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