Tuesday, September 29, 1987/The Battalion/Page 3
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AUSTIN (AP) — Austin is one of
a few cities with an ordinance bar
ring discrimination against AIDS pa
tients, but local lawyers say it has be
come a difficult rule to enforce.
“The law is just so slow and these
people are dying,” attorney Tom
Doyal said.
Amparo Hudgins knows first
hand how slow the law can be. Three
months after filing a complaint w ith
the city’s Human Relations Commis
sion saying she was fired because her
son has AIDS, she still is trying to get
her job back.
“They’re still working on it,” Hud
gins said of the commission. “But
I’m not going to give up. I know I
have a case.”
Doyal has handled several lawsuits
on behalf of people with AIDS or re
lated illnesses who have lost their
jobs, their health insurance or both.
“The human tragedy is not the
number of cases filed but the num
ber of lives stressed,” Doyal said.
“Must they die in great privation be
forejustice is done?”
As of Sept. 18, the latest date for
which statistics were available, 139
individuals with AIDS had been re
involve acquired immune deficiency
syndrome. Others concern discrimi
nation against homosexuals, who
have been the main sufferers of the
disease, which cripples the immune
system.
“The human tragedy is not the number of cases Tiled
but the number of lives stressed. Must they die in great
privation before justice is done?”
— Tom Doyal, attorney
ported in Travis County since 1983
and 57 percent of them had died.
Officials at the Human Relations
Commission say it has received 17
complaints apparently related to
AIDS since Austin’s anti-discrimina
tion ordinance was passed in Decem
ber.
They said some of the complaints
The commission’s cases are confi
dential, but officials said the cases
are about evenly divided between
loss of employment and denial of
housing or other services.
Stan Kerr of the commission said,
“They’re extremely difficult to
prove, but we’ve been effective in
negotiating settlements in some.”
Kerr said last week that he could
not say for sure how many of the
AIDS cases have been resolved. His
inability to offer a figure stemmed in
part from the commission’s lack of
staff and money to handle hundreds
of other complaints besides those
dealing with AIDS, he said.
John Darrouzet, a lawyer for the
University of Texas System and
chairman of the commission, of
fered an indirect answer to the ques
tion.
“If the case is reconciled, mem
bers of the commission don’t see it
and, so far, we’ve seen very few
cases,” Darrouzet said.
Because people with AIDS seldom
live two years after their diagnosis,
attorneys say it is crucial that the dis
crimination complaints get immedi
ate attention.
Federal judge grants
delay of execution
for death-row inmate
HUNTSVILLE (AP) — A fed
eral judge granted an execution
stay for a death-row inmate
scheduled to die by injection be
fore dawn Tuesday for the 1979
rape and stabbing death of an Ar
lington woman.
U.S. District Judge Carl O. Bue
of Houston granted Jerry Hogue
a stay for this week, but resched
uled his execution for Nov. 11.
Another death-row inmate,
Donald Gene Franklin, 36, faces
execution before dawn Friday.
Hogue, 37, was convicted of
capital murder in the January
1979 death of Jayne Markham.
Evidence showed Hogue tied
Markham, 27, and three others,
including her 8-year-old son, in
her home and then set it on fire.
All but Markham, whose hands
anH feet wer^ heh’^^ her
back with insulated wire, man
aged to escape.
An appeal filed on Franklin’s
behalf is pending before the U.S.
Supreme Court. The U.S. 5th
Circuit Court of Appeals rejected
his appeal last week.
Franklin was convicted in the
1975 murder of nurse Mary Mar
garet “Peggy” Moran. She was ab
ducted from a San Antonio hos
pital parking lot.
Moran was found alive five
days after her abduction in a field
less than a mile from the hospital.
However, she died 14 hours after
her discovery from complications
of 10 stab wounds.
Franklin was tried and con
victed of capital murder three
times. Two convictions, however,
were overturned..
Table for surgery money
will be set up next week
On Monday, The Battalion
printed a story about John Stone,
Class of ’84, who is asking Texas
A&M students, employees and
organizations to help him raise
money for a $250,000 liver trans
plant.
The story mentioned that
there would be a table set up in
the MSC this week where stu
dents can donate money to
Stone’s transplant fund. How
ever, Scott Donahue, Stone’s
friend and medical colleague,
told The Battalion Monday that
the table will not be set up until
next week.
Until then, anyone wishing to
make a donation to the transplant
fund should contact Donahue,
who is coordinating donations.
Donahue can be reached at
764-8632. Stone, now residing in
Galveston, also is accepting dona
tions for the transplant fund and
can be reached at (409) 762-2139.
Activists seek lawyers for death-row inmates
DALLAS (AP) — A stepped-up schedule of
executions coupled with fewer lawyers willing to
take on appeals cases from Texas’ death row has
sent civil rights activists and capital punishment
foes scrambling to big law firms for help.
When the two-person staff at the University of
Texas Law School’s Capital Punishment Clinic
needs a lawyer for a death-row case, it is as apt to
call the silk-stockinged offices of Vinson and El
kins or Fulbright and Jaworski as a liberal-lean
ing solo practitioner.
Chances are about even that a lawyer will not
be found to press appeals as an execution date
nears, Jim Rebholz of the Austin-based law clinic
said.
As of Friday, 11 of the state’s 259 death row
prisoners were scheduled to be executed by Dec.
9. “We’re recruiting lawyers for five,” Rebholz
told the Dallas Times Herald.
An estimated 60 percent of the others are
without representation, he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the
Constitution guarantees a right to counsel; how
ever, the government’s obligation ends under
Texas law once a verdict has been upheld by the
Criminal Court of Appeals.
But most constitutional questions have been
exhausted in death-row appeals and the alterna
tive is a case-by-case approach few volunteer law
yers have time or money to handle.
“There’s a lot of anxiety in death work,” said
Rebholz, who believes large law firms are best
equipped to respond to the cases because they are
well-staffed, well-financed and well-connected.
But Alan Wright, a business litigator with
Haynes and Boone in Dallas, suggests there are
moral issues at work even with the big firms. He
has a case assignment from Rebholz and the sup
port of his firm.
“I guess it’s a reflection of my personal view
that the question of whether a criminal de
fendant gets death or a lesser sentence shouldn’t
depend on how much money he has in his
pocket,” said Wright, whose firm has pledged
support for his case assignment from Rebholz.
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