
The First Time Texas Killed One of My Clients - samclemens
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/03/06/the-first-time-texas-killed-one-of-my-clients#.dA3foQPPn
======
elipsey
I'm not sure it would have mattered if this information had been admissible.
Most of the Texans I have known had no sympathy for prisoners. I think this is
at least partly because it's easy to be naive when you don't know people who
are different from you, and the economic and cultural climate in Texas is
highly self segregated.

My extended family is from Texas, but I grew up on the west coast,
occasionally visiting relatives in Houston suburbs and other pleasant,
relatively opulent areas. My aunts and uncles lived in nice neighborhoods and
gated communities, and my grandparents house was on two acres next to a
country club.

I moved to Texas as student and lived in Austin for a while, which was very
enjoyable. However, I also traveled, and lived briefly in other parts of
Texas, and was amazed at the degree to which people lived in different worlds
from one another in the same state.

Outside of Austin and the nicer suburbs, a whole different picture started to
emerge:

\--I made friends who owed money to payday lenders and pawn shops, and friends
that gave 5% of their income to check cashing stores because their credit
wasn't good enough for banks.

\--I started noticing people at work wearing anklets. One of them lost his job
because he wasn't allowed to stay out past 9pm, and then couldn't pay his
probation fees; I never saw him again.

\--After I left Austin, I interacted with the police a lot, although I was
never charged with any crime.

\--I got handcuffed and searched because my license plate marker lights were
the wrong color (white).

\--I got searched because my vehicle “looked stolen.”

\--When regular police or State Troops pulled me over, other mysterious
authority figures sometimes showed up. I was searched on several occasions,
sometimes with drug dogs, once by a man in a suit with an unmarked car and no
badge.

\--Police stings and paid citizen informants seemed common, and were often
reported. A person who seemed like an obvious paid informant tried to get me
to buy heroin, purchase a prostitute, and finally, in apparent desperation,
give alcohol to a minor.

\--I started hearing the N-word a lot but only from the poor whites, and
especially regarding the jobs and other resources “they” were taking away from
white people.

\--Neighborhoods were highly segregated, and apparently self segregated by
race, but only lower class people talked about which neighborhoods were “black
neighborhoods” or “Asian neighborhoods.” (My suburban family members didn't
bring this up.) When I made a delivery to the “Vietnamese neighborhood” my
boss said: “watch out, or they'll eat your dog!” People said stuff like this
all the time, and I got used to it.

\--Every landlord used the same lease: a huge, crazy contract written by a
state trade association. I was told that the terms of this lease couldn't be
negotiated, because <something about state law??>.

\--Protectionism seemed rampant. My family seemed to favor the “pro business”
climate, and when I asked people if there is a difference between “pro
business” and “pro market” I got blank stares.

In other words, when I left the opulent suburbs I was continually surrounded
by craven scams and rent seeking behavior, but only a fraction of the people
ever seemed to see the negative effects first hand, because most don't
interact with people outside their class.

I guess you could say things like this about many places, but of all of the
places I have been Texas seemed to me to be the most extreme. I have no idea
if this is supported by evidence, or is merely an unrepresentative subjective
impression (it would be interesting to figure that out somehow).

I think where people are less able to self segregate, people of different
races and incomes sort of have to deal with each other, and have some face to
face interaction that is beneficial to society. I live in NY at the moment,
and local politics often involves acrimony over race and class. This may or
may not be helpful, but at least it's harder to be as totally naive about how
other people live as I was before I lived in Texas.

~~~
dctoedt
> _I think where people are less able to self segregate ...._

Texan here (of the politically-moderate-to-liberal variety). Honest question:
How would you _keep_ people from self-segregating --- especially when parents
want to live in the best school-district neighborhoods they can afford.

(Texas, by the way, has a "Robin Hood" plan for funding schools, where
wealthier districts must give part of their property-tax money to support
poorer districts. This, incidentally, was due to a decision of the STATE
supreme court, not the U.S. Supreme Court, back in the days before the
Republican Party came to dominate state politics. [0])

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_plan)

~~~
zyxley
> How would you keep people from self-segregating --- especially when parents
> want to live in the best school-district neighborhoods they can afford.

An early step would probably be some sort of federal scheme for more evenly
funding schools, to remove some of this incentive in the first place.

~~~
brianwawok
So if all schools get identical funding:

1) I would be annoyed if I paid 10x the property tax as other places and got
none of the benefit. On the other hand there is plenty of money to go around,
we can share the wealth some.

But:

2) would probabbly just do private school as the public school is no longer
safe / a good place to get an education

I just moved out of Chicago because everyone has to do #2 to get a good school
for their kids because of #1. I don't think this really works in the end.

I don't know what the answer is but trying to make all schools equal just ends
up bad. Maybe a race blind IQ test to determine what school your kid gets in?
But then you need to really be race and money and everything blind and
strictly go by merrit.

------
nkurz
Here's a recent article that gives a picture of Texas politics. It's too US-
centric and political to be submitted here on its own, but I thought it was a
rollicking read and may offer insight into some aspects of the criminal
justice system in Texas. The thrust is that while Donald Trump is embarrassing
to Republicans, current Texas Senator and US presidential candidate Ted Cruz
is a lot more dangerous.

The closing paragraph gives a sense of the tone:

    
    
      An orange-faced, thin-skinned, narcissistic, blow-hard 
      clown versus a truly scary, malevolent alien from the dark 
      side. Oh, and before I forget, gee, thanks for the choice. 
      But I gotta go with the clown. I have examined the clown 
      pretty closely, too, and I think I can outrun him. The 
      other guy, I’m not so sure.
    

[http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/letter-from-texas-
listen-...](http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/letter-from-texas-listen-
america-trump-is-just-embarrassing-cruz-is-scary-8095715)

~~~
themartorana
Yeah that's a _terrible_ [0] article. I have no doubt that Cruz is nuts, and I
was hoping this was a straight-laced "here's what he actually believes with
evidence" articles, but instead after 6 paragraphs I knew the author didn't
like Cruz, but aside from "he's so far right he's in outer space" I had no
idea _why_... The author comes off as nuts him/herself, waving their hands in
the air and begging people to listen to them.

I think a plain telling of facts about Cruz would be scary enough. Someone
should write that.

[0] but seriously I'm no one to judge.

~~~
nkurz
I appreciated the article more for its style than its content. The author does
get into some specifics later in the article, although it gets lost behind the
imagery and ecstatic prose. I think the author chose to exaggerate his frantic
hand waving to try to convey the degree of his terror.

    
    
      Cruz pulled it off because he is very, very smart. But 
      never at any moment during his Senate campaign — nor at any 
      moment during this presidential primary race as far as we 
      can see from here in Texas — has Cruz ever once given any 
      indication that he does not believe in and hold to heart 
      every single word that comes out of his father’s sorcerous 
      mouth.
      ...
      He means what he says about pushing 11 million people back 
      across the Mexican border, about using the government to 
      hound, harry and herd human beings based on their sex 
      lives, about stripping women of their physical autonomy, 
      and about all of the superstitious claptrap that issues 
      from his old man’s mouth on evolution, global warming and 
      science itself.
    
      The Ivy League took none of that away from him. He held it 
      dear then and holds it dear now. It’s all right there in 
      front of you, not a millimeter beneath the surface. His 
      only bluff is that he shows you less than his full hand, 
      not that he fakes having more.
    

I don't actually know much about Cruz's beliefs. I watched a few excerpts of
his father's speeches, and they were about what you'd expect from a Cuban-
American fundamentalist preacher who was tortured by communists. This appears
to be a more impartial summary of his positions: [http://presidential-
candidates.insidegov.com/l/62/Ted-Cruz](http://presidential-
candidates.insidegov.com/l/62/Ted-Cruz)

------
Mithaldu
> She could not remember Marvin.

Jesus christ, that sentence hit hard. A child having been left alone with a
parent that cares so little that the mother has literally no recollection of
what kind of person her child was.

Where i come from the government will go so far as to send armed police to
separate children from family just for not sending them to school, and i'm
glad my country is like that.

~~~
thieving_magpie
Armed police for truancy - sounds great. Glad your government always knows
whats best, otherwise that's a frightening prospect.

~~~
techsupporter
Assuming you are from the U.S., I have bad news: Your government does that,
too. In every state, truancy is a criminal offense (usually chargeable against
the parents) and people are arrested for it.

~~~
thieving_magpie
It really doesn't matter which country you're talking about. Introducing
violence over truancy is a stupid idea.

------
throwaway_xx9
> tore at her skin in the belief that bugs were crawling on it.

symptom of meth use

------
Etheryte
This is deeply touching beyond comparison.

------
univalent
Deeply moving. People fighting the death penalty in Texas deserve our respect
no matter where we fall on the issue. They are willing to invest their soul in
an uphill battle where the odds are heavily against them.

------
duncan_bayne
For everyone who is horrified by the details of the death of this single young
man, consider: war is this, multiplied by the tens of hundreds of thousands,
or even millions.

That's not to say that war is never justified. But it is always an almost
incalculable tragedy.

Imagine a million young Marvins, brutally killed with even less justification
then the victim here. A million parents whose political decisions doomed their
children, in much the same way that Marvin's parents' decisions helped to doom
him.

------
tzs
> “He was a good boy,” she answered. “Just like any other boy. A normal boy.”

Are they ever not? I don't recall ever hearing those who knew a multiple
murderer as a child recalling him as bad or abnormal.

Edit: to clarify, I'm not saying that she was wrong in this case. This is just
a general observation. It seems odd to me that I've never seen an interview
with people who knew a mass murderer as a child where they say something like
"that kid was a little shit who I knew would end up killing people".

------
JoeAltmaier
Maybe this is an old article? I cannot find a Texas execution of a multiple-
murderer in the last 4 years (that the author has been practicing at their
current position) that matches the description (committed their crime before
they could 'buy beer'; multiple victims).

~~~
kr7
Derrick Dewayne Charles seems to fit the description. Executed in 2015; black;
Houston area; age 19 at offence; 3 victims.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
That could be it. I was assuming the case must have been nearer the beginning
of the author's tenure in Houston. But it could have been just last year;
nothing in the article contradicts that.

This puts a different light on the article. That case involved premeditated
murder, rape, assault and strangulation. I find it harder to be empathetic
with the defendant.

~~~
erikpukinskis
When you see someone who was sadistically abused until they became a
sociopathic abuser, you don't feel any empathy?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
"Harder"

The article was carefully written to engender empathy - no mention of the
sociopathic tendencies. No mention of victims at all. Stress was on how much
he liked sports.

But knowledge of all that he was, recasts that story irreparably. He was
clearly sociopathic, lacking empathy. Any appearance of normality could not
have been sustained. Even the stories of his supposed attachments were
probably misinterpretations.

These are just observations. Please don't read it as an endorsement of Texas
capital punishment, or callous disregard for those broken by a warped society.

Also, its not clear that sociopathic abuse was the problem. Empathy is learned
before the age of 4(?) or not at all. His mother's mental problems were more
likely at the root of it.

~~~
themartorana
Whatever was the root of it, it'd be nice if just once, something was black
and white. Life seems to be made of nothing but shades of gray, even though to
hear people argue, you'd think everything _was_ black and white. At the same
time.

