On October 13, we lost a resolute champion of the law, a man who left his impact on the lives of untold numbers of Americans.
His very name made his life's work almost inevitable, a matter of destiny. William Wayne Justice was a Federal judge for the Eastern District of Texas. That's right -- he was "Justice Justice" -- and he spent a distinguished legal career making sure that everyone -- no matter their color or income or class -- got a fair shake. As a former Texas lieutenant governor put it last week, "Judge Justice dragged Texas into the 20th century, God bless him."
Dragged it kicking and screaming, for it was Justice who ordered Texas to integrate its public schools-- in 1971, seventeen years after the Supreme Court's Brown v Board of Education decision made separate schools for blacks and whites unconstitutional. Texas resisted doing the right thing for as long as it could. Many of its segregated schools for African-American children were so poor they still had outhouses instead of indoor plumbing.
This small town lawyer appointed to the federal bench by President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered Texas to open its public housing to everyone, regardless of their skin color. He looked at the state's "truly shocking conditions" in its juvenile detention system and said, repair it. He struck down state law that permitted public schools to charge as much as a thousand dollars tuition for the children of illegal immigrants.
And Justice demanded a top-to-bottom overhaul of Texas prisons, some of the most brutal and corrupt in the nation. He even held the state in contempt of court when he thought it was dragging its feet cleaning up a system where thousands of inmates slept on the dirty bare floors of their cellblocks and often went without medical care. The late, great Molly Ivins said, "He brought the United States Constitution to Texas."
Some say justice stings. William Wayne Justice certainly did -- and his detractors stung back, with death threats and hate mail. Carpenters refused to repair his house, beauty parlors denied service to his wife. There were cross burnings and constant calls for his impeachment.
After he desegregated the schools he was offered armed guards for protection. He turned them down and instead took lessons in self-defense.
You need to understand that while so many Texans have fought and are fighting the good fight in the Judge Justice tradition, others believe in the law only when it sides with them. They long for the good old days of Judge Roy Bean, the saloonkeeper whose barroom court was known in the frontier days as "The Law West of the Pecos." His judicial philosophy was simple: "Hang 'em first, try 'em later."
The present governor of Texas seems to be channeling Judge Bean. During his nine years in office, Rick Perry -- "Governor Goodhair" as Ivins called him -- has presided over more than 200 executions, dwarfing the previous record of 152 set by his predecessor in the Governor's Mansion, George W. Bush. (The most, it is said, of any United States governor in modern history.)
Lethal injection is practically a religious ritual in Texas. In fact, before their sentencing verdict that will send Khristian Oliver to die in just a couple of weeks -- on November 5th, to be exact -- jurors in the East Texas town of Nacogdoches consulted the Bible and found what they were looking for in the Book of Numbers, where it reads, "The murderer shall surely be put to death," and, "The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer."
Although it was noted that referencing holy writ was an inappropriate "external influence," two appeals courts upheld the jury's sentence and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
Governor Perry will do almost anything to please the vengeful crowd in the Coliseum with their thumbs turned down. Did we mention that next year he's up for re-election? When it turned out recently that five years ago the state may have wrongfully executed a man for a crime he didn't commit, Perry pulled some particularly shady moves.
In February 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death for allegedly setting a fire that killed his three young daughters. Governor Perry has willfully ignored evidence from top arson investigators that the blaze was not homicide but an accident.
Now Perry has fired the chairman and three members of the state's Forensic Science Commission just as they were about to hear further scientific testimony that might prove Willingham's innocence. This week, Perry told reporters that the controversy is "nothing more than propaganda from the anti-death penalty people across the country."
They can be short on mercy in Texas. All the more reason to mourn the loss of Justice -- William Wayne Justice. Rest in peace, your honor.
Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.
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Today I read on Glenn W. Smith's blog (Dogcanyon
The education system in Texas is a direct result of the hatred. The amount of people without insurance is a direct result of the hatred.
The minute you enter some towns/citi
Yeah, it's truly the Lone Star State alright.
It's time for the "Justice" people of Texas to take the state back!
lately in texas, it seems that every time a company or developer comes in or a foreign company with a toll plan, or t. boone pickens buying all the resource rights to water that he can! they go in to counties and re-zone and change the plan of the land because what they want to do WOULD BE ILLEGAL. Or when the democrats consolidat
they keep pittling around with the fine regulation
and deleting every state email to the gov. in 7 days, yet using a privet email like sarah palian did to do state business
texas is under politcal attack and is showing the symptoms of any dictatorsh
they gutted public services sold our roads to tolls sold our prisons sold out the positions in out states government
lately in texas its not about who is most qualified for the "job" its who you appoint to continue the hard line policies as dictated by karl rove. and fueled by the paranoia of nine 11, everything in texxas is a security risk.
I am a native texan, my family blood runs deeper than the wars and the revolution
Simply put, capital punishment makes bad business sense. It completely fails the cost/benef
Go Medina for Gov!
http://www
these are my own words, against secession.
It probably won't happen soon enough for us to avoid another term of Gov. Perry (or, more likely IMO, Gov Kay), but 20-30 years down the line, we could easily be a swing or even light-blue state.
For some reason, those words fill me with a sense of foreboding
Police Chief David Kunkle has apologized publicly to the city's Spanish-sp
All pending citations will be dismissed, fines will be returned, and the offices involved will be investigat
The practice came to light in early October when Officer Gary Bromley, a rookie cop undergoing training, stopped Ernestina Mondragon for making an improper U-turn and then ticketed her for not speaking English. The woman was so upset that her family wound up taking her to the emergency room.
""I felt humiliated
http://raw
Billy Don Moyers, the pride of Marshall, may well remember that folks in those parts, including my own Warrington grandparen
The old man's apple didn't fall far from the tree, as they say.
I can only guess but I bet most of the informatio
For space problems, I won't name each state but there are sorry politics and politician
I challenge anyone who looks down their noses at any state to prove that they live in a perfect world..wit
Now, while you work on that, I'm going to go back to weeding my garden.
Yea, it took his brother committing election fraud in Florida and a Supreme Court decision because he lost the popular vote by about half a million...
Bush signed over 140death warrants and given his failures as President it is almost certain that he failed the system in this regard also.
Perry is covering up a state-spon
Sure, there are problems everywhere and Texas is crooked as a stick and filled with undereduca