ustxtxb_obs_1974_07_05_50_00014-00000_000.pdf

It Newspapers Magazines Political Specialists Printing Signs and Placards Bumperstrips Office Supplies 100% Union Shop 111FFUTURA PRESS ..c to. Happiness Is By Phone 512/442.7836 1714 SOUTH CONGRESS P.O. BOX 3485 AUSTIN, TEXAS 1 ellingto 14 The Texas Observer CLASSIFIED Classified advertising is 20/ per word. Discounts for multiple insertions within a 12-month period; 26 times, 50%; 12 times, 25%; 6 times, 10%. BOOKPLATES. Free catalog. Many beautiful designs. Special designing too. Address: BOOKPLATES, P.O. Box 28-1, Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387. MINNIE L. HAMMETT TYPING SERVICE \(formerly associated with Marjorie Ann Reports, manuscripts, theses, dissertations, mimeographing, multilithing. Reasonable rates. Open weekends. Free refreshments. 442-7008. Austin. PLAYING THE RECORDER IS EASY. Free catalog, best recorders, recorder music. Beginner’s Pearwood Soprano Book, $11.95. Amster Music, 1624 Lavaca, Austin. GUITAR PICKERS. Buy your guitar strings from us and save 20%. Mail orders accepted. Amster Music, 1624 Lavaca, Austin. YOUR BOOK PRINTED from well-typed manuscript. Any quantity economical. BIOGRAPHY PRESS, Rt. 1, Box 745, Aransas Pass, Texas 78336. classes, the lists must be supplemented. Texas should adopt some similar selection process. Issues surrounding grand juries have been in the news in the last several years because special federal grand juries have been used by the Nixon administration to stifle dissidents. Guy Goodwin, of the Internal Security Division of the Justice Department, was responsible for a series of special federal grand juries which subpoenaed, harrassed, jailed and indicted members of the Catholic left, anti-war movement and new left. In fighting these indictments, defendants in the Ellsberg and Gainesville 8 cases raised the issues that the grand juries that indicted them were under-representative of blacks, youth, women, working class people and the Spanish-surnamed population \(this category has been used because it, rather than chicano, is the term used in the census were acquitted, no legal precedents developed. The materials from those efforts, however, were used in the Houston 12 challenge. ANOTHER major input into the grand jury challenge was the data gathered by Professor Robert Carp of the University of Houston’s political science faculty. Carp was a member of a Harris County grand jury and was appalled by the large number of indictments processed and the manner in which the panel rubber-stamped the prosecutor’s recommendations. Carp decided to investigate further and sent out questionnaires to all the Harris County grand jurors for the period 1969-1972. When he analyzed the responses \(58 chicanos, young people, women, the less educated, those with lower incomes and workers were substantially under-represented on the grand juries. The ten-year study done by the defense, which included all persons called for grand jury duty in Harris County, validated Carp’s results. What are the potential implications of Judge Jefferson’s ruling in the Houston 12 case? All 1,488 of the indictments returned by the August, 1973, term of the 177th 11 district court grand jury are subject to challenge. One of those indictments was for Elmer Wayne Henley, the accused mass murderer who is now awaiting trial in San Antonio. Henley’s lawyer has filed motions challenging Henley’s indictments. Other defendants indicted by that grand jury who are awaiting trail or who are . in prison may mount challenges. Those defendants who have pleaded guilty may have waived their right to challenge. Certainly persons who were indicted during the ten-year period by Judge Miron Love’s grand juries may want to challenge their indictments, subject to the same guilty plea qualification. Potentially, the decision could lead to the revamping of the entire state-wide system. There has been talk of an affirmative suit in federal court based on a random sample of grand juries drawn from randomly selected counties in the state. If this data showed that the grand juries did not represent a fair cross section of the counties from which they were drawn, it would present powerful evidence that the system is simply unworkable and must be scrapped. The present system could be reformed somewhat by requiring grand jury commissioners to select persons from the voter registration lists for grand jury service. If that did not result in a fair cross-section, then the list could be supplemented, a process which has received the approval of the courts. Since county commissioners have the authority to raise the pay of grand jurors, workers and those with lower incomes could conceivably serve without hardship. Finally, grand jurors must be allowed sufficient time to intelligently review cases and not simply rubber-stamp a prosecutor’s decisions. Historically, the grand jury was designed to act as a buffer between the sovereign and the people, to protect the people from the unreasonable and vindictive acts of the king. This function has been abused and musused. The Texas constitution provides that the accused has the right to be proceeded against by grand jury indictment. This right shotild be implemented by having a fair cross section of the community carefully review the evidence before an indictment is returned and one is forced to defend against a felony accusation. It is outrageous that wealthy, educated angles return indictments without thinking, with the assurance of the prosecutor that “any mistakes you make can be corrected later or at trial.” The benign neglect of the Harris County system is just as oppressive for those attempting to create a free society as the actively hostile special federal grand juries of the Nixon administration. Austin attorneys Cam Cunningham and Brady Coleman and Houstonians John Sayer and Larry Sauer plan to renew their grand jury challenge after their five clients are arraigned again July 29. HOTEL. We’re where you want to be in New York City . . . at 55th St. and Seventh Avenue, close to business, City Center, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Coliseum, Fifth Avenue, 700 decorated, airconditioned rooms with private bath and free television . . . Fine restaurant, cocktail lounge and garage. TELE: 212 Circle 7-3900, NEW YORK’S 871 Seventh Avenue at 55th Street, N.Y.C. 10019 or toll free 800/424-8820