Page 12/The Battalion/Monday, September 5, 1988
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By contrast, the public defender’s
cused felons with a staff of eight sal
aried lawyers — will have defended
about 4,000 indigent defendants for
$175 or less per case, the Dallas
Times Herald reported.
Since 1978, when county commis
sioners made their first major at
tempt to curb indigent defense costs,
judicial spending on private lawyers
for the poor has more than trippled.
The 14 felony court judges blame
the soaring cost of indigent defense
on a rising crime rate, an increasing
number of arrest by police, and a
growing number of criminal cases
filling their dockets.
Critics however blame the judges
and say they use a system that costs
twice as much as its competition and
has fallen out of favor in major cities
nationwide.
“The issue never changes; it’s
something we have never been able
to solve,” said lawyer Vincet Perini,
who studied the rising cost of indi
gent defense in the 1970s for the
Dallas Bar Association. “It’s a cyclical
matter that’s been turned into a po
litical football . . . and that’s a dam
ned pity.”
Taxpayers began paying the ex
pense of providing indigent criminal
defendants an attorney after a land
mark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court de
cision.
“The (taxpayers) who are being
victimized by crime are getting a
little bit upset that we have such tre
mendously escalating costs for rep
resenting criminals,” Commissioner
Chris Semos said.
Don’t look down
Tim Denton, an A&M Consolidated student, by Rudder fountain
makes a jump on his skateboard Sunday afternoon and Randy S< amardo
as his friends D
watch.
—
I’hotn by Kathy Havem
\ id Denton
-
Program tries to improve Telethon has
■mages of neighborhoods S n md disease
MONDAY SEPT. 5th ROOM 404 RUDDER 7 p.m.
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Galleria Village • 1716 Briarcrest Drive • Bryan
DALLAS (AP) — Mary Neil
spends most of her time on Detroit’s
West Side tending her flower gar
den, trying to make something grow
from nothing.
The garden, dominated by pink
petunias and cultivated from the
rubble of a vacant lot next to her
house, still has its fair share of
weeds. But Neil says the weeds don’t
concern her. She’s more concerned
about planting seeds that will bloom
in the future.
Neil’s garden is symbolic of the
surrounding neighborhood. The
area still has a rundown look typical
of many sections of Detroit —houses
with broken windows and grass
growing out of the cracks in the side
walks. But thanks to projects spon
sored by the 12th Street Missionary
Baptist Church, the area about four
miles northwest of downtown is edg
ing toward a comeback.
“Particularly in the black commu
nity, we need economic devel
opment,” Charlene Johnson, the ad
ministrator of the church-sponsored
programs, said. “We need to be able
to use our own resources to do as
much as we can for ourselves.”
Perhaps the church’s most effec
tive program has been REACH —
Reach Everyone, Administer, Care
and Help. Through REACH, the
church has been able to help clean
up the neighborhood by purchasing
houses suspected of being drug
dens.
Johnson said the program has
helped reduce crime in the neigh
borhood but Detroit Police Depart
ment officials said there were no
“There are plenty of places where (drug dealers) can
go and find abandoned houses. They don't want any
hassles, and they don’t want to deal with an organiza
tion as large as a church. ”
— Charlene Johnson
administrator
available figures to corroborate the
claim.
Johnson also said that evicted
drug dealers have not caused any
problems for the church.
“There are plenty of places where
(drug dealers) can go and find aban
doned houses,” Johnson said. “They
don’t want any hassles, and they
don’t want to deal with an organiza
tion as large as a church.”
The program also has had a no
ticeable aesthetic effect on the area.
“We’re concentrating on renovat
ing houses in a small area, so we can
have a visual impact,” Johnson said.
The neighborhood still has dilapi
dated homes with overgrown front
lawns. However, houses with newly
sodded lawns, fresh white paint,
with beds of yellow and pink flowers
can also be seen on the block.
Activity in the neighborhood stim
ulates the senses: the smell of fresh
paint, the sounds of hammers bang
ing away and power saws cutting
through wood.
The church finds out about po
tential houses for sale mostly
through word of mouth. It bought
its first house through REACH in
1982 and has purchased 12 build
ings overall. The program has re
ceived $299,000 in grants in the past
24 months, allowing for the pur
chase of five houses last year.
Johnson said the average cost of
renovation is about $18,000. The
cost would be higher if the church
didn’t receive a lot of volunteer help,
she said.
One who has benefited from the
program is Philip Buggs. He said
REACH sold him one of its homes
for $16,000 after he failed to get a
loan from banks. REACH gave him
a 15-year mortgage, which he hopes
to pay off in seven years.
“Ownership is power,” Buggs
said. “That’s part of the American
dream. It trickles all the way down,
and we want a little bit of it, too.”
Buggs, his face and arms covered
with tiny dots of paint, spoke from
the porch of a house he was helping
to renovate. He said he was painting
as part of the church’s “sweat equity
program,” in which a person in
debted to REACH can work on
church-owned houses to earn credit
toward repaying the loan.
AUSTIN (AP) — Celebrities gait j
ered Sunday for Jerry Lewis’s at|
nual Lal>or Day telethon, a drive l
coax millions of dollars from viewenl
for a battle against crippling disease!
that touch one million Americzl
families.
The 21 '/a-hour event, which cori
eludes at 6:30 Monday, benefits ifj
Muscular Dystrophy Association am
is dedicated in large part to tin
young MD victims the comiccallsbl
“kids. ’
Firefighters collected cash e|
street corners across America, teetl
agers sponsored dances and otkl
events, and youngsters went doo:|
to-door or held backyard carnivals; |
raise money for the light againsi
muscular dystrophy.
Ed McMahon, the telethon'slontl
time anchorman, was back agai'l
along with co-hosts Sammy DavisJi|
Casey Kasem, Tony Orlando, Noml
Crosby and Julius LaRosa.
Other celebrities scheduled toap
pear during the show includedRj'
Charles, Liza Minnelli, Engelber
Humperdinck, Brian Wilson, Man
reen McGovern, Kool and theGanE
Charlie Cailas, Chuck Mangione.A
Hirt, Rip T aylor, Pia Zadora, tbl
Pointer Sisters, Harvey Kornffi
Charo, Randy Travis, Joe William!
Del Shannon and the Dallas Co»
hoys Cheerleaders.
Lewis, who has helped raise Sibil
lion for the Muscular Dystrophy At
sociation, said he expected to be set!
by 120 million viewers in the open
ing and closing hours of the telt
thon.
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