The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 108, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 12, 1998 Page: 2 of 32
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THURSDAY 12 MARCH 1998_74e t?<t<a<£g«RECORD
opinion
page
BggaSL
Sudden friends of mercy
IlFTER a flurry of hand-wringing
^■and prayer meetings over the impending fate of
Karla Fay Tucker, the sudden silence in her execu-
tion’s aftermath is deafening.
Forty-three women are on death row in America
today. Thirty-seven men were executed last year in
Texas alone. The United States has executed six
juvenile offenders this decade, and is among only six
countries in the world that will administer the death
penalty to offenders under the age of 18.
Are we to believe that Tucker’s case was somehow
RECORD
INCORPORATED FEBRUARY 1998
USPS 087-960
P.O. Box 898, Canadian (Hemphill) Texas 79014
Fax #: (806)323-5738
E-mail address: lrbrown@well.com
BEN EZZELL Editor & Publisher 1948-1993
NANCY EZZELL Editor & Publisher
LAURIE EZZELL BROWN
Editor
GRETA BASS Advertising Manager
STAFF:
Leslie Fry, Kim McKinney,
Mary Smithee, Gabriel Brown
PHOTOGRAPHY:
Laurie Ezzell Brown, Leslie Fry
Periodicals postage paid at the Post Office in
Canadian, Texas. Published each Thursday after-
noon in Canadian by Nancy M. Ezzell.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
The Canadian Record, Box 898, Canadian, TX 79014
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different, or that her death was uniquely abhorrent?
Have those whose consciences were tweaked by
the prospect of an attractive, wTell-spoken, born-again
white woman being put to death for her savage crime
turned their backs on the less attractive, less articu-
late, less white denizens of death row—many of
whom have also experienced similar awakenings of
faith in their darkest hours?
There are questions we must ask ourselves about
capita] punishment—particularly what w7e hope to
accomplish by imposing it. If it is purely for venge-
ance, as we suspect, then perhaps we must come to
terms with our own human failure to grant forgive-
ness and to believe in the possibility of redemption.
The death penalty is not a deterrent; it has never
been found to have much bearing on discouraging
violent crime. Karla Fay Tucker, in her drug-induced
madness, thought nothing of this state’s death pen-
alty when she hacked her victim to death with a
pickaxe.
Was it Tucker’s horrible childhood that somehow7
made her appear more human to us? That’s hardly
unique, either. A case in point: Robert Anthony Car-
ter, w'ho has been on death row in Texas since he w7as
17 years old. Carter grew7 up in a Houston housing
project, w7as routinely beaten by other children (be-
cause his clothes were ragged and dirty), by his
mother and stepfather (w7ho thrashed him with
w'ooden sticks, bricks and electric cords), and by his
brothers (one of w7hom hit him so hard with a baseball
bat that it broke).
Carter finally hit back, by robbing and murdering
a gas station clerk. His IQ is 74. His guilty sentence
took a jury 10 minutes. He has been on death row7 for
15 years. He is black.
Nothing unusual about Robert Carter, either.
Karla Fay Tucker believed God had a purpose for
her.
If her execution has provoked any of us to ques-
tion our desire for vegeance, to wonder about the
lives we are taking, to pause in our rush to judg-
ment-then perhaps God’s purpose has been an-
swered.
If her death has silenced those questions, then
perhaps God’s will was not done.
Dancing solo
DON’T EVER SAY our state agencies aren’t responsive to public
opinion. Two w7ell-placed phone calls Tuesday morning—along with
some highly opinionated comments— yielded a wealth of information
w7hich had been previously unavailable to us common folks up here in
the Panhandle.
Never mind that it was a day late and a credible explanation short.
And never mind that my call to the Texas Natural Resource Conser-
vation Commission—to ask w7hy we and you had never been advised of
a “towm hall meeting” to be held in Amarillo tonight—was never an-
swered. It’s 48 hours and counting...with still nary a ring.
Unless you count that faxed news release w7e got a couple of hours
later informing us that the TNRCC would sw7eep Texas in “towm hall”
(their quotations—not mine) meetings, and that “Input from Citizens
Is Invited” (my quotations—not theirs).
Never mind that the news release was dated Thursday, February
19th (that’s right, check your calendars). Never mind, for that matter,
that five of the meetings had already been conducted by then, without
so much as an invitation to the public in any of those other communities
to attend, according to our friends at the Texas Observer.
And never mind that our newspaper hits the streets on Thursday
and doesn’t even reach some of our local readers until late this afternoon
or tomorrow7—at w7hich time our very own Amarillo “town hall meeting”
will be safely and tidily over.
Just never mind, the message seems to be.
No sense cluttering this “towm hall meeting” up with actual living,
breathing, thinking members of the public. No sense risking the possi-
bility that our TNRCC representatives might just hear some of the
“public comment” that they so insincerely say they wish to hear.
And no reason to start feeling like you’re the only wallflower at the
sockhop w7ho didn’t get invited to dance. Those two-stepping, twinkle-
toed TNRCC boys just figured they’d go solo on this one.
Well, almost solo. They did invite our elected officials, w7hich is how
I got wind that w7e and you were being shunned.
Being naturally suspicious of the TNRCC anyway, I started calling
around. Talked to John Kiehl with the Panhandle Regional Planning
Commission, hosts for tonight’s meeting. Kiehl said that the board room
where the meeting will be conducted only holds about 100 people.
“That may well be why the TNRCC limited the notice,” he said.
Then he made it clear to me that this meeting would not be “the
proper venue” for citizens to air complaints about things like “the hog
situation in Ochiltree County.”
My guess? “That may well be why the TNRCC limited notice.”
But the ball was rolling. Kiehl called TNRCC Regional Director
Brad Jones, w7ho then called me. Brad—whom I’ve mentioned before in
this column and who insists that he did not blackmail the Perryton City
Council into dropping their protest against Texas Farms’ truck washout
facility quickly corrected Kiehl’s statements, assuring me that the
public is, in fact, invited to the “towm hall meeting” and that they can
talk about anything they want.
Whj wasn t the public notified of this meeting at which they w7ould
be so welcome? I asked.
Oui media lelations people did not do a good job,” he answered.
When did you realize that your media relations people had not done
a good job? I asked.
‘Three weeks ago...” he responded.
Three w eeks and you did what ? I asked. I suppose I’m feeling kinda’
testy by now.
I talked to our media relations people. They said they wrould take
care of it.”
And? I ask.
‘They didn’t take care of it.”
That’s about the time I hear our fax phone ring, and this February
19 news release insinuates itself into our office. From the media rela-
tions people.
Well, consider yourself invited.
Tonight. 6:30-9:00. PRPC Board Room. 415 W. Eighth Avenue. (You
can park in the downtowm YMCA parking lot, I’m told.)
Now don t say nobody asked you to dance. I keep hearing this tune:
“Come a little bit closer, you’re my kind of guy.”
i
f
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Ezzell, Nancy & Brown, Laurie Ezzell. The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 108, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 12, 1998, newspaper, March 12, 1998; Canadian, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth519870/m1/2/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hemphill County Library.