ustxtxb_obs_1970_03_20_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

the influence of narcotics to further deceive Cartwright, and he had said, “Right.” Thus pressed, Sulac agreed that his answer had been true. “As he was leading us in,” Sulac said, “he turned to Agent Roberts and asked, `Are you a narc?’ ” Roberts had said No. “He turned to me and asked, Are you a narc?’ and I said ‘No,’ ” Sulac testified. In the living room they discussed football and the fact that Cartwright was writing a book about the subject and that he had been a sportswriter in Dallas. Roberts told Cartwright he had followed his sportswriting in Dallas. Cartwright brought out some beers. Then, the agents said, he went to the kitchen and came back with a small bowl of vegetable matter that looked to them like marijuana, filled a corn-cob pipe with it, and passed it around. The two agents testified that they simulated smoking it, secretly blocking the mouth of the pipe with their tongues. Sulac, blushing slightly, said he simulated smoking the corn-cob “so as not to blow the cover, to continue to try and gain his confidence.” The agents said the price of marijuana came up. One of them said it was $160 a Cartwright said he could get it for $90 in that quantity. Neither contended Cartwright had made any move toward selling them any. However, at one point, in the presence of the jury, Roberts used the word “purchase” when he appeared to have intended to mean simply, obtain, marijuana from Cartwright. He quickly corrected himself to limit his meaning to “obtain.” Also in the presence of the jury, the other-agent, Sulac, alluded to the fact that they had been looking for other parties, in Cartwright’s neighborhood, who had been charged under the narcotics statute. AKING HIS record as clear and as powerful as he could for his certain appeal, Burnett drummed and drummed on the admitted lying and deceit practiced by the two undercover agents to gain entrance to a private home. Questioning the two agents, his manner went hostile and offensive, rejecting anything he took to be indefiniteness or evasion, concealing no contempt for what he implied was their zeal to convict, their hostility toward his client. It was during such cross-examination that he would shove back the left arm of his coat, leaving his shirt exposed to his elbow, giving one the sight of a man at his natural work. “It is beyond question,” he said to Roberts, “that you got into the Cartwright home by deceit.” “Yes.” “And you lied to him about it.” Roberts laughed. “We certainly didn’t tell him we were narcotics agents.” “Did you lie to him or not?” “Yes, sir . . . We lied to him about being narcotics agents, but like I say, we were invited into his home.” In overruling Burnett’s motions contending that the agents violated Cartwright’s constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure and self-incrimination, Judge Meyers had remarked that it was an extremely close question. He had conceded, too, that he was seriously concerned about the fact that his colleague, Judge Mace Thurman, sitting in the same case, had earlier overruled the constitutional motions, too. But Meyers listened attentively as the evidence unfolded. He seemed acutely interested as Roberts testified that they had lied straight into Cartwright’s questions about their identity, there in the vestibule of his home. He had already ruled, but just before the lunch hour of the third day, he called Burnett to his bench. After a moment, Burnett turned around with a whoop and exclaimed, “Well, I want to talk to my client, your honor.” He had been told something to the effect that he had better not make a motion for mistrial if he did not want it granted. OVER LUNCH, Burnett, Clinton, and Cartwright talked it over. They had to take the mistrial, Burnett was saying. If they let the matter go to the jury they Austin Nineteen young people who are facing possible prison sentences of from two to twenty years each for the slashing of a few tires outside the UT Chuck Wagon on Nov. 10, 1969, are breathing a little easier this week. The Faculty Senate of the University of Texas at Austin recently sent a letter to the Austin district attorney asking him to reconsider some of the felony charges. The Texas Union Board of Directors and the student government have made similar requests. The faculty group approved a resolution recommending “that the district attorney consider whether, in view of the confusion during the events of Nov. 10, so serious a charge as that of felony is justified with regard to those persons who are not accused of direct destruction of property and who are liable, if at all, on felony charge, only indirectly and vicariously.” Twenty-two students and non-students who were present during incidents at the UT Chuck Wagon on either Nov. 6 or Nov. 10 of last year were indicted by an Austin grand jury for riot and destruction of might get a “guilty.” Burnett said the law was changing very fast, and that might make a difference in a new trial. There was the chance, too, that, on these facts, in this case, the State would not want to try Cartwright again. Going through it all again, the jury, the testimony that just had to be accepted. Cartwright agreed. After lunch Burnett moved for the mistrial. Roberts had gratuitously insinuated he had made some character of a purchase, and despite his correction, “the prejudice was indelibly placed in the minds of the jury.” Sulac had spoken of those in the neighborhood who had had indictments returned against them. With the rote-like fluency of a man who has made the same motions many times other places, Burnett reeled off the legal language. Abruptly, Judge Meyers said, “I have not been happy with the way the case was presented. I think a mistrial is in order.” A couple of weeks later there was a little item on an inside page of the Austin paper. Meyers had granted a defense motion to suppress evidence that violated Cartwright’s constitutional rights. The district attorney said he would dismiss the case. Herman Gotcher had lost Number 68. R.D. public property. \(Obs., Actually none of the indictments is for direct destruction of property. The charges presume that anyone present during the disturbances on those two days could be held liable for the tire slashings. A faculty committee headed by Dr. Clifton Grubbs investigated only the Nov. 10 incident which resulted in 19 of the 22 Chuck Wagon indictments. The committee issued an 11-page report of moderate tone which places blame for part of the violence in and around the Chuck Wagon that day on the UT administration Austin District Attorney Bob Smith has read the report and endorsed it as being “basically fair and objective.” He said he would consider any suggestions the Faculty Senate sees fit to address to him. The faculty’s recommendation leaves open the possibilities that Smith might return to the grand jury with a request to change some of the indictments to misdemeanors or might dismiss some of the charges altogether. March 20, 1970 3 Good News For the Chuckwagon 19