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TATE & LOCAL
^ Wednesday, June 7,1989
Bill cuts inmates’ plastic surgery
Legislature enforces prohibition of unnecessary improvements
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GALVESTON (AP) — Purely cos
metic surgery on state prison in
mates is being halted at the Univer
sity of Texas Medical Branch two
years after the state Legislature pro-
liibited the practice, officials said.
Dr. Alvin L. LeBlanc, vice presi
dent for hospital affairs, said he was
unaware of the prohibition until
contacted by the Houston Chronicle,
butjim Lynaugh, executive director
of the Texas Department of Correc
tions, said he knew the law.
A rider to the 1987 prison appro
priations bill, included again in the
appropriations bill passed this year,
prohibits expenditure of state funds
for‘cosmetic surgery on prisoners
unless they are disfigured and suffer
psychological problems because of it.
“It is our intent to limit down so
that we can stay out of trouble with
everybody,” LeBlanc said. “We are
going to try to please the Legis
lature, I can tell you that.”
Lynaugh said prison officials
“definitely were aware of that rider
and have not violated it.”
“When my inmates check into that
hospital, I have no control of any
thing except security,” he said. “I
don’t control any medical practices
in that hospital.”
Medical branch surgeons have
performed at least 123 elective cos
metic surgeries on inmates since the
beginning of 1988, according to a
partial list released under the Texas
Open Records act.
Although the prison system is not
charged for the services, they are
mostly tax-funded because the medi
cal branch is a state school.
Charles Terrell, chairman of the
prison board, said Rider Scott, gen
eral counsel to Gov. Bill Clements,
had asked him to look into the prac-
“I
It is our.. .(intent to) stay
out of trouble with
everybody. We are going to
try to please the
Legislature, I can tell you
that.” Al . , D1
— Alvin LeBlanc,
hospital administrator
tice after Clements received letters
from citizens critical of the tax-sup
ported inmate surgeries.
Under the prison’s agreement
with the medical branch on opera
tion of the 120-bed prison hospital
in Galveston, the prison system only
pays for security officers.
Terrell said he called the branch
and asked that purely cosmetic sur
gery on inmates be stopped.
“I simply asked the medical school
that any operations performed were
very necessary or it was the com
bined decision of TDC personnel
that it was essential to a person’s re
habilitation,” he said. “The medical
school assured us that they were
tightening up things.”
A prison policy that took effect
April 28 requires cosmetic surgery
recommendations be approved by
Dr. Charles Alexander, deputy di
rector for medical services in the
prison system.
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Court-ordered study finds improvements
still needed at schools for retarded inTexas
DALLAS (AP) — A court-ordered study
found that Texas has not lived up to promises to
improve conditions at its 13 state schools for the
retarded.
The state agreed to make sweeping changes
after the Texas Department of Mental Health
and Mental Retardation was found in contempt
of court two years ago.
But in the first court-ordered evaluation of
compliance with a settlement in the class-action
suit, court-appointed expert consultant Dr.
Linda O’Neall said Monday the state had not
complied with the agreement in the area of staff
training.
“The state is out of compliance in the compre
hensive competency of its staff,” O’Neall told the
Dallas Morning News.
I hey have not met the implementation
agreement” by repeatedly refusing to improve
training, she said.
O’Neall also found that the state had only par
tially complied with mandates on “addressing
medical services, behavior treatment programs
and resident abuse, neglect and injury.”
The report was filed Monday in the court of
U.S. District Judge Barefoot Sanders, who will
rule on whether to accept the findings.
O’Neall’s report recommends that the state
train employees in the prevention and reporting
of abuse and neglect.
The plaintiffs attorney, David Ferleger, said
the report could land the state back in court.
“Unless the state shows a serious commitment
to an immense alteration in its operations, we are
likely to be back in court on contempt again,”
Ferleger said.
Assistant Attorney General Dona Hamilton
disagreed.
“I don’t think it’s a terrible report,” she said.
“She (Dr. O’Neall) has recommended some cor
rective action that we’ll consider.”
Hamilton disputed O’Neall’s findings on staff
training.
“The defendants don’t think they’re out of
compliance,” Hamilton said.
After the 1987 contempt hearing, Judge Sand
ers ruled the staff was poorly screened and that
the professional staff wasn’t adequately trained,
resulting in inadequate training of direct care
staff.
Ferleger also had words of criticism for the
recommendations, saying O’Neall, a Florida so
ciologist, “really let them off the hook by giving
them a very easy standard to meet.”
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Jury sentences 19-year-old to death by injection
DALLAS (AP) — A Dallas County
jury has sentenced a 19-year-old
man to death for the slaying of a
narcotics officer who was shot seven
times during an undercover drug
deal last December.
Javier Suarez Medina stood and
listened impassively to state District
Judge Larry Baraka’s pronounce-
1 w “ A
ivayal Mil I know is it’s not
lepfl going to happen ... It’s not
to (ft going to happen.”
— Laura Salazar,
Medina’s girlfriend
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ising
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“lead:
ment that he be “taken and put to
death by lethal injection.”
The death sentence was automat
ically appealed Monday to the Texas
|Court of Criminal Appeals.
Medina, who had no previous
criminal record, was convicted two
weeks ago of killing officer Larry
ervrl Cadena on Dec. 13 during an under
cover drug purchase. The killing
capped the police department’s
deadliest year in which five officers
were slain in the line of duty.
Cadena, 43, was a 17-year veteran
of the department.
“Justice was done,” Cadena’s son,
21-year-old Larry Cadena Jr., said.
“For all his crimes, justice was done.”
Medina’s girlfriend, Laura Sala
zar, 16, said angrily after the verdict,
“All I know is it’s not going to hap
pen. .. it’s not going to happen.”
Medina was charged under a pro
vision of the capital-murder statute
that allows prosecutors to seek the
death penalty if the defendant com
mitted another crime while commit
ting a murder.
The jury deliberated for two
hours before finding that Medi-
naacted deliberately in shooting Ca
dena seven times and would be a
threat to society, even though he had
no previous criminal convictions.
After the verdict, defense attor
ney E. Brice Cunningham said his
client’s lack of a previous record
could play a role in the appeal.
“I could not see where the state
proved beyond a reasonable doubt
that he would commit criminal acts
of violence that would constitute a
continuing threat to society,” Cun
ningham said.
During the trial, Medina testified
that other men involved in the rob
bery had threatened him and his
family if he did not participate.
Accused killers of shrimper
face new charges of murder
GALVESTON(AP) —Charges
against three men accused of dous
ing a Vietnamese shrimper in gaso
line and then setting him ablaze
were upgraded to murder following
the victim’s death.
Charged with murder Monday in
the death of Tay Tran were Giang
Minh Ho, 33; Rua Van Le, 32; and
Van Hung Truong, 28, all of San
Leon.
They remain in the Galveston
County Jail in lieu of $30,000 bond,
which was increased from $20,000.
Arrests warrants also were issued
Monday for two other men, a Gal
veston County Sheriff’s Department
spokesman said.
Tran, 39, who was torched in his
San Leon trailer home May 28, died
Saturday at the University of Texas
Medical Branch Hospital.
He had second- and third-degree
burns over 98 percent of his body.
Authorities believe the attack on
Tran may have been the result of an
ongoing feud between Tran and an
other Vietnamese man.
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LIFE. LIBERTY. AND THE
PURSUIT OF...DENTISTRY?
It's no joke.
Changes in some employee benefit programs
could cost you your freedom of choice in dental
care.
Imagine no longer being able to choose your
own dentist. Or being told where you must go for
any special care you might need. Now imagine
someone else making those decisions for your
family as well as for you.
Quite a change from the freedoms most of us
enjoy today.
Yet such restrictions are typical of a new breed of
alternative dental plan popping up around the
country.
These programs go by different names and
impose different limits. But they all share one thing
in common: the focus is on money, not health.
Remember this: No plan that restricts your family's
access to the dental core they need is likely to be
in your best interest.
Something to consider before you surrender your
freedom of choice.
A MESSAGE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST FROM:
James Arents, D.D.S.
Karen Arents, D.D.S.
William Birdwell, D.D.S.
Russell Bradley, Jr. D.D.S.
John Case, D.D.S.
Thomas Davis, D.D.S.
Ronald Dusek, D.D.S.
Charles Ernst, D.D.S.
Curtis Garrett, D.D.S.
Charles Gray, D.D.S.
Robert Hall, D.D.S.
Monta Kennedy, D.D.S.
Sigurd Kendall, D.D.S.
Tom King, D.D.S.
Cynthia Langley, D.D.S.
Dan Lawson, D.D.S.
Stanley Maliska, D.D.S.
Scott Makins, D.D.S.
Donald McLeroy, D.D.S.
Richard Mogle, D.D.S.
Stephen O'Neal, D.D.S.
Erlon Payne, D.D.S.
Gordon Pratt, Sr., D.D.S.
Gordon Pratt, Jr., D.D.S.
Michael Reece, D.D.S.
Brazos
Independent
Dentists
Michael Riggs, D.D.S.
Dickie Rychestsky, D.D.S.
John Steck, D.D.S.
Oren Swearingen, Jr., D.D.S.
Steve Ursa, D.D.S.
Tracey Varvel, D.D.S.
Herbert Wade, D.D.S.
Garland Watson, D.D.S.
Robert White, D.D.S.
William Wiley, D.D.S.
Richard Williamson, D.D.S.
James Wilson, D.D.S.
Grant Wolfe, D.D.S.
Call battalion Classified
845-2611