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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 23, 1987)
h -exas A&M ^ - - <■ • e Battalion ||. 82 No. 142 GSPS 045360 16 pages College Station, Texas Thrusday, April 23, 1987 Inside for Faculty Senate ^ourt: Death penalty alid despite biases )ecision dashes hopes of many opponents ■WASHINGTON (AP) — The Su- Hme Court ruled Wednesday that Hte death penalty laws can be valid vtn if statistics indicate they are car ried out in racially biased ways. Hn its most important ruling on capital punishment since 1976, the court split 5-4 in upholding Torgia’s death penalty system even lugh killers of white people in that fla c are far more likely to be con fined to death than those who kill ,^bks. / Hfhe ruling dashed what many fyjy |i jdeath penalty opponents considered to be their best chance of saving hundreds of the nearly 1,900 men and women on death rows nation wide. The decision removed the last le gal claim many of those inmates had raised in fighting for their lives, but it is not expected to dramatically quicken the pace of executions. Since the Supreme Court re instated capital punishment in 1976, 70 U.S. prison inmates have been ex ecuted by electrocution, poison gas, firing squad and lethal injection. “The court is saying there may be rki iupreme Court decision io surprise on Death Row HUNTSVILLE (AP) — Texas ' Dtath Row inmates expressed little VPH|rprise Wednesday as the U.S. Su- J * ; Seme Court ruled against them in a ftjor capital punishment case, not in [instead that the court is continu- K a trend that makes it easier to ex- te people. The court doesn’t pay any atten tion to statistics,” Jim Vanderbilt, ' convicted and awaiting death for an Hnarillo slaying, said. “It was dead limy mind before it got started.” ■The high court, in a 5-4 ruling Bholding the Georgia death pen- | |ty law, said the statute was constitu- Imal despite statistics that show lacks convicted of killing whites are more likely to get the death penalty. ■It is the latest in a series of Su preme Court rulings in recent years 1 ,i ■■it have narrowed legal avenues T T iV fci halting executions. [U UiUB“Bang, bang, bang,” Vanderbilt Hd, noting that the court already ■s struck down arguments from Hath penalty opponents citing dis- . Hoportionality of sentences and Halification s o f j u rors. yt 1 Hciifford X. Phillips, a black man wl o awaits death next week for the laying of a white Houston woman, id he did not have much hope in the court even before its decision. “I don’t put my faith in the institu tions of society,” said Phillips, who prefers to be called by his Islamic name, Abdullah Bashir. “I think things will get worse long before they get better.” Phillips said he lost interest in the legal process after the 1982 execu tion of Charlie Brooks, the first of 22 men to be executed in Texas since the Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume. Phillips said continued interest in legal mat ters would have driven him to sui cide. Vanderbilt said a ruling against the death penalty in the Georgia case could have meant commutation for all of the 250 men and women on Death Row in Texas, which leads the nation in the number of executions. Of the 22 people executed, 12 have been white, six Hispanic and four black. About 40 percent of the Texas Death Row inmates are black. “What it does is tell people there won’t be any major movement away from the death penalty in quite a while,” inmate Lester Bower said. “They’ve shut the door for quite a while and it’ll take a pretty good crowbar to get the door open.” racial discrimination in choosing who lives and who dies but it doesn’t care,” Seth Waxman, a lawyer for the Congressional Black Caucus, said of Wednesday’s ruling. Jack Boger, the New York lawyer who argued against the Georgia sys tem before the high court, said the justices “failed to acknowledge a very powerful pattern of discrimina tion.” David Whitmore, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union in New Orleans, said the decision re moved the last hope of nearly a dozen of Louisiana’s 47 death row inmates. Illinois prosecutor Mark Rotert called the ruling “very, very good news.” “It was one of the last, best chances to get a broad-based attack on death penalty litigation nation wide,” Rotert said. Justice Lewis F. Powell, writing for the court, said a statistical study of Georgia’s death penalty system “at most indicates a discrepancy that ap pears to correlate with race.” But he said the discrepancy does not violate the Constitution’s equal- protection guarantees. In previous decisions, the court has allowed statistical evidence to See Death Penalty, page 16 Raising The Roof This building, the former student center belong ing to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will be used by a Bryan couple for their first Photo by Doug LaRue home. The Church is building a new student cen ter at 100 E. Dexter St. and is donating the old building to the couple. Iran sentences American to 10 years in prison NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Iran has sentenced an American engineer to 10 years in prison on charges of spying for the CIA, the official Ira nian news agency reported Wednesday. The Islamic Republic News Agency, moh- itored in Nicosia, quoted “informed sources” for its report on the sentencing of Jon Pattis, a 50- year-old telecommunications specialist. It did not say when the trial occurred. Pattis, employed by Cosmos Engineers of Be- thesda, Md., worked at the Asadabad telecom munications center 200 miles southwest of Teh ran. He was arrested last June, shortly after an Iraqi air raid on the center that interrupted Iran’s communications with the outside world. According to the news agency, he faced seven charges related to espionage and using a forged passport to enter the country. It did not specify the charges of which he was found guilty. In an appearance on Iranian state television in October," the American engineer said he passed information through his company to the CIA on Iranian military activities, oil production, infla tion and food distribution. He said he gave information about the Asada bad complex and the warning system it uses to guard against Iraqi air raids. The two Persian Gulf neighbors have been at war since September 1980. Neither the CIA nor Cosmos commented on the televised confession. State Department spokesman Bruce Ammer- man said Wednesday in Washington: “We are aware of the press report (about the sentence), but we have no independent confirmation and I don’t have anything more on it at this point.” Ammerman said confirmation would have to come from the Swiss, who represent U.S. inter ests in Iran. Charles Redman of the State Department reit erated that Pattis was not an employee of the U.S. government. He said Iran repeatedly refused re quests by Swiss diplomats in Tehran for consular access to Pattis. The Swiss have handled U.S. in terests in Iran since relations with that country were severed in 1980. attox: Texas has problem ith teen-age pregnancy 3 YES ^ By Melanie Perkins Staff Writer ■ Teen-age pregnancies, tele marketing fraud and problems Ith child-support payments are ■me of the problems facing Texas today, Attorney General jim Mattox told a group of re- rters gathered at the County immissioners Court in Bryan I’ednesday. “Texas likes to brag about be- |g No. 1 in the nation,” he said. JVe are No. 1 in the nation, un fortunately, with the number of Jteen-agers that are under 14 » arsof age and have children.” He said Texas is second in the tiverall number of teen-age preg nancies, with 18,600 babies born to unwed teen-agers in Texas in I 985 ' I “We should be ashamed of lurselves,” Mattox said. “We, as a fcciety, are not teaching young people the moral values and com- ttion sense necessary to stop the problem of babies being born to unmarried teen-agers.” I Mattox said his office is in the Brocess of setting up a statewide fpeaking program on the issue of teen-age pregnancy and its result ing problems — a program which he said will primarily address the teen-age male. I “We are attempting to explain to him that if he is going to play, he is going to have to pay,” Mat tox said. I He said the Legislature is con sidering a bill — which he expects to pass — that will hold the par- Snts of teen-agers responsible for fheir teen-ager’s child until he or pie reaches 18 years of age. “I think what this is probably [oing to do is make the parents et about explaining the birds jnd the bees a little more rapidly lian they have in the past,” Mat- fox said. Delinquent child-support pay- ents are also a big problem in exas, he said, with more than me million cases involving indi- iiduals who are not making re- ijuired payments. Photo by Tracy Staton Jim Mattox describes a pamphlet on telemarketing fraud. Mattox’s suggestion for dealing with the problem is to confiscate the income tax refunds of delin quent parents through the Attor ney General’s Office’s IRS Inter cept Program — a program that collected $6 million in overdue payments last year and is ex- f jected to bring in about $8 mil- ion this year, Mattox said. Over 20,000 billing letters are being sent out to those behind in child-support payments. The let ters explain that non-payment of child support can result in gar nishing of wages or a possible jail term. Mattox said the significant change in child-support collec tion has been in the area of wage garnishment. When a person is 30 days behind in child-support payments, wage garnishment ac tion can be taken quickly and sim- ply. The Bryan-College Station col lection office has increased child support collections by 108 per cent in the last year, and collec tions have increased by 300 per cent statewide, he said. “Failure to pay child support and the problem of teen-age pre gnancy and the number of deaths and the amount of child abuse and the other problems that arise because of this teen-age preg nancy problem are far greater than the kind of problems we have today with AIDS in this country,” Mattox said. The real distinction between these problems is that they are curable, while AIDS is not, he said. Another problem the Attorney General’s Office is addressing, with the help of Southwestern See Mattox, page 16 Sodium level too high in B/CS drinking water Report: Salt level higher than EPA standard By Lee Schexnaider Reporter The next time you decide to take a sip from a water cooler or a glass of ice water, you might consider what you’re drinking — besides the water. You may be drinking sodium, lead, mercury, fluoride, chloroform or even arsenic, according to a Texas Department of Health analysis of Bryan-College Station drinking wa ter. Chemical levels in the water in this area are within Environmental Pro tection Agency guidelines, but for many chemicals, such as sodium, regulations do not exist. In a report on alternate municipal water sources for a Texas A&M civil engineering course on hydraulic en gineering, increases in sodium con centration were the main problem of the area’s water supply. The latest water analysis reports available show Bryan’s average so dium concentration at 242 milli grams per liter, College Station is at 212 milligrams per liter, and A&M’s water supply ranges from 88 to 202 milligrams per liter. The National Science Foundation has recommended sodium levels be low 100 milligrams per liter and the American Heart Association sug gests a limit of 20 milligrams per liter. Dr. Gordon Mitchell, a local car diologist, said excess sodium intake can cause a problem for people with, or who have the potential for, high blood pressure, congestive heart fail ure and kidney disease. When the body has too much so dium, it tends to retain water to di lute the chemical until it is excreted. This puts a strain on both the circu latory and excretory systems of some people, he said. “Controlling high blood pressure is very important for several rea sons,” he said. “It can cause strokes. It is very hard on the heart over a long period of time. The heart mus cle becomes thick and that is not good for it. High blood pressure, or jertension, can also lead to severe kidney disease,” he said. According to a report in the Health Net Reference Library of the CompuServe Information Service, high blood pressure damages the linings of the arteries. This may cause them to be more prone to clogging due to cholesterol deposits, which in turn may lead to heart attack or stroke. The damage also may result in weakening of the arteries, causing internal bleeding. Mitchell said some hypertension patients can reduce salt in their diet rather than take medication. But this may be difficult because, according to the civil engineering re port, the salinity situation in drink ing water is expected to worsen as salt intrusion increases in the Sim- sboro Sand —the primary under ground water source for Bryan, Col lege Station and A&M. The only two alternatives to tap water are bottled water and treat ment facilities installed in a build ing’s water system. A March 4 article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle said there are approximately 25 brands of bottled water available na tionwide at grocery stores. The arti cle noted the varying levels of con taminants in bottled water as well as tap water. Kyle Schreckenbach of Brazos Valley Water Conditioning said a re verse osmosis system can be used to remove salt from tap water. Such a system costs approximately $600 to $700. But it can’t remove many of the organic compounds that also may be present in the water, he said. “It’s kind of weird,” he said. “Many of my customers are doctors, or in the medical profession.” But the entire water quality situa tion may change as the result of an amendment made to the Safe Drink ing Water Act in 1986. The EPA will require cities to test water supplies for 83 contaminants by 1990, said Tom Decker, an engineer with Black and Veatch Corporation in Kansas City, Mo. The EPA, he said, will set standards and will be able to enforce them. Sodium is among those listed, he said. “There is a phenomenal number of new chemicals developed and in troduced into the environment ev ery day,” Decker said. “Many of the testing procedures date back to the 1940s and 1950s, when people were more interested in how the water tasted, smelled and what color it was,” he said. Charles Maddox, the chief of wa ter quality for the Texas Health De partment, said the state tests for only 40 contaminants. The problem, Maddox said, may be removing toxic chemicals from the water supply with current tech nology. Activated charcoal may be used to neutralize some of the chem icals, he said. According to the civil engineering report, the only satisfactory way to reduce the salt concentration is to switch to surface water supplies. Un fortunately, few practical supplies of surface water are available in this