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The Battalion
Vol. 80 Mo. 84 GSPS 045360 8 pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, January 29, 1985
i Mistrial declared in Cuadra
By DAINAH BULLARD
8c SARAH OATES
Staff Writer
Brazos County Court-at-Law
Judge Carolyn Ruffino declared a
mistrial Monday afternoon in a case
connected with the Aug. 30 death of
Bruce Dean Goodrich.
Gabriel Cuadra, 21, of Houston,
was being tried on a charge of tam
pering with evidence when the mis
trial was declared. He had entered a
plea of not guilty to the charges.
Cuadra was indicted Sept. 28 by a
Brazos County Grand Jury on
-■charges of tampering with evidence
Hand hazing iii connection with the
■ death of cadet Goodrich. Goodrich
■collapsed and later died af ter partici-
■ paling in an off-hours exercise ses
sion conducted by three junior
members of his outfit, Company F-1.
Defense attorney Henry Paine
asked for a mistrial after a reporter
was seen talking to a juror. Ruffino,
who issued a gag order after jury se
lection was completed, declared the
mistrial on the basis of media contact
with the jury. Ruffino also cited mis
conduct on the part of the jury and
officials of the court.
“There is no way for the court to
insure that misjustice has not been
done,” Ruffino said.
The six-woman jury was selected
Monday morning from about 85
prospective jurors. Those who said
they had seen too much media cov
erage on the tampering with evi
dence charge were dismissed during
selection by County Attorney James
Kuboviak.
The mistrial was declared after a
five-minute break that followed the
questioning of two witnesses. Bob
Wiatt, director of security and Uni
versity Police, and William Scott, a
special investigator for University
Police, testified for almost two hours
about the early phases of the investi
gation into Goodrich’s death.
Testimony centered on the search
for Company F-l’s exercise roster.
Wiatt said the original roster, which
was mentioned in statements from
several cadets, was never found.
Wiatt said the roster would have
been used to determine what exer
cises were required during the ses
sion and who had assigned them.
Notes on the roster would have de
termined if anyone had authorized
moderation or embellishment of the
exercises, he said.
Though the original roster was
never found, Cuadra or Paine pre
sented a reconstructed roster at the
conclusion of the grand jury investi
gation, Wiatt said. However, the re
constructed roster could not be veri
fied, and was not used during the
University Police investigation, he
said.
“It was of no value whatsoever,”
Wiatt said. “(It could have) self-serv
ing statements, perhaps. (It could)
contain anything a person wants to
portray.”
Wiatt said he instructed his staff,
including Scott, who was assigned to
the investigation, to conduct the
matter as a criminal investigation.
The roster was requested at about 8
a.m. or 9 a.m. on Aug. 30, but was
never produced, he said.
At the beginning of the trial, Ku
boviak instructed the jury to deter
mine whether or not Cuadra had de
stroyed the exercise documents,
knowing the investigation was un
derway.
“We’re not here to condemn
Texas A&M, the Corps of Cadets or
tradition,” Kuboviak said during
jury selection. “We’re here to find
out if one individual committed a
crime.”
However, Paine contradicted Ku-
boviak’s statement.
“I believe the Corps of Cadets,
Texas A&M and traditions are on
trial here,” he said.
Gabriel Cuadra
wort
iduals
jut its
Shain Chapman, a sophomore Animal Sci- holding pen at the Meat Science and Tech-
ence major from Sherman, is almost hidden nology Center. Livestock are held in the pen
behind a maze of metal gates as he cleans a until they are slaughtered.
MSC Council discusses
budget, committee cuts
By CATHIE ANDERSON
Staff Writer
..-The. Memorial Student Center
Council cut committees and debated
the role of the MSC presidency
Tuesday night during its first meet
ing of the spring semester.
MSC Director Jim Reynolds, said
a memo from President Frank Van
diver, requesting all department
heads keep their budgets balanced,
greeted him when the Spring semes
ter started.
The Council saw the need to scru
tinize its programming and decide if
all committees were meeting the
goals of the MSC since the Univer
sity has no idea how much money
the Legislature will appropriate, said
Lani Balaam, Executive Vice Presi
dent for Programs.
Two committees, MSC Outdoor
Recreation and MSC Basement, will
be dissolved effective April 20. The
Council found the two groups were
unable to improve the quality of
their programming, financial re
sponsibility, or leadership skills.
Pat Wood, MSC President, said
the Program Review Committee,
which reviewed the committees’
problems, handled the eliminations
m a very sensitive manner.
“This decision was probably the
most difficult I’ve seen in my four
years here (on the Council),” Wood
said, “and I feel that it was handled
very adeptly.”
MSC Nova, which has been a com
mittee for four months, was put on
probation, but the committee will
not receive any allocation of the stu
dent service fee while their pro
gramming is examined over the next
year. Nova is an offshoot of Outdoor
Recreation:
A proposal by Brian Hay to use an
open forum in the nominating proc
ess of the MSC president was re
jected by the Council by a quorum of
10-6.
Hay said he felt students were re
moved from the selection of the
MSC Council president. By helping
in the nominating process, he said
students wmuld feel more a part of
the MSC.
'Star Wars' program
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Oil ministers clash openly
at OPEC emergency session
Associated Press
GENEVA, Switzerland — Oil
ministers fought openly Monday as
OPEC began an emergency session
and discussed a pair of proposals
that could cut the cartel’s base price
for only the second time in its his
tory.
The 13 ministers of the Organiza
tion of Petroleum Exporting Coun
tries met twice in dosed session and
said no agreement was reached be
fore adjourning the talks until today.
Less than an hour after the con
ference started, the oil minister of
the United Arab Emirates walked
out, complaining that Nigeria was
“stabbing OPEC in the back” by ex
ceeding its production quota.
Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the Saudi
Arabian oil minister, said later the
incident was sparked by a “misun
derstanding” between Mana Saeed
Oteiba, the minister from the United
Arab Emirates, and Tam David-
West, Nigeria’s oil minister.
With the outbreak of acrimony
adding to existing doubts about
OPEC’s ability to halt sliding oil
prices, petroleum traders in the
United States sent prices of the top
domestic crude briefly tumbling be
low' $25 a barrel.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Strategic Defense Initiative
proposed by President Reagan is “of questionable value
and astounding cost,” says a new study which forecasts
that research alone will cost more than the entire pro
posed budget for such programs as the MX nuclear
missile and the B-l bomber.
“The goal of rendering strategic nuclear missiles ob
solete implies developing a virtually perfect defense
against nearly 1,400 land-based Soviet ICBMs con
taining over 6,000 independently targetable warheads,”
says the report by the Council of Economic Priorities.
The price tag for all this is impossible to say since the
Strategic Defense Initiative program — popularly
known as “Star Wars” — is barely in the research and
development phase, the report says. But it adds:
“The total program could cost $400 billion to $800
billion if it goes directly into full-scale development af
ter the current 5-year R&D phase.”
Instead, the council is recommending a more limited
research effort aimed at exploring likely weak links in
strategic defense systems.
Over the next five years, the report says, this is how
Star Wars research money would be spent in four major
technical areas:
• Surveillance, acquisition, tracking and kill assess
ment — the eyes and ears of a battle. $ 10.5 billion.
• Directed Energy Weapons — research on four
possible approaches to defense against missiles, includ
ing chemical lasers, neutron particle beams and nuclear
X-ray lasers. $5.9 billion.
• Kinetic energy weapons —“smart” weapons that
could destroy a ballistic missile in flight, possibly by
rockets fireu from space-based hyper-velocity guns.
$5.9 billion.
• Systems Analysis and Battle Management — devel
opment of a responsive, reliable, survivable and cost-ef
fective system to direct the defense and a second func
tion termed a “sanity check” on the other layers. $1.1
billion.
Abortion gives women differing opinions
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By MICHAEL CRAWFORD
Staff Writer
Abortion is a battle of emotions
and words. The groups prefer to be
known as pro-life and pro-choice
rather than as anti-abortion and pro
abortion.
But, for the women who have had
abortions, the decision is difficult
and the memory haunting.
Shelley and Christine (not their
real names) were both 19 and un
married when they discovered they
were pregnant. Both women had an
abortion which left them with com
pletely different conclusions about
the procedure.
Shelley was a student at Southwest
Texas State University when she be
came pregnant by her boyfriend.
“When I found out that I was pre
gnant out of wedlock, I went to the
lather of the child,” Shelley says.
“He recommended an abortion, of
fering no assistance or other options.
“I went to the clinic at Southwest
Texas State to talk to the nurses —
they recommended an abortion at
another clinic in Austin. It was a
Planned Parenthood clinic. I went in
there and got a pregnancy test. They
said the test was positive and they
would take care of it in five minutes.
They immediately ran me through
an abortion. I was not told of the
child’s development or of the possi
bilities of complications.”
Shelley says she received a diala-
tion and cutterage abortion when
she was six weeks pregnant. She says
she was not aware that she had re
ceived an abortion until several days
after her clinic visit. She developed
an infection from the procedure
which left her unable to have chil
dren. Shelley charges the clinic did
not use a laproscope to see inside the
womb because the special device was
too expefTsive.
A former president of Planned
Parenthood of Houston says the or
ganization’s policy is to administer
the tests and schedule an abortion
later if the patient requests one. Pa
tients are counseled through their
options and must make the decision
themselves, he says.
“That didn’t happen in a Planned
Parenthood clinic, Lll guarantee it,”
he says. “They didn’t make the diag
nosis and do the abortion procedure
on the same day. That laproscope is
not used in a ‘D and C’ procedure
because it is not appropriate for it.”
Christine was a freshman at the
University of Texas when she was
raped by a former boyfriend. She
says she also was six weeks pregnant
when she went to a clinic for a preg
nancy test.
“Two weeks later I went to a
Planned Parenthood clinic and had
the tests,” she says. “Those people
were very nice. They knew it was an
unwilling pregnancy. I was embar
rassed because I was unmarried and
pregnant.”
Christine had a slightly different
rocedure from Shelley’s. At an area
ospital, Christine had a suction cut
terage abortion and remained there
for Tour or five hours. She had no
complications.
Both women say they frequently
think about the child they might
have had.
“We do not know the benefits of
our sacrifices,” Shelley says. Shelley
says she would have been emotion
ally healthier if she had given birth.
Christine also wonders what
might have been, but is glad she ter
minated the pregnancy.
“A lot of times I’ll see a little kid or
a baby or a happy mother and won
der,” Christine says. “I do wonder
what it might have been like, but I
want a baby when I can take care of
her.
“I feel like I never would have
been able to take care of it, though.
It’s terrible to say this, but I might
have hated that baby. There’s no
way I w’ould have been able to han
dle it.”
Shelley now considers abortion
murder and wants it outlawed, ex
cept in cases where the mother’s life
is threatened. In cases of rape or in
cest, Shelley believes, the mother
should have the child.
“I would say that it is terribly
wrong to punish, by death, a child
for the sin of his father,” Shelley
says. “Two wrongs never made a
right.” In cases where the mother's
life is threatened, Shelley believes it
should be the decision of the
mother, the father and the physi
cian.
But Christine argues many
women would resort to dangerous,
illegal abortions if legalized abor
tions were restricted.
“If you place restrictions on it.
more women will go to seedy places
in dark alleys to have it done,”
Christine says. “I might have gone
the coathanger method or some
other way if I couldn’t have it done
in a hospital where they knew what
they were doing.”
Neither Shelley nor Christine had
sex education in high school and nei
ther woman’s parents would talk to
them about the subject.