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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 9, 1987)
EOFILMCrNTE! P.o. BOX 12188 DALLAS , TX 75225-0188 - he Bat : Vol.82 No.94 USPS 045360 14 pages —:—r ? College Station, Texas M -m i Monday, Ff^bruary 9, 1987 — Judicial selection bills to elections By Olivier Uyttebrouck In the latest of many efforts to eliminate direct election of judges in Tesas. five legislators introduced btlli rhursday caritna for an ap- pouitive system of selecting district and appellate judges Texas judges currently declare party affibatiott and run m compet itive, popular elections. Under the proposed system, judic ial candidates Texas facing big changes with reforms By OUtriur Uyttebrouch Supporters of the judicial reform par I age call it “merit selection.’' Op ponents call k “the patronage sys tem." By any name, legislation intro duced Thursday could radically the way Texas chooses its would be nominated by committees and the final selection would be made by the governor The public would have the chance to remove the judge in periodic “retention elec tions.” Since 1974. at least 16 proposals have been introduced in tne Legis lature to revamp the judicial selec tion system , The current effort is led by Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice John HiU and supported by an impressive roster of legislative and judicial lead ers. ,- Sen Kent Ca pert on, D-Bryan. one of the bill’s chief supporters, says that Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and House Speaker Gib Lewis both tup- port the legislation A spokesman for Gov. Bill Clem ents announced Thursday, however, that the governor currently opposes the so-called “merit selection” of ,ud K ep Hunt ' u< fe currently employs a parti san election system for selecting its judfes. IF the pending legislation becomes law, Texas would vote on a constitu tional amendment in November that would establish an appointive system of selecting pudges The constitutional amendment would establish 29 nominating oom- • One statewide commission to nominate Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals justices. • 13 Court of Appeals commit a judgeship becomes vacant, the ap propriate ( ommuskin would nomi nate three candMiert The governor then would pick one from the list The appointment would face Senate confirmation The newly appointed fudge would me 14 nis campaif Clements indicated that he might support a change in the way judges are selected but now apparently has backed off to his current position fa voring direct elections To understand the current con troversy over judicial selection is to understand something of the state’s history and the changes that have rocked the state over the last decade. Texas’ current system of partisan elections is in some wavs a museum piece of pre-Civil War days — a relic of Jacksonian Democracy once fa vored by 24 of the 34 states in 1860 But dissatisfaction with machine politics in the late 19th century per suaded most states to abandon direc t electionc in favor of juipotnuve-com- musion systems, similar to the plan introduced in the Legislature on Thursday Today, Texas is only one of 13 35SAgg|«jUtoc* *yBBte cjki iviP!i vyvic ill icrr ** nxTfnjf jufifg* a In space of the official System, how ever, a majority of Texas judges are appointed directly by the governor. An article by Anthony Cham pagne in the May issue of tne South western Law Journal notes that 62 percent of all district and appeBate court judges on the Texas bench in 1984 were appointed to their poets And because of the traditional one-party dominance in Texas, once appointed judges took office they tended to stay mere. Champagne s article notes that few judges ever were challenged in the primary following appointment And once the judge had the Demo cratic nomination, there was practi cally no chance of an election defeat With the advent of a second party in Texas, however, this cory stambtv in the Texas judiciary went the way of segregated bathrooms. Cham pagne i article notes that in 1984 —a (tanner year for Republicans nation wide — only four of the 20 incum bent Democrats that ran in contested races were re-elected. Also because of Ronald Reagan s long coattails in 1984. of the 10 con tested races in which there was no in cumbent. only one Democrat took the bench that year. Champagne notes. In regard to judges. Dallas County is virtually aM-Republican to day. In Houston, and to a lesser ex tent San Antonio and ocher urban areas, the two parties are in heated competition for control of the courts. Champagne says. The issue is so divisive that the State Bar Association of Texas has not taken an official stand for or against the bill. “The bar is clearly divided almost down the middle on these propo sals.” says Larry Fitzgerald, director of communications for the state bar. “The rural areas are for beeping partisan elections — the urban areas support the proposed system." Rural areas so far nave avoided the turmoil that has rocked the btg city judiciaries Champagne’s article notes that turnover m fudges has been confined to only 11 urban counties while rural areas — the vast major*} of Texas cownirs — have Wen no wicumhent jwdtff s def^tr-i • - -a „ _a f nt» orraac The explosion of lawsuits in re cent yean has amplified the dissatis faction many attorneys have with the present system. Fitzgerald says. De fense attorneys think judges have been too generous in awarding See Billa, page 14 Here’s Mud In Your Eye kf OarngLm Mma AlcM junior David Pounds, left, fumbles the ball while scifT-arming junior Tom Hipsher during a "mud football’' game Sunday. Sophomore Carter tries all game coaching Pounds from behind. Tape: Kidnappers to kill Beirut hostages A&M reseachers MUftUT. -ncan hast*pr said dropped on by has lay that he and three (AF> — An in a vsdeo- kidaappers tope Sunday m< itidiny iw*. killed it Israel foils to release 400 Arab prisoners within 24 hours. A stK-ramuar videotape ahowuig Bossow native Alann Steen. 47, was delivered to a Western news agency m the name of Mamie Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, which kid gapped Steen and three others from die campus of Beirut University Coi- irgeost Jan. If. The group 0 other hostages are Robert Arihil. 53, of New York City Jesse Turner, 39, of Rosae, Idaho, Ixhrieshwar Singh, 60. a native nri resident alien m the indicated Sunday that it was to discuss the swap of an 1s- rman missing hi Lebanon for base of the 400 Arab pnson- proposal advanced Saturday tmh Bern, head of the main Shine Amal militia and Lebanon's justice minister. However. Israeli officials said m Jerusalem they would not respond to an ultimatum and would not con duct such talks in public Under Bern’s proposal, all for etgn hostages also would be released A weary-looking Steen, reading from a statement in a monotone, said on Sim day’s videotape: “If our lives are important to America, it must order Israel to release the 480 Palestinians as toon as possible — that it, Monday (today) as a maxi “If our lives arr important to America, it must order Israel to release the 400 Palestinians as soon as possible — that is, Monday (today) as a maximum. ” . — Videotaped statement of hostage m l^banon by the various extremist groups holding them. Bern meanwhile, backed away Sunday from an earlier weekend statement that Anglican Church hos tage-negotiator Terry Waite would be freed by today, now saying the re lease would take more time, has been missing since Jan. 20 Watte “We also teff America that if u commits any stupidity, we will be prone to he killed Besides. Ameri cans in the whole world will be the victims of our administration’s stu pidity. “They (the captors) do not fear death because they perceive it as the start of their life. In other words, America can’t scare them through its mibcary actions’’ Steen wore eyeglasses and a small beard grown in captivity. A text of the statement in his handwriting was delivered with the tape Cartier Sunday, another group holding foreign hostages claimed that Waste had earned a transmitter to pinpoint suspected terrorist hide outs for an American military attack on Lebanon Since Waite disappeared nearly three weeks ago, during a mission to seek freedom for foreign hostages, there have been rumors that he was being held against his will. But the Church of England has said it could not confirm that. The Beirut newspaper LYTrsenr Le Jour claimed Waite had been re leased and would surface Sunday in the Syrian-occupied Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon Police said they could not confirm the report. keep eye on NASA to maintain safety By Debbie Monroe Reporter Since the shuttle Challenger ex plosion on Jan 28. 1988, NASA has been in turmoil James Retcher. the new director, has been under pres sure — from within and without —to steer the agency through the maze of problems threatening its effec tiveness. Watching Fletcher from the out side are researchers working under NASA grants. Dr Norman Gris wold, Texas A&M associate profes sor of electrical engineering, is one of them “When a major event (like the Challenger accident) happens," V > K ihrr to get re’s too Legislator seeks protection for all motorcyclists Mandatory helmet law may return to Texas easel A. Le Bry ^ Staff Wruer ’ Motorcycle riders, young and eld, mav again be required to wear helmets while operating on Texas rmsdi The Texes State Affairs Com mittee will brg»" conducting ■an d i ton motor- w within the next Chris dhoti leg to Sen Ted ir< of the the hear be introduced 18 1977, Texas protective headgear The new Legislation, sponsored by Lyon, would require aM cyclists to wear protective head gear Texas had a mandatory helmet law from 1966 to 1977 Then, m 1977, Congress repealed the au thority of the Department of Transportation to withhold high way funds from states without the law dbott said the magnitude and characteristics of motorcycle car nage is the driving force behind the legislation. ■% * "In the year immediately fol lowing the repeal of the motorcy cle helmet law. deaths and tnca- injunes as a result of accidents increased,'* “Deaths by 64 percent and incapacitating injuries by 16 fiercer! i Eddie Carmon. a trooper with the Safety Education Service of the Texas Department of Pubfe Safety, said these figures contin ued to increase until they peaked at 106 percent from August 1981-82. The increase in deaths and injuries has remained at a high level over the years since the repeal, he said A joint study conducted by the Texas DPS and the Texas De “What they are wanting to do is stop people from getting killed — plain and simple. ” — Jim Perry, Texas Motorcycle Road riders Association. pertinent of Health reported that *n Texas in 1985 motorcycles were involved in less than 3 per cent of all motor vehicle crashes, but motorcycle riders rep- percent fatalities. hide crash fatalities. The report also eked data from several states showing that head injury rates of motorcyclists without helmets b between two and three times greater than the head injury rates of hehneted riders. Mike Ward, president of the local Cavaliers Motorcycle Club — an affiliate of the Texas Mo torcycle Roadnders Association — said he wears a helmet 99 per cent of the time he’s nding but is opposed to a mandatory helmet law. "It’s not that I disagree with wearing a helmet,” he said. “1 dis agree with the legist.,! it. I don’t beheve T shot to wear a helmet, it ritotrid be my choice “ Most of the Cgi daars said they were opposed to changing the present law and that aaotorcyclisu should be allowed to make their own decisions about safety. post of I oe told Jim Perry, second vice presi dent of the Texas Motorcycle Roadriders Association, said T'MRA b in favor of the present Texas law regulating helmet us age “What they are wanting to do b stop people from getting luBed — plain andsimple, he said “I can appreciate the fact they are trying to do something What I can’t ap preciate b the fact they’re work ing in a direction that is not going to solve the problem.” Perry said he believes the best way to decrease the motorcycle accidents b for the state »o pro vide enough funding to get the motorcycle rider education course going at “firil speed " T he motorcycle nder course b a pro gram similar to the driver educa uon program taught in most high school* Texas law requires people 15 to See Helmet, peg* 14 l.nswold said, “vou re your ducks in a row much pressure not to.” Witn the reorganization of the space program, priorities have rhangea Project saiet\ has become paramount, and NASA b seeking ways to minimise the danger* ks crews are exposed to. Griswold believes research like his own will help “I believe tt will cause them to look at using computer vision and robot ics, as opposed to men, in space." he said. xrr ’ The researcher and has associates have developed a stereoscopic vision system which uses two television cameras and computer software to simulate the human eye’s ability to judge distance and depth of field Such a system will be essential to the operation of a space station and to the safety of astronauts Suppose you have a robot free- llier out in space working on a satel lite,’' he said. “People in the space station will want to see what k sees, to check and see if the flier's working right “Man is safer in a shuttle or space station if he can see what’s going on." He added that the public doesn't realise how risky k b for a human to work ki space. “When a person gets in a space sum and goes toddling outside of the shuttle environment, everybody cheers,’’ he said. “It’s sort of like be made the basket. It’s a great thing “But if a basketball player doesn’t make the basket, the baH bounces on the floor, and he gets another shot. If something happens to an astro naut’s oxygen system or to hb tether, he’s gone.” Besides Replacing Lost credibility, NASA also will have to replace the space shuttle Chlirnget Associate Provost for Research Dr Duwayne Anderson sahi the cost of another spacecraft will affect the 14