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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 3, 1982)
/ The Battalion f I Serving the University community I L 76 No. 3 USPS 045360 24 Pages In 2 Sections College Station, Texas Friday, September 3, 1982 =d roSom states promise loliday control ,| United Press International J Police in several states vowed c crack down on drunken drivers as Labor Day weekend arrived to the official end of summer — ^mplete with parades, fireworks, ! :nics and end-of-the season camp- trips. The National Safety Council pre yed as many as 560 people may die tralfic accidents over the three-day iliday weekend which becins at 6 1 u -m,;local time today and ends at mid- ic f ght Monday. Last year, 473 people 4 killed and 21,000 seriously in- " ■ in traffic accidents. , City, state, county and federal. 4 fices were expected to be closed JjB>gh° u t th e nation Monday, I wig thousands of people to enjoy ^K>ite from their daily labors. ■ In Massachusetts a combination of I tte. local and Metropolitan District ^ammission police planned to blank- dine on et the highways, armed with new mandatory minimum drunken driv ing penalties of one to two weeks in jail and stiff fines for repeat offen ders. “Law enforcement officials will be looking for and zeroing in on the drunken driver,” Public Safety Sec retary George Luciano said. “The re volving door of justice for the drink ing driver will be closed that much quicker.” Michigan police planned to put an extra 400 state troopers on the high ways during the weekend to enforce speed limits and drunken driving laws, officials said. Continued crack downs were also planned in San Fran cisco and Arizona. Indianapolis and Chicago both planned to stage their first Labor Day parades in decades, complete with floats and marching bands. The Indianapolis parade will be the first in that city since 1942. The Labor Day parade was sus pended because of World War II and never resumed. Organizers say the parade hereafter will be an annual event. “I guess we have simply gotten fat, lazy and complacent,” one organizer said. Chicago’s first Labor Day parade since 1952 was expected to attract thousands of people who also can par take of an evening concert and and extravagant fireworks display boast ing the theme “American Workers: The Winning Team.” In Phoenix, state department of public safety officials Thursday de fended their legal right to set up con troversial roadblocks during the weekend and said they would be of “minimum inconvenience” to motor ists. urges hard DWI cases United Press International AUSTIN — A state insurance fficial has urged jurors to show no lertv for drunken drivers he char- :t|rizes as the one of the most “se- ious threats to human life since the iotnam war.” «NT EASY sLaw enforcement officers across 'exas are assigning a high priority to “Te DWI problem, but their efforts _'il| be lost if jurors and judges view ae drinking driver with a lack of re- __;ard and simply dismiss or reduce the barges,” Jerry Johns said Thursday. | Johns, president of Southwestern insurance Information Service, said urors must bear the burden of get- -ing drunken drivers off Texas high- Yays until the Legislature deals with the problem in January. legislation supported by law en forcement officials, safety organiza tions and the insurance industry would raise the legal drinking age in Texas from 19 to 21, abolish the open container law and crack down on re peat DWI offenders. Pending any new legislation, a tougher judicial stance is needed, Johns said. “Jurors who hear drunk driving cases are simply going to have to real ize that the chronic drinking driver poses one of the most serious threats to human life since the Vietnam war,” he said. Drunken drivers caused 114 of 206 traffic fatalities in a major Texas city last year and in another large Texas city, there was only a 2 percent convic tion rate in drunken driving cases through 1981 and a 5 percent rate through 1982, Johns said. Jurors err when they sympathize with drunken driving defendants be cause they don’t want to see a person “lose his job, his drivers license and be branded for life,” he said. “The experienced drinker who by choice disregards the law and exposes innocent motorists to injury and even death should be punished and rehabi litated rather than turned loose to commit the crime again,” he said. “Last year there were 43,000 DWI arrests in Texas and only 17 percent were convicted and received jail time.” staff photo by Octavio Garcia Don't try this at home Robert Lambert, an environmental design to all students in good physical condition major, demonstrates his technique at the who wish to learn the art of self-defense. TAMU Karate Club demonstration this week in Lambert is a senior from Bryan- G. Rollie White Coliseum. The club is open Local rents fall as apartments remain vacant by Hope E. Paasch Battalion Staff After enjpying years of 100 percent occu- )ancy rates, apartment owners are faced with f * in apartment surplus and are turning to low- :r rates and more lenient policies to attract ^ enants. V&A yThe occupancy rate for apartments has alien 8.5 percent since last fall, and more rtments are being built. On Aug. 23, the Texas A&M Off-Campus ousing Center showed 889 apartment units —or about 9 percent — of an available 11,000 ere vacant. At the same time last year, only 49:apartments — or 0.5 percent — were avail- :=3*fable. In an attempt to fill vacancies, 14 apart ment complexes have lowered their fall rates, eral complexes are offering a half month of free rent, and two complexes are offering a half month of free rent and $150 to anyone who will sign a lease. At least one complex is offering $100 off the first month’s rent. “We expected prices to fall, but we weren’t really expecting them to drop until the spring semester,” said Luann Schulze, off-campus housing coordinator. “There’s been an in crease of 15 percent in rent every fall for the last three years. This is the first time there’s actually been a decrease.” Security deposits, which are often $100 to $200 per person, have been dropped by some complexes. More lenient policies toward pets and lease length have been adopted by some com plexes. Restrictions on the size of pets, and in some cases the total banning of pets, no longer are enforced. Apartments that formerly accepted only 12-month tenants now are accepting anyone who will stay for at least three months. Complex owners and management com- C anies are not the only victims of the over- uild in apartments, Schulze said. An un usually large number of students can’t find roommates to help pay rent. “I’m worried about the number of students who can’t find roommates,” she said. “What has happened is that students decided it was easier to sign a lease than try to find someone to move in with. In the past, after about mid- July, very few apartments were left and we told students it would be best to look through the card files we have and match themselves with someone who had a place. “This year, after the middle of July, there were still lots of apartments available. Rather than go through the ‘hassle’ of finding some one to move in with, students went out and signed a lease and then put a card on file to find more roommates. As a result, many stu dents are going to be stuck.” Another problem resulting from the sur plus concerns students who pre-leased apart ments last spring, Schulze said. “We’ve already had several students come in and complain about someone moving in right next door and paying less rent,” she said. “Students who pre-leased are not getting a break in their rent, while someone who just walked in and signed a lease is getting the very same type of apartment for less.” How much less? One complex dropped its monthly rent from $460 to $299. Some com plexes have lowered their rates more than once. One reason for the high vacancy rate is the difference between the increase in construc tion and the increase in enrollment of the University. The number of apartments has increased by 15 percent in the last year. But the number of students at the Universi ty increased by only 0.5 percent during the same period. Twenty-four new apartment complexes, containing a total of 1,600 units, have been built since last fall. Of the 13 complexes com pleted since January, only two are full. Of the complexes that are at least one year old, 44 percent are full. Twenty-seven percent of the complexes built since last fall are full. Most of the new complexes contain less than 100 units and are having a difficult time filling vacanies. andiver asks increase ifor teaching, library 1 ~ T-Tamilttf-hn “ T ci i f h cit fTiic will mmf* . by Beverly Hamilton Battalion Staff || Texas A&M University re quested a 1984-85 biennium appropriation of $460,731,693 mil lion Thursday — the largest single request made during the three-day System budget hearings, which conclude today. | The University requested $231.3 million for 1984 and $229.4 million Jfor 1985 from members of the ^Legislative Budget Board staff and ^representatives of the governor’s -office. The requested 1984 appropria tion is an increase of about 59 per cent over the $136 million approp riated for the 1983 fiscal year, which began Wednesday. After the hearings, the Legisla tive Budget Board staff and the governor’s staff will draft an appropriations bill, which will be submitted to the next regular ses- t sion of the Legislature. "'r® University President Frank E. Vandiver presented budget re quests Thursday for faculty salar ies, departmental operating ex penses, instructional administra- tion, library funding and research. I “Fifty-two percent of the state ^ budget this past year went into higher education,” Vandiver said. T suspect that this ratio will come down and I would urge that if it does, faculty salaries still remain among the highest priorities that we have in all state universities.” He recommended the Legisla ture consider an across-the-board raise for staff members at the Uni versity. Vandiver also requested full funding for departmental operat ing expenses. “We are in a real bind on DOE money,” he said. “The appropria tion level is quite honestly alarming for our operating conditions.” Vandiver also requested in creased funding for instructional administration. Low funding in such areas as co-operative educa tion would restrict instructional administration activity and would reduce effective recruiting efforts in the University, he said. Budget funds for the University library are essential, Vandiver said. “We’re trying to build the lib rary; our library is adequate but it is not distinguished,” he said. “The increased funding for state univer sity libraries in the last several years is a trend, which I hope will con tinue. It (higher funding) is an essential item, an item which will require more than I’m sure the state can give us. Vandiver emphasized the im portance of research and urged that such indirect costs of research as laboratory equipment be re turned to the University instead of deducted from the next appropria tion. “It has damaged our research situation on the main campus and I fear it will damage it more,” he said. A lack of necessary research funds will force researchers to move to other universities and will “do serious damage to the instruc tional posture of A&M,” he said. He also asked legislative mem bers for consideration of computer equipment and said all Texas A&M graduates should have program ming experience. However, Van diver said, that is not possible be cause of a lack of computer equip ment and personnel. Budget requests scheduled to be presented today are the Texas Agricultural Extension Service at 9 a.m., the Texas Engineering Ex periment Station at 10:30 a.m., the Texas Transportation Institute at 1:30 p.m., the Texas Engineering Extension Service at 2:30 p.m., and the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory at 3:30 p.m. Insanity defense misjudged, says Manson case DA United Press International NEW YORK — Vincent Bugliosi, the district attorney who put mass murderer Charles Manson behind bars, thinks many prosecutors and judges are just plain wrong about the insanity plea. “The principal error that pro secutors make in insanity cases is that they don’t ask the psychiatrists ‘did he know that in the eyes of soci ety what he did was wrong?”’ Bug liosi said. He said it is not sufficient merely to ascertain whether the de fendant understood the difference between right and wrong. Even judges do not understand the “subtle critical distinction” of the insanity plea, said Bugliosi, who is now in private practice. The insanity plea, Bugliosi said, is a legal defense that is rarely suc cessful, although admittedly suc cessful enough to become controv ersial when John Hinckley Jr. was acquitted of shooting President Reagan on grounds of insanity. Without directly commenting on the Hinckley case, which which he said he was not fully familiar, Bug liosi said the frequently unasked question is not whether the defen dant knew what he did was wrong, but whether the defendant knew it was wrong “in the eyes of society.” “That’s the issue, because if it’s not the issue, then every person de cides for themselves what’s right or wrong, and becomes a law unto themselves, and there are persons who believe it’s okay to dp these things,” he said. Bugliosi noted that the 1843 McNaughton opinion, the basis for the insanity plea, clearly contains the requirement that a defendant realize that his actions were wrong in the eyes of society. “Most judges aren’t aware of this,” he said, “and their instructions are improper.” On the related subject of psychiatrists, Bugliosi said, “Fm not sure they have a place in the cour troom. “Their training and their orien tation is to treat people, it’s not to punish them.” Drop-add ends today Today is the last day for delayed registration and drop-add. In order to drop courses and add new ones, students must first see their major department advis er and obtain a drop-add schedule revision form signed by the adviser. These schedule revisions are to be turned in at drop-add head quarters in G. Rollie White Col iseum. Students must have their paid fee receipts and class sche dules (the yellow copy) with them in order to drop-add. inside Classified . j 8 National 8 Opinions 2 Sports 17 State 4 Whatsup 13 forecast Today’s Forecast: Same as usual. Very slight chance of afternoon showers. High in the high 90s, low in the mid-70s.