been cited with the department's toxicology, serology and
ballistic labs. 2 men have been released from prison after the discovery
of problems with crime lab analysis of evidence in their separate cases.
Additionally, in August, 280 boxes of improperly stored evidence in
thousands of criminal convictions dating back to the 1970s were discovered
in the HPD property room.
Shortly after the discovery, Hurtt announced that the department would
bring in a "project leader" to investigate problems at the lab and the
evidence room. However, after learning in December that the leader would
not be in place until April 2005, state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston,
began questioning why the process was taking so long.
While the Rangers will begin with the 280 misplaced boxes - including
evidence in 28 capital murder cases - they are also expected to probe the
overall problems of the crime lab.
In addition to agreeing to allow the Rangers into his department, Hurtt
also accelerated the process of selecting a project leader who is expected
to work in tandem with the Rangers in their investigation. Hurtt also
plans to bring in help from the U.S. Department of Justice to serve as an
auditor and work under the project leader.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
********************
Rick Perry, MEET YOUR NIGHTMARE ---- Kinky Friedman, the always outrageous
60-year-old Jewish cowboy, has his 6-shooter mouth and giant stogie aimed
directly at the 2006 Texas governor's race. Laugh if you will, but for the
1st time in his life, Kinky is serious.
At campaign headquarters, things are a bit chaotic.
Three dogs are racing from room to room. In the kitchen, another is
looking up at Kinky Friedman and barking at him -- barking, barking,
barking.
Like Lassie, on a rescue mission.
The little mutt won't shut up.
"Perky!"
Friedman jerks a fat cigar from between his teeth.
His eyes narrow in a look of parental admonition.
"Perky, you better be-have!"
Suddenly, Brownie comes skidding around a corner like a Daytona stock car,
followed by Chumley and Magoo.
Meet the Friedmans. 4 dogs and a 60-year-old Jewish cowboy who wants to be
governor of Texas.
They share a small house, a cabin, really, tucked away in privacy among
the cedars on a ranch near Kerrville in the picturesque Hill Country. A
box of Milk Bones sits on a counter. Plates of dog chow clutter the plank
floor.
It is here the breadwinner writes mystery novels.
He titled one Armadillos and Old Lace. Friedman also writes a humor column
for Texas Monthly -- although that gig is about to end -- pecking on an
antique invention called a typewriter. An eclectic collection of photos
decorate his office. Gandhi. Gabby Hayes, the Western-movie actor.
Friedman in his trademark black hat shaking hands with Presidents Bill
Clinton and George W. Bush.
After George W. invited him to spend a night at the White House, Friedman
sent his fellow Texan a note: "I have four women, four editors and four
dogs. Can I bring them all?"
The president wrote back.
"Maybe just the dogs."
As governor, Friedman plans to form a Texas Peace Corps and enlist first
lady Laura Bush.
He favors casino gambling to fund the state's public education system and
supports nondenominational prayer in schools. He wants a thorough review
of the death penalty to ensure the innocent aren't executed.
All Kinky must do before being swept into office in 2006 is to get his
name placed on the ballot as an independent candidate (he needs 45,540
valid signatures) and raise enough money to sustain a grass-roots campaign
and convince Texas voters that he is a viable alternative to Rick Perry
or, if she enters the race, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison who, Kinky
says, is "twice the man" the incumbent governor is.
"Perry has Gray Davis potential," Friedman says.
California voters recalled their governor in 2003.
They replaced Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"Rick Perry is Gray Davis. Without the personality."
The soft voice of reason says Texas isn't ready to elect a governor who
wrote a country song about the Holocaust (Ride 'Em Jewboy) and inhaled
(more than once) and plays chess with Willie Nelson.
But Friedman is committed.
The bumper stickers are printed.
Jon Wolfmueller keeps a stack on the counter of his Kerrville bookstore.
He also sells Kinky's books and CDs and DVDs, and bottles of Farouk and
Friedman olive oil. Friedman collaborated with his Palestinian hairdresser
Farouk Shami of Houston to produce the oil in what they like to refer to
as the "Holy Land."
"We don't carry Kinky's salsa," Wolfmueller says.
A Web site (www.kinkyfriedman. com) is recruiting campaign volunteers.
The man whose home answering machine asks callers to leave a message for
the next governor of the great State of Texas will announce his candidacy
Thursday morning at the Alamo. "How Hard Could It Be?" is his campaign
slogan; "Why the Hell Not?," his battle cry.
Asked what lesson he learned from his only other foray into Texas
politics, Kinky fingers his torpedo cigar and the gears inside his head
begin to turn.
"What did I learn?" he asks thoughtfully.
He looks to Steve "Beano" Boynton, a campaign adviser.
"It's more fun to win than to lose," Boynton suggests.
Not too bad, Kinky says. "But not funny."
The answer suddenly comes to him hours later.
"Know what I learned?"
Kinky smiles at the memory.
"Never get in an election that has only one ballot box."
Friedman ran as the Jewish candidate for justice of the peace in 1986. He
set the tone for his campaign by promising Kerr County citizens he would
keep Kerrville out of war with neighboring Fredericksburg. And reduce the
speed limit to 54.95.
His opponent, Pat Knox, won by a comfortable margin.
Friedman still doesn't fully understand why he lost, but he says he
doesn't begrudge his fellow "Kerrverts" for returning him to the private
sector.
Back then, like now, he was fun to be around.
Kinky could charm anybody -- for 4 minutes.
"Five minutes, tops," says Max Swafford.
Swafford worked in the campaign as press liaison and security operative.
He understood that most politicians are best served to the public in small
doses and that this was especially true of Kinky, who had built a music
career out of being politically incorrect. Friedman and his 1970s band,
the Texas Jewboys, recorded They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore.
If Kinky could order feminists to Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your
Buns in the Bed, he was capable of saying almost anything during the
campaign.
His advisers devised a safeguard, a strategy to minimize risk. The moment
the candidate would begin mingling with voters at a public function
Swafford checked his watch. After five minutes, the press agent would
appear at the table, or gathering, where Kinky was holding court.
"Folks, please excuse me," Max would say politely.
"Mister Friedman has a call from the governor."
Awake at the wheel
He was born on Halloween 1944.
But no skeletons rattle in his closet.
All his bones, Kinky jokes, are bleaching on the sand at Padre Island.
But if the former troubadour's populist message resonates with voters and
his quixotic quest gathers steam, he can expect his life, his fast-lane
past, will be fair game.
"No one thinks that, as a musician, hanging around with Bob Dylan that I
didn't do drugs at one time," he says.
In the mid-1970s Friedman and his band joined a psychedelic carnival.
Dylan's traveling music show was billed as the Rolling Thunder Revue.
"Every music tour in the country was probably fueled by cocaine, at that
time," Friedman recalls. "You're staying up all night, picking with people
you've admired all your life. There were drugs. Tons of them. Peruvian
marching powder."
He yielded to temptation. "When Eric Clapton offers you a toot of cocaine,
what are you going to do? Say, 'No thanks, I had an apple on the train?'"
After the Texas Jewboys disbanded, Friedman moved to New York and lived in
a Greenwich Village loft and performed regularly for several years at the
Lone Star Cafe -- a Texas-themed hangout.
He watched drug abuse take a wrenching toll. He buried his best friend,
Tom Baker, who died of a heroin overdose. Kacey Cohen -- "the love of my
life" -- was killed in a drug-related automobile accident.
Friedman returned to Texas in 1985.
He came home to Echo Hill Ranch.
It is here, where his parents started a summer camp for kids 50 years ago,
that he found the will and the power and the courage to do what he knew he
must.
"Cocaine distances you from your dreams. It's a hopeless kind of thing. If
I hadn't stopped when I did, I would be dead now.
"Or wishing I was."
A running joke, or not?
Kinky for Governor.
"I can't decide," says Evan Smith, editor of Texas Monthly, "if it's great
or I fear for the health of the state."
He is certain of one thing.
Kinky's back-page column that appears in the magazine's March issue will
be his last. The magazine cannot, in fairness, permit one candidate to
have his own forum. Kinky, says the editor, is on sabbatical
"indefinitely."
Smith, who hired the columnist in 2001, says he considered Friedman's
candidacy a joke until the "unreformed egomaniac" -- Smith's words -- took
the next step and scheduled a media event at the Alamo. Kinky also will
appear that morning on the Don Imus radio show.
It appears he actually is going to do this.
Singer Billy Joe Shaver is scheduled to give the invocation.
Jeff "Little Jewford" Shelby, who Friedman calls the only original member
of the Texas Jewboys who is still ambulatory, will introduce his longtime
friend.
"He is serious," Shelby says.
Of course, he makes jokes.
"I'm a Jew. I'll hire good people."
"If I win, I'll demand a recount."
But Friedman's not laughing now, as he stands in his little kitchen
surrounded by yapping love and talks with Beano Boynton about the future.
"If people want to know what I think about House Bill 704B then read my
lips. 'I don't know.' I'm not interested in narrow political thoughts.
This is not a political campaign. It's a spiritual calling. I'm not 'Weird
Al' Yankovic. That's not what this is at all. I'm going to win. I gotta
believe I can. Besides, whatta we got to lose?"
Boynton doesn't miss a beat.
"Rick Perry."
KINKYthoughts
Candidate Friedman sounds off on ...
ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
"We're No. 1 in only one thing -- executions. I'm not anti-death penalty.
But I'm damn sure anti-the-wrong-guy-getting-executed."
EDUCATION
"I think we're 48th in funding for public education. The only states below
us are West Virginia, New Mexico and Arkansas. That means Alabama,
Louisiana and Mississippi are ahead of us. When Mississippi is ahead of
you, you've got a problem. I'm worried about Guam slipping ahead of us,
too."
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
"People are nervous. They're afraid to say 'Merry Christmas.' Afraid to
light up a cigar. We didn't get to be the Lone Star State by being
politically correct. America's last stand is Texas . . . I want to take
things back to a time when cowboys all sang and their horses were smart.
I'm looking to evoke an older, richer spirit of Texas. I'm going to fight
this wussification of Texas if I have to do it one wuss at a time."
CAMPAIGN SPENDING
"More than $100 million was spent in the last gubernatorial race by the
two candidates for a job that pays $115,000. That smells fishy to most of
us. Something is wrong with that picture. I've always said a fool and his
money are soon elected. But not this time around. The guy with the most
money shouldn't always win."
RELIGION
"I'm not really a charismatic atheist. I have Jesus and Moses in my heart.
They were both independents, by the way."
THE GOVERNOR
"If you think Rick Perry is inspiring people, fine. But I think he has
failed in the spiritual-lifting department. This governor is, in my
opinion, more interested in building golf courses than he is in improving
public schools."
DRUG ABUSE
"Us Jews have had cocaine around for thousands of years. We call it
horseradish . . . I admire people who struggle with their demons and
conquer them."
WRITING
"Publishing 4 books in one year is an index of an empty life."
CIGARS
"I believe people who smoke cigars live longer than nonsmokers. When I
smoke one, there's that feeling of being above the fray. That will serve
me well during the campaign when everybody is running around like a
rooster with its head cut off."
(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
****************
Teen charged in man's slaying
Jose Angel Herrera, 17, was charged Friday with capital murder in
connection with a robbery in Spring Branch. Herrera is accused of fatally
shooting Tereso Hernandez Tellez, 26, of Georgetown. Tellez, whose wallet
was stolen, was shot about 1:40 a.m. in the 9000 block of Kempwood.
(source : Houston Chronicle)
NEVADA----death of female death row inmate
Lone woman on Nevada's death row dies in prison
The only woman on Nevada's death row died Saturday at the Southern Nevada
Women's Correctional Center in Las Vegas, authorities said. She was 75.
Priscilla Ford had been suffering from emphysema and was pronounced dead
at 11:05 a.m., said Fritz Schlottman, spokesman for the Nevada Department
of Corrections.
Ford was convicted of killing 6 people and injuring 23 after she drove her
Lincoln Continental down a crowded Reno sidewalk on Thanksgiving Day 1980.
"She had been very quiet for so long," Schlottman said. "No one ever had
any problems with her (in prison). I don't remember hearing about her
violating any rules."
Ford's numerous appeals of the death sentence cost taxpayers a lot of
money and unfairly caused victims' families to relive the tragedy, Washoe
County Assistant District Attorney John Helzer said.
Ford had exhausted her state appeals but still had federal appeals left to
challenge the death sentence, he said.
"That was such a sad case. It was such a tragedy for so many people,"
Helzer said. "The fact they had to relive that case appeal after appeal,
her death will probably bring some peace to those people. She should have
been executed a long time ago."
In 1995, Ford lost a state Supreme Court bid to get her sentence reduced
to life without parole on grounds she didn't get a fair trial.
Ford's lawyer had argued there were all sorts of constitutional problems
caused mainly by inadequate legal counsel during her 6-month trial.
But prosecutors had argued there was no basis for the appeal - and given
Ford's mental state it was unlikely she would ever be executed, anyway.
Expert medical witnesses said Ford was suffering from a variety of mental
illnesses, but prosecutors maintained she knew the difference between
right and wrong.
"She was angry that day (of the killings) and what she did was what she
attempted to do," Helzer said. "She stayed angry and probably died angry."
The official cause of Ford's death will be determined by the coroner,
Schlottman said.
"If they think an autopsy is warranted, they'll do one," he said, adding
Ford had been a heavy cigarette smoker.
Ford's death leaves 83 men on Nevada's death row.
(source: Associated Press)
OHIO:
'I never let them get to me' says Scot who spent 18 years on death row in
America
He came within hours of being executed, but Kenneth Richey never stopped
maintaining his innocence. In an exclusive interview, the man whose has
been backed by the Pope, Hollywood stars and now a US judge tells Sophie
Goodchild of the terrible conditions he endured in prison, what helped him
to survive, and what he plans to do when he finally gets out.
A Briton who faced the death sentence for 18 years in an American jail has
spoken for the first time of his harrowing ordeal, saying he was "treated
like an animal" for a crime he did not commit.
In an exclusive interview with The Independent on Sunday, Kenneth Richey,
whose sentence was finally quashed last week after a campaign backed by
the Pope, Hollywood stars and Tony Blair, revealed he had been shackled
and handcuffed for 23 hours a day as he faced death by lethal injection.
Mr Richey, now 40, who has always denied starting a fire that killed his
ex-girlfriend's daughter, also revealed that he planned to mount a
campaign against the death penalty following a US judge's ruling that he
must be re-tried or freed within 90 days.
"It feels good for everyone finally to see that I'm innocent," Mr Richey
said. "All those people who said 'he's guilty', all those doubters. They
have to eat their words. They've taken too long because the system is
screwed up."
In a telephone interview from the Mansfield Correctional Institute , Ohio,
Mr Richey said: "I went 'whoop, whoop!' when they told me the news but
I'll only be happy when they open the door and let me out."
Speaking in a broad Scottish accent, which remained undimmed despite his
years in jail, Mr Richey said that he had managed to remain strong because
of the support of his fiance and family.
"I never let it get to me, and what kept me going was the support I've
received from my wife, family and friends and loved ones. The fact I
didn't want these bastards to get away with what they did. But people here
do crack. There have been guys here commit suicide and who could not take
the conditions any more.
"What I've missed the most is to be able to walk up to my front door and
go anywhere I've wanted, to go shopping. Just the basic things. I just
want to get home to Scotland and be with my wife [fiance]."
The former Marine's case was described by Amnesty International as "the
most compelling case of innocence on death row" and attracted widespread
support from campaigners against miscarriages of justice.
Brought up in Edinburgh by his Scottish mother and American father, Mr
Richey emigrated to the US in 1982 when his parents divorced. His ordeal
began 4 years later, when, aged 21, he was arrested for arson and the
murder of 2-year-old Cynthia Collins, the daughter of his former lover,
Hope Collins. In 1986, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. Over
the following years, he was within hours of being executed a number of
times, but each time his lawyers succeeded in appealing for stays of
execution.
However, forensic experts now say that no accelerants were used in the
fire and that it was most likely caused by a discarded cigarette or even
by the little girl herself, who witnesses said was fascinated with matches
and had previously started 2 accidental fires.
The testimony of prosecution witnesses has also been discredited. At the
trial, they claimed to have overheard Richey saying he was "going to burn
down the building". But one has since admitted that she had never heard Mr
Richey actually use these words. They were just gossip. Another witness
has admitted she said what she thought the prosecution wanted her to say.
At his trial, Mr Richey refused to plea bargain. Admitting a lesser charge
could have meant he was freed after 10 years. But Mr Richey, who only won
his attempt to be recognised as a British citizen in 2003, has always said
he was prepared to die for what he believed in: his innocence. He was not
prepared to admit to a crime he had not committed.
Karen Richey, who has taken his surname although they are not yet married,
said she suffered nightmares that he was being executed.
"Kenny got to the point where he just did not care any more - it was 'kill
me or let me go'," said Karen Richey, who lives in Glasgow and has known
her fianc for 10 years. She started writing to him after hearing about his
case, and has visited him once a year. Conjugal rights were not allowed by
the prison authorities.
"He had already decided on haggis, mash, tatties and neeps for his last
meal," she said. "You are always imagining the worst and having nightmares
of him being strapped down to the gurney."
She was stunned when she finally heard last week that he could be set free
in weeks. Mr Richey was allowed to telephone her from the Ohio jail.
"There was crying, screaming, shouting, the lot. But we both fought long
and hard for this moment. It's all been worth it. There were times when we
thought this would never happen."
After the call from Mr Richey, Karen phoned his mother, Eileen, 60, in
Edinburgh to tell her the news. "I had to repeat it 5 times," said Karen.
"She just couldn't take it in. Then she got all emotional."
The case has been cited by anti-death penalty campaigners as proof that
the US should scrap state executions - the subject of furious debate in
crime-ridden American states. It comes after public defenders in the state
of Connecticut succeeded yesterday in winning a last-minute stay of
execution for Michael Ross, 45, who has confessed to killing 8 women and
girls after raping them.
Adam Goodman, from the legal firm Lovells, who acted for Mr Richey in the
UK, said the appeal court decision highlighted a "massive failure" by the
defence lawyers at the original trial in handling the forensic evidence.
Mr Goodman said: "The entire legal team were pleased to see that the Court
of Appeals recognised after 18 years that there were serious questions
about the propriety of Mr Richey's original conviction and sentence."
Mr Richey, meanwhile, has indicated that he plans to swap his prison cell
for the open, mountainous Scottish highlands when he is eventually
released. "We just want to be a normal family and set up home together
there," said Karen.
DEATH SENTENCES
- William Kemmler was the 1st to be executed by electric chair in the US
on 6 August 1890. Death took 8 minutes.
- The longest spell on Texas's death row was 24 years before Excell White
was finally killed in 1999. The average wait is 10 years.
- A lethal injection costs $86 (46) a dose in Texas. A muscle relaxant
collapses the lungs and a drug stops the heart. Death occurs in seven
minutes.
- The most popular last meal for US death row inmates is French fries,
burgers, ice cream and Coke.
- Seventy-eight countries and territories use the death penalty, while 118
have abolished it in law or practice.
- Official records show 726 people were executed in China in 2003, but one
Chinese legislator suggested last year that the actual total was "nearly
10,000".
- Of the 23 people executed in Texas last year, 12 were black, 8 were
white and 3 Hispanic. The state lists the final words of those who are
executed on its website.
- At present, about 3,400 people in US jails awaiting execution.
(source: The (UK) Independent)
LOUISIANA:
Doing the story justice----In a compelling anatomy of a murder and its
consequences for a community, Times-Picayune city editor Jed Horne
examines another casualty of the crime: the integrity of the local
criminal justice system
When Jed Horne began to contemplate writing a book about a 1984 New
Orleans murder infamous in the legal realm for its outrageous aftermath,
the facts alone seemed sufficient to guarantee drama. A white, 60-year-old
housewife, Delores Dye, was gunned down in full view of 6 eyewitnesses in
the parking lot of a Schwegmann's Supermarket on Old Gentilly Road. A
young black man named Curtis Kyles, both a career criminal and a devoted
father, was arrested and tried twice for the crime, convicted after an
initial mistrial -- all within 3 months. After serving 14 years on
Angola's death row, he was freed -- after the U.S. Supreme Court had
reversed his original conviction and he had been retried unsuccessfully an
additional three times.
As a writer, however, Horne received an unexpected gift beyond those
remarkable occurrences: The alleged murderer lived in a 2-story fourplex
on Desire Street. That meant that Horne, who is city editor at The
Times-Picayune, could use "desire," with all the word implies of yearning,
ambition and conflict, as his defining metaphor:
-- The desire of Delores Dye's husband, sons and other beloveds to avenge
her murder during broad daylight.
-- The desire of New Orleans police to make an arrest in the high-profile
case, no matter the cost to their integrity, right down to one asking
potential witnesses to "help me take another n----r off the street."
-- The desire of the elected prosecutor at the time, Harry Connick Sr.,
and numerous assistants to win a conviction, even if that meant breaking
the rules they are sworn to obey, withholding or ignoring possibly
exculpatory evidence, and then pursuing the case following the Supreme
Court reversal -- with three prosecutions all ending in mistrials.
-- The desire of Kyles to prove his innocence and regain his freedom and
serve as a real father to his children.
-- The desire of Kyles' defense attorneys to make the criminal justice
system operate fairly, on behalf not only of their client but also of
future defendants.
-- The desire of witnesses, both liars and truthtellers, to escape the
arduousness of 5 trials in the same murder case.
-- The desire of scholars to extract lessons from the fiasco, some of
those lessons embedded in what would be a groundbreaking U.S. Supreme
Court ruling.
-- And finally, there are Horne's own desires -- "to tell a story of a
murder through the lives of the people impacted by it," to determine
whether Kyles is innocent of the murder, and, if he is, who killed Delores
Dye.
Horne's is not the first book about a broken criminal justice system, nor
will it be the last. In my work as an investigative journalist, I have
read several hundred books about miscarriages of justice. Most are about
certified or suspected instances of wrongful convictions, so I understand
where Horne's book falls in the canon. It is one of the best, certainly in
the top 10. (It ranks among superb accounts, including "A Promise of
Justice: The Eighteen-Year Fight to Save Four Innocent Men," by David
Protess and Rob Warden; "Mean Justice: A Town's Terror, a Prosecutor's
Power, a Betrayal of Innocence," by Edward Humes; and "In Spite of
Innocence: Erroneous Convictions in Capital Cases," by Michael L. Radelet,
Hugo Adam Bedau and Constance Putnam. )
Further, Horne's book stands out because of its impressive reporting,
compelling writing, socioeconomic context and his refusal to define the
story by subscribing to moral certainties.
In and around New Orleans, the book is sure to provoke debate among those
who know (or think they know) something about the Kyles case. Why?
Precisely because Horne avoids moral absolutes. Although critical of
police and prosecutors, Horne puts himself inside their heads, trying
mightily to understand their seemingly inexcusable actions. Although
sympathetic to Kyles as an African-American victim of poor socioeconomic
circumstances, Horne portrays his criminality before the Dye murder --
pickpocketing, dope dealing, fencing stolen goods; then he documents
Kyles' loving behavior as a father, son, sibling and husband.
And so it goes with other characters. No book is real life. But given the
gigantic odds against Horne learning anything new (because of hostility
from prosecutors and police, because of the difficulty of crossing racial
and socioeconomic lines to reach Kyles, and because there had been
millions of words already printed about the case), he has approximated
real life on the printed page as well as can be imagined.
The narrative is a compelling primer about the criminal justice system:
its racism, its function as a proving ground for lawyers on both sides,
the suspect nature of eyewitness identification, the bizarre and often
cowardly world of appellate judges, the impact of the death penalty on
justice, and so much more.
Readers who know New Orleans well will become enmeshed in the locales both
familiar and unfamiliar described by Horne. Readers from far away, like
me, will get an unforgettable glimpse of the intricate web of connections
that makes up the Ninth Ward ("A ghetto is a switchboard like no other,"
Horne writes); the constant tension of life in Orleans Parish Prison and
the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola ("Orleans Parish Prison was
high school -- violent, callow, chaotic. Angola was prison life's
postdoctorate, a more profound experience, a realm of deeper grievances
and more permanent pain"); and the city's destructive racial divide. Horne
describes a New Orleans that is far away from the clichs of tourism ads.
Readers from everywhere will wonder what Horne truly believes about Kyles'
guilt or innocence, because this is a case that will never be solved
definitively by DNA evidence. Did Curtis Kyles kill Delores Dye in the
parking lot of the Schwegmann Brothers' Giant Supermarket on Old Gentilly
Road?
Based on what I had read about the case previously and on what new
information I gleaned from Horne's book, I would deduce that Kyles is
probably innocent. Horne, though, is elliptical enough in print that I
cannot tell for sure what he would say. And maybe that is just the way it
should be.
--
DESIRE STREET: A TRUE STORY OF DEATH AND DELIVERANCE IN NEW ORLEANS
By Jed Horne
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25Contributing writer
---
(source : The Times-Picyune (Steve Weinberg is a freelance writer in
Columbia, Mo.)
******************************
>From 'Desire Street: A True Story of Death and Deliverance in New Orleans'
"No aspect of life on death row is quite as appalling as the vertiginous
acceleration of time as an inmate approaches his date for execution. The
hole was an antidote to that -- one of its more persuasive discomforts,
Kyles found, being the sense that time had stopped altogether. That and
the silence. For hours on end -- or was it days? -- Kyles would hear
nothing at all. Then a sudden burst of sound, the sound of a prisoner
shouting out his own name. But why? The sound of a door slamming and then,
again, silence. The silence reinforced the sense of isolation, and with it
came a feeling of extreme vulnerability -- to the guards, to the chill
basement air, to the demons that lurk in a lonely man's mind. Kyles
thought of many things in the darkness of the hole: his kids, already so
much less frequent in their visits now that he was upriver; the slick
warmth of a woman's vagina; the hatred he felt for Beanie Wallace. The
kids were the worst of it, not being with them. Or worse yet, being near
them, but not near enough.
"Back when Kyles was still in parish prison, when his sister Lela was
babysitting the older kids at her apartment not so many blocks away, on
one or two occasions -- Christmas Eve 1985, most memorably -- she had been
able to get word to him that they would be standing on the Broad Street
overpass above the expressway that formed the western boundary of the
prison complex. And sure enough, there she was, with Tyteannia and
Chester, and little Meco as well -- a treat for Kyles that was
reciprocated with something equally memorable for the kids: the sight of
their daddy's hand clutching a white washrag and waving it at them from
one of the upper windows of the high-rise jail. Meco would never forget it
-- or anything else about the father he had known for four years before he
was snatched away. Now the man had been replaced in Meco's mind by a set
of disjointed recollections: the sight of him being led into the visiting
room, the smell of his cigarette breath through the wire mesh of the
visitor booths, the tears welling in the corners of his eyes even though
he was a father and fathers weren't supposed to cry.
"The first Christmas at Angola would etch itself in Kyles's prison
memories just as poignantly. A charitable group called Trim the Tree
Fellowship arranged to give presents to inmates' kids on their behalf, and
Kyles filled out the application form by asking if Meco, then just about
to turn eight, could have a Big Wheel tricycle. Christmas morning, there
it was. Pinkey put the boy on the phone: " 'Dad, Dad' -- he was hollering
at me -- 'I got the Big Wheel, the Big Wheel, Dad.' " Then Meco handed the
phone back to his mother and made her hold it out into the room so that
his father could hear him riding, and Kyles's eyes watered over at the
faint sound of wheels rolling across the linoleum as the little boy
circled round and round the room, a lifetime away.
"How had it come to this? The hole was good for one thing -- the profound
contemplation of what had gone wrong. Not least of the ironies that
occurred to Kyles as he surveyed the wreckage of his life was this: in the
eyes of the wider world, he might be a creature of society's lowest
depths, but as a child, his struggle had been to convince his peers that
he was not pampered by privilege, that he was just as tough as the project
kids."
(source: The Times-Picayune)
