City of Dallas effectively bans fracking

RT - December 13, 2013

The Dallas City Council passed Wednesday new restrictions that bar hydraulic fracturing within 1,500 feet of a home, school, church, and other protected areas. The new rules effectively ban the practice within the city.

The council approved the ordinance in a vote of 9-6, with Mayor Mike Rawlings voting for it.

The city is on the edge of the Barnett Shale area, predicted to be a treasure trove of onshore natural gas reserves. However, the new limit placed on hydraulic fracturing - known as fracking - effectively bans the practice.

“[W]e might as well save a lot of paper and write a one-line ordinance that says there will be no gas drilling in the city of Dallas,” said council member Lee Kleinman, who opposed the measure. “That would be a much easier ordinance to have.”

A gas industry representative for Trinity East, a Barnett Shale gas company that was prepared to drill, lamented the measure as a death for prospects in Dallas.

“You just can’t drill under these conditions,” said Dallas Cothrum, according to CBS DFW. “It’d require more than 250-acres of property and in an urban area it’s just not possible.”

Petroleum engineer Bill Crowder of Dallas indicated that the economic and legal wrangling over fracking in the city is not yet over.

“I want you to look me in the eye next February or March,” he said, according to the Dallas Morning News, “when I ask you, ‘What the heck were you thinking?’”

Another council member, who supported the limits, said the ordinance doesn’t ban drilling, but is aimed at keeping residents safe.

“I think this is about making sure people are protected in their neighborhoods,” council member Carolyn Davis said, according to KERA News. “It is the right thing to do.”

Dallas had previously outlawed fracking within 300 feet of protected areas.

The new ordinance keeps protections on parkland and flood plains, though KERA News reported that the ordinance does allow for drilling in parks if certain requirements are followed and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department gives its mandatory approval.

The council also passed Wednesday an amendment that calls for a two-thirds majority vote to override the measure.

Hydraulic fracking is the highly controversial process of injecting water, sand, and various chemicals into layers of rock in hopes of releasing oil and gas deep underground. The practice is opposed worldwide, as shown by global protests against fracking in October, for its damning environmental impacts.

Supporters say it brings jobs and opportunities for energy independence, though detractors have pointed to exaggerated employment claims.

The latest move by Dallas highlights similar aims in other cities to ban fracking. Voters in four cities in the state of Colorado recently succeeded in either banning or suspending hydraulic fracturing, despite heavy spending by the oil and gas industry to the tune of $870,000 to defeat the measures.

All four of those measures passed in Colorado will face legal challenges by the fracking industry along with the office of Governor John Hickenlooper, which has expressed the position that the municipalities lack the authority to determine the use of the state’s natural resources.

Dallas Police Rule Change Gives Officers 72 Hours To Get Their Stories Straight After Shooting Citizens

from the "Accountability-is-for-bullet-riddled-civilians dept"
Techdirt

The Dallas Police Department can't seem to get its officers' statements on shootings to agree with recordings of the incidents. So, it's doing what any forward thinking law enforcement agency would do -- changing the rules.

Any Dallas officer involved in a police shooting — whether the officer fired a weapon or witnessed the gunfire — will now have the right to remain silent for 72 hours under a new department policy.

And even before they give a statement about the shooting, the officers can watch any available video before they give a statement.

Very convenient. This policy change, which was ushered in under the cover of the Thanksgiving holiday, will help ensure that DPD officers don't find their statements directly contradicted by the inconveniently unblinking eye of the camera, as happened just recently.

On October 14th, Dallas police officer Cardan Spencer shot a mentally ill man four times in the stomach. According to Spencer's partner, Christopher Watson (who wrote the report), the man (Bobby Gerald Bennett) moved "in a threatening manner" towards him and the other officer. Watson's statement even went so far as to say Bennett "lunged" at them. A statement released by the DPD a few hours after the shooting claimed the situation "escalated."

A surveillance camera caught the entire confrontation on tape. Less than 20 seconds pass before Spencer opens fire. See if you can catch a glimpse of the "lunge" or the "escalation."

Bennett never lunges. He doesn't do anything more threatening than stand up from the chair he was sitting in. Four bullets later, Bennett is on the ground. Somehow, being shot four times by a DPD officer is "aggravated assault," a charge the DPD pressed (it was later dropped) while Bennett was still in critical condition.

As a result of this, Spencer was fired and Watson suspended for making false statements. But this was only after Bennett's mother took the video to the media. Before she did this, DPD Chief David Brown watched the video and claimed his own officer's statement trumped his lying eyes.

"The unfortunate thing here is that Officer Watson's statement really overrode what the video showed," Brown said. "We had not at that point determined if the video captured the entire incident, or if the video had not been altered in any way. We put a lot of credibility on officer's statements until we have other evidence to prove otherwise."

Not so much anymore. Former DPD officer Cardan Spencer may be facing assault charges for shooting Bennett. Perhaps the saddest aspect of this whole debacle is the fact that Bennett's mother called the police because she was afraid her son (who has mental issues and was off his medication) might hurt himself.

As this has caused the DPD considerable embarrassment (not the least of which is the chief claiming a recording of the shooting is less trustworthy than statements given by an officer later suspended for making false statements), the only solution was (apparently) to buy time for officers to fix their narratives should inconvenient recordings surface.

Supposedly, this 72-hour waiting period is better for memory. Chief Brown refers to research by Alexis Artwohl which indicates recall of traumatic events increases over time. Immediate statements may be less accurate. That may be, but this report has been available since 2002 and there hasn't been a large shift in policies regarding police shootings across the nation. This looks like nothing more than someone finding the justification they need to install an insular policy that will allow bad cops to be even worse. This gives shelter to liars by allowing them to craft a plausible narrative that can't be undone by a single surveillance video.

This also doesn't explain why police insist on questioning suspects and eyewitnesses immediately after a criminal incident. But Artwohl has an explanation.

Artwohl, the memory expert, said officers treat civilian witnesses differently because officers won’t always be able to find the person again. That usually isn’t true of officers, she said.

Unsurprisingly, attorneys for the Dallas Police Association "applauded" Chief Brown's application of an additional layer of paint to the thin blue line. Anything that makes it easier to defend cops who are threatened by people standing motionless is a win for the PD's lawyers.

Defense attorney Mark Bennett flips the scenario to show just how outrageous this policy would be if it was applied to anyone else.

As a result of this incident, the Dallas Police Department changed its policy regarding gang-related shootings. Instead of pressing gang members for statements immediately after shootings, police officers will advise them that they have seventy-two hours to get together and make up a story, and will provide them, during that time, with any video the police can find, so that they can conform their stories to the video.

It makes no sense, does it, that police policy should not just permit but encourage members of a criminal street gang who witness a gang-related shooting to take three days to talk to each other and their lawyers and review the facts that are beyond dispute before making a statement?

It makes sense only if the police want the perpetrators of such shootings to walk free. The idea would be farcical if the criminal street gang were anything other than the police.

It's a farce, alright. The DPD has just ensured no one will trust the narratives constructed by its officers. And every citizen who's been paying attention will know to hang onto their recordings for at least 72 hours, rather than see it twisted into "evidence" that keeps bad cops employed.

North Texas Marches Against Monsanto the Devil

Dallas Suburb Rattled by 3.4-Magnitude Quake

Another fracking quake hits the Dallas area...


Irving September 30, 2012 (AP)

Damage from a small earthquake and a subsequent aftershock in a suburb west of Dallas was mostly limited to cracked walls and knocked-down pictures, authorities said.

The unscathed Dallas-Fort Worth airport, near the epicenter of Saturday's late-night temblor, kept up with normal flight operations. And emergency officials said there were no indications of any injuries.

The initial earthquake, measured at a preliminary magnitude of 3.4, struck at 11:05 p.m. CDT Saturday and was centered about 2 miles north of the Dallas suburb of Irving, the US Geological Survey's national earthquake monitoring center in Golden, Colo., reported.

USGS geophysicist Randy Baldwin told The Associated Press from Colorado that the initial quake lasted several seconds and appeared strong enough to be felt up to 15 or 20 miles away. He said the smaller aftershock with an estimated 3.1 magnitude occurred four minutes later and just a few miles away in another area west of Dallas.

Irving's emergency operators were flooded with more than 400 calls after the initial quake, with people reporting minor damage, such as cracks in some walls and a ceiling, pictures that had been knocked down and a report of a possible gas leak, according to emergency official Pat McMacken.

"We have had no infrastructure impact at all," McMacken said Sunday morning.

The Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport continued routine operations even though the shaking was felt at the airport, which is partly located in Irving's city limits, airport public affairs officer David Magana said. He told AP that the airport, which has 1,800 daily departures and arrivals, had little air traffic late Saturday night.

He said the quake caught the attention of those at the airport, but didn't prompt wider alarm.

"I wouldn't call it panic. I would call it surprise," Magana said by phone.

He said members of the airport operations team went out afterward and inspected landing strips, buildings and other airport installations and found no damage.

"There were no impacts or outages and no disruptions to flights," Magana said. "I felt it at my house. It shook it a little bit but it wasn't enough of a jolt to shake anything loose like you have in California. I've been in California and this was nothing like that."

Baldwin said more aftershocks are possible Sunday, noting the region has been periodically rattled by small quakes, including a cluster of minor ones in 2008.

"There are parts of Texas that certainly have more quakes than others," USGS geophysicist Don Blakeman said Sunday, specifically mentioning West Texas. But, he said, naturally occurring quakes can happen anywhere.

About 1,200 reports by people who felt the quake were recorded with the Colorado earthquake monitoring center soon after it hit.

A Moron's Guide to the Fracking of Dallas

By Anna Merlan
Dallas Observer

Important civic issues have a way of sneaking up on you. They do that, typically, by being so goddamned boring that you ignore them until it's impossible to do otherwise. Garbage, redistricting, municipal judge appointments: Those were just a few of the hotly debated topics that all of us did our best to avoid, right up until the point that "hotly debated" meant City Council members were yelling at each other about racism and staging dramatic walkouts. (Seriously, you should start watching the Wednesday council meetings on public access television. Better than a dozen telenovelas).

One of the longest-running debates you likely haven't been paying attention to is gas drilling within city limits. Since 2007 or so, it's been discussed in stultifying City Hall hearings, fulminated against on environmentalists' blogs and had its pros and cons weighed in newspaper articles you skipped right over in favor of reading about that teacher who had group sex with everybody.

Yes, it's unsexy. But it's here. In the coming weeks or months, Dallas City Council members will finally vote on new regulations for drilling inside the city limits. Those rules, if drilling companies and sympathetic-minded council members get their way, will allow for drilling in parkland, in the floodplains along the Trinity River and in some cases as near as 500 feet from places like houses and schools.

A growing body of scientific literature suggest that gas drilling, specifically the process of fracking (pouring millions of gallons of water and chemicals down a well to break up shale below ground and release the natural gas trapped in it) has negative effects on air quality, might contaminate groundwater, increases the numbers of small earthquakes around disposal well sites (where the waste water from fracking is deposited), and may allow you to increase the amount of tap water that you can set on fire by 100 percent.

Meanwhile, millions of dollars in city coffers suggest that drilling companies paid a lot of bucks for leases around here, and they will get mighty disgruntled and probably quite litigious if their drill bits don't end up in some soil soon. Five years ago, Dallas officials began soliciting gas drilling companies to buy leases on city-owned land; two companies, Trinity East and XTO, ended up paying around $33.7 million to purchase leases. The city also stands to receive 25 percent royalties on gas drawn by Trinity East. From XTO, they've been promised a 26 percent royalty as well as $50,000 per acre used for drilling. At the time the leases were bought, the city ordinances regulating drilling were either frighteningly lax or remarkably respectful of the power of the free market, depending on your point of view.

Click to embiggen and play The Game of Frack!

After some pointed grumbling from local residents who didn't necessarily want to see a drilling operation in their kids' sandbox, City Council members decided more study might be needed. They auditioned members for a task force to issue new, nonbinding recommendations on what the city's updated drilling ordinance should look like.

"We thought we were going to talk about whether drilling was safe enough to happen in an urban area," says task force member Cherelle Blazer. She's a Yale-educated scientist who heads an environmental nonprofit, You Can't Live In the Woods. "By the time I was appointed and we were briefed on what our charge was, it changed into a foregone conclusion and we were just there to decide on an ordinance."

In June of last year, Blazer joined two other members meant to represent "neighborhood and environmental interests." Three people from the gas industry were also appointed, along with three supposedly neutral "subject matter experts." The group met for more than eight months, three months longer than they'd planned. From the start, Blazer says, pressure from community groups and energy companies alike was intense. "The frequency from the activists was more, but industry was very, very persistent," she says. "Before and after each meeting, they'd tell us what our decision should be or what the ramifications of our vote that day were and tell us how they wanted us to vote." Occasionally, she says, they'd send polite emails to let the task force members know that a proposed rule was overly restrictive and "The City probably would have to go to court about that."

In the end, in a true spirit of compromise, the task force ended up with recommended rules that made both sides very grumpy. Dallas Cothrum, a zoning consultant who represents a number of energy companies, griped to the Morning News that the new rules amounted to a "moratorium" on drilling, while environmental groups said the proposed setbacks and rules for floodplains and parkland weren't strict enough.

The proposed rules included a 1,000-foot setback from homes, churches, schools and retail structures. But it said the City Council should be able to grant a variance to that rule, allowing just a 500-foot setback if 12 of the 15 of them voted for it. They recommended some parkland be opened to drilling, if it's not currently being used as a public park or playground and if it's near an industrial area. And the company doing the drilling would be required to minimize "dust, vibrations and odor" from its drilling site and to prevent groundwater contamination. It would also have to bear the cost for various water sampling and monitoring equipment.

Guess what? None of it matters. The City Council is obligated to take exactly none of the task force's suggestions. They've met privately with the city attorney at least once, presumably to hash out who they'd like to be sued by the least.

As we await a final set of rules -- ones which we predict will allow drilling in parks, floodplains, playgrounds and any hairdo over a certain height -- we've put together this handy board game to explain this complicated history. Gather around it with your loved ones and use it to guide you through the drilling process. Or wait six months or so and just watch it from your window.

Fracking: A Glossary of Terms

RFP: Dallas' up-and-down love affair with drilling began in 2007, when the city put out a request for proposals (RFP) to more than 30 gas production companies across the state. City officials followed that up with phone calls and letters, making it clear that they'd really like someone to drill around here, and by the way, that a minimum bid of $4000 per acre would be required.

Representatives from the drilling companies who took the bait now say they would have never purchased the leases had they known Dallas was going to get all fuddy-duddy and start talking about safety and air quality. They seem to be worried that the city will actually make them comply with any new rules they create. Which is just adorable.

Setback: A setback is how far a drilling site can legally be from homes and businesses. Environmentalist types will tell you that 1,000 feet is the bare minimum for a setback. Drilling companies will tell you that patriotic homeowners should be allowed to climb right inside a well and start a family if they so choose. No one has done rigorous research on just how far air and water contamination can spread under different scenarios. But what we don't know can't give us cancer, right?

Click to embiggen.

Floodplain: In May, green group Texas Campaign for the Environment released a map, provided by City Hall, showing where drilling company Trinity East has bought city leases. Nearly all of it is located in the floodplains along the Trinity River. Scientists warn that drilling in a floodplain would likely allow fracking chemicals to make their way into the Trinity and wash downstream. To which we say: Suck it, Houston.

Park land: A 2008 briefing from City Hall promised there would be no drilling allowed (emphasis theirs) on the surface of city of Dallas park land. Underneath the surface, though, that would be fine. There's no joke here. That's what they wrote.

Education: The Barnett Shale Energy Education Council is collection of nice folks who only want you to have the best information about gas drilling, the kind that shows it's exceedingly, gloriously safe. The council is made up of eight energy companies who operate in the Barnett. Its ubiquitous executive director is Ed Ireland, a 20-year industry vet who's astoundingly quick with a quote or a press release and looks exactly like Lex Luthor. We expect an email from him expressing disappointment in our puerile, anti-gas humor in approximately five minutes.

Chip Groat: There are about as many dueling fracking studies as there are competing interpretations of the Bible (in ours, gay sex is actually mandatory). But the drilling industry was excited when a serious, reputable study from UT Austin concluded that fracking was unlikely to contaminate surrounding groundwater. The study was led by Charles "Chip" Groat; about five minutes after it was published, a Buffalo-based nonprofit, the Public Accountability Initiative, noted that Groat neglected to reveal his substantial financial ties to the drilling industry. Turns out he serves on the board of gas company Plains Exploration & Production. Groat subsequently told Bloomberg that he didn't alter any findings in the study, and that "disclosing my Plains board position would not have served any meaningful purpose."

Disposal Wells: The gas drilling process leaves behind several million gallons of chemical-filled water, which in turn must be disposed of somewhere. Efforts to turn it into a delicious cocktail have been unsuccessful (the name "Frack on the Beach," tragically, remains unused). Instead, the waste water is poured back into deep disposal wells, ingenious trash cans made from Mother Nature herself. According to the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, there are around 50,000 saltwater disposal wells in Texas, and "none of these disposal wells have ever had a problem with groundwater contamination." Great. What's that rumbling? Why, those are...

Earthquakes: The BSEEC will tell you that there might be some "mild" relationship between disposal wells and increased earthquake activity. Nothing definitive. Science, however, will tell you that since the '60s, there's been an acknowledged link between gas drilling and increasing numbers of small earthquakes. Studies by the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Academy of Sciences found unprecedented levels of new small quakes across the country, especially in Texas, Arkansas and Ohio. However, they've never done any serious damage, and hey, haven't you always wanted to feel like you live next to the airport?

Disclosure: Under Texas state law, gas drilling companies are required to disclose all the chemicals they use in their fracking process. Unless they deem those chemicals to be a "trade secret," of course. Also, they're only required to let you know what they've been industriously pouring in all those holes after they finish drilling. The information is presented on a government-run website that the Texas Observer once called "about as clear as a Finnish edition of Finnegan's Wake."

Water: The fracking process takes anywhere from one to five million gallons of water, depending on the size of the project. In Dallas, that water would come directly out of the municipal water supply. We still can't afford for you to water your lawn, though. Or shower. Or flush the toilet more than once every couple weeks. Don't think too hard about that one.

Inflammable: A famous set-piece from the documentary Gasland shows homeowners putting matches near their running water taps and watching as the stuff they drink goes up in flames. The Barnett Shale Energy Education Council dismisses inflammable water as the result of "naturally occurring methane gas." Gas drilling seems to have a way of bringing out water's previously undiscovered and "naturally occurring" qualities: A Duke University study last year found that methane gas levels in water wells increased to dangerous levels when they were close to natural gas wells. The methane in the water was found to be the same kind being extracted through the gas wells.

Gas Prices: Gas drilling -- everybody's doing it. A glut of natural gas on the market has led to record low prices, meaning that all the time, effort and money energy drilling companies have poured into drilling in Dallas has been totally worth it. Bright side: gas prices started to rally slightly over the summer, as the hottest year on record in the United States spurred utility companies to use more natural gas to power the nation's air conditioners. Everybody cross your sweaty fingers and wish real hard for global warming to hurry up and deliver fabulous profit to all of us!

When Dallas Rocked

Yesterday Was a Sad Day for Dallas

DALLAS OBSERVER - Thu., May 3 2012  
By Jim Schutze

I sat in the front row of the folding chairs yesterday and gazed around the ceremonial "flag room" at City Hall. Mayor Mike Rawlings and a majority of the Dallas city council** were ganged up around the podium endorsing a plan to build a two-billion-dollar toll road next to the Trinity River between downtown and Oak Cliff.

Leaning against the long inside wall of the room like crows on a wire were the old rich white guys in suits, representing the city's traditional elite. Most of the chairs behind me were filled with their claque, an array of people who depend on them for jobs or appointments.

At the front of the room in the first row was the ever-dwindling and meager little pack of local reporters who still cover this sort of thing. And then to our right, outside I.M. Pei's glowering wall of glass, was the city, blanched and beleaguered on this warm windy day, gazing back at us as if hoping somebody in here would know what to do.

The whole thing was sad.

The basic concept -- wreck the riverfront to build a highway -- is an absurd buggy whip of an idea, an anachronistic concept so out of synch with modern urban reality it would be laughable if it didn't involve ruining this city's only natural geographic feature.

The mayor engaged in a serious amount of double-talk about regionalism and gridlock, knowing full well that none of that is the reason for this road. It was left to southern Dallas council person Vonciel Hill to blurt the truth -- at least what she's been told is the truth by the rich crows on the wire -- that, "where the road goes go the dollars." They think doing this will make them money. That's the real joke. Their secret agenda is a stupid agenda.

The ancient white leadership of the city has sold the hungry black leadership of the city on the notion that building a superhighway along the river will promote real estate development along its route, eventually including the tail-end of that route in black southern Dallas.

That's the stupid. That's the buggy whip. It won't work in black Dallas. It won't work in white Dallas. It won't work. The crows on the wire don't understand that urban districts don't grow on highways any more, if they ever did. They understand nothing about how the new inverted cities of the 21st century grow or why.

It's interesting that these people who have maintained relatively tight control over City Hall all these years actually made most of their own money on suburban raw-land development, betting successfully on flight.

Their basic template -- "access is success" -- comes from the 'burbs. That's what they are trying to replicate along the Trinity River. In their culture, bicycles are for village idiots; the only people who walk around are burglars; if you really want to see nature, get a plane ticket.

The crows on a wire really and truly believe that building a honking, roaring, stinking expressway on top of the river is going to make a lot of rich people want to come live in condo towers along the expressway. And people like Vonciel Hill really believe that the rich people have finally divulged how they do it, so she's along for the ride.

It's no ride. It's sad. Really. It's a lot of other things, too. But when I looked out through that big leaning window yesterday at that skyline waiting out there for answers, more than anything else I felt sad for our city.

** You might remember that 3 or 4 years ago, a majority of the Dallas City Council were under investigation by the FBI...~~jef

Revisiting My Cheaters Episode and Its Infamy...

In Feb. 2006, my wife and I and our friend, Corena, appeared on the "reality" TV show, Cheaters. Here's the clip from the bust:

Cheaters got a ton of mileage off our episode: it's currently on Cheaters' Top 10 All Time Episodes list (and they rerun it all the time, more than any other episode from that season)--at one point it was the #3 episode on that list. Also, our episode was featured on E! Wildest Dating Show Moments 2 (with Loni Love and other comedians commenting on the clips they watch--transcript below), we were on the Maury Povich Show on Feb. 28, 2006, and the clip from the Povich show wound up on E!'s TV clip show, The Soup that same week. It is hosted by Joel McHale from NBC's sitcom, Community. I bring this up, because every time our episode airs, someone from the past gets hold of us and contacts us very concerned about what they saw on TV. And we have to explain the situation. It's very funny, if you haven't seen it, check it out...


Transcript from our clip on E! Wildest Dating Show Moments 2:

00:05:07 So far, the dating scene sure looks like a lot of fun, doesn't it?
00:05:10 I'd hold your opinions until you've seen the televised " in this clip, toni's husband learns a valuable lesson-- when
you're caught with your pants down, go find some new pants.
00:05:23 >> Man: Lights, lights, lights.
00:05:31 >> Jeff?
00:05:34 Jeff.
00:05:35 >> Hey, I am not here.
00:05:37 >> Jeff!
00:05:38 What the hell are you doing?
00:05:39 >> I think he thought he was david blaine really quick.
00:05:42 " >> hey, this is an emergency.
00:05:53 (Loni Love) >> Did he just steal someone's underpants?
00:05:56 >> What are you doing?
00:05:58 >> Can you speak with us for a second?
00:06:00 Jeff.
00:06:02 >> Who's this [bleep] running off with my clothes?
00:06:08 >> Oh, did I get caught [bleep] on a guy in a car?
00:06:11 >> I'm not doing this.
00:06:12 I'm not doing this.
00:06:13 I'm not doing this.
00:06:14 I'm not doing this.
00:06:15 >> I wanna know why.
00:06:16 >> When these people go away, I'll tell you.
00:06:18 >> Tell her what, that you got a wedgie?
00:06:21 >> Announcer: Creative problem-solving-- nice.

Minor Earthquake Reported near Dallas Love Field Overnight

By Alice Wolke | KDFW.COM

Friday, 06 Jan 2012

DALLAS - Did you feel the earth move? A minor earthquake was reported near the Preston Hollow area of Dallas just after midnight Friday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
 
The USGS recorded a 2.0-magnitude earthquake centered on Northwest Highway near Sunnybrook Lane -- that's between Inwood and Midway Roads, about three miles east of Love Field Airport.

Although the tremor was minor, it was deep -- measuring about 3 miles below the earth's surface, geologists say.

So far, there have been no reports of damage.

Dallas, Texas Judge Rules Texas Death Penalty Unconstitutional

Dallas Morning News 
Sunday, December 25, 2011

A state district judge in Dallas County has ruled that a Texas death penalty statute is unconstitutional because it allows prosecutors to arbitrarily seek capital punishment.

Prosecutors are appealing Judge Teresa Hawthorne’s decision and have filed a motion to recuse her from Roderick Harris’ capital murder case.

Hawthorne acknowledged when making her ruling last week that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and other courts have “consistently rejected” the reasons that she found the statute unconstitutional, according to a transcript of the hearing. But she said changes in the law can still be made.

Hawthorne, who could not be reached for comment later, said she refused to be a “rubber-stamp judge.” The Democrat took office in January and is a former public defender.

“My decision is not an act of unabashed judicial activism,” she said Monday from the bench. “I remember when women and blacks could not vote. I remember when so-called witches were burned. I remember when gays had to hide to be in the military. My decision is not to buck the system or stir the waters.”

Hawthorne ruled that she believed:

• The Legislature failed to define terms like “continuing threat” and “moral blameworthiness” for jurors deciding between a life or death sentence.

• The Legislature’s definition of mitigating evidence is vague.

• State law prevents jurors from knowing that one vote for life can keep a defendant from receiving a death sentence.
  

The law allowing a judge to enter into evidence “any matter that the court deems relevant to sentence” means that each judge hearing a case has the power to influence a sentence.

“The law should not be arbitrary or capricious,” Hawthorne said in court.

The Dallas County district attorney’s office and special prosecutor Kevin Brooks declined to comment about the ruling or the recusal motion.

Brooks was appointed special prosecutor in the case because he had already been working on the case when he left the DA’s office earlier this year.

Brad Lollar, one of Harris’ defense attorneys, said he believed that the appellate court would be interested in issues surrounding the lack of definitions and the fact that jurors consider whether a defendant would continue to be a threat based on his release into society.

“That’s not going to happen” after sentencing in a capital murder case, Lollar said. “He’ll either get life without parole or death.”

A Harris County judge made a similar ruling on the constitutionality of the death penalty in March 2010. State District Judge Kevin Fine eventually withdrew his ruling and refused to recuse himself from the case.

That case ended in a plea agreement earlier this year when John Edward Green Jr. pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of murder. He fatally shot a Houston woman and wounded her sister in a June 2008 robbery.

The chance that a higher court will agree with Hawthorne is “a long shot,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. But he said changes in an appeals court’s makeup can produce different rulings on the same issues.

“That’s sometimes how laws get changed,” Dieter said. “What’s been rejected before could be seen differently.”

Lollar pointed to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy as an example of a jurist changing his opinion on death penalty issues. Lollar said that within a 10-year span, Kennedy changed his mind on whether the mentally retarded and those who are 17 at the time of the crime could be executed for capital murder. Executions of the mentally retarded and juveniles are no longer allowed in the United States.

“Unless you give the court the opportunity to reconsider, how do you change the law?” Lollar said.

A hearing on the recusal motion is scheduled for January before another judge. Testimony in Harris’ trial is expected to begin in May after a months-long process of jury selection.

Occupy Together/Occupy Dallas October 6th, 2011

Hope to see you there!--jef

Texas is Burning! Texas Wildfires

Central Texas Fires (Help Now!) from Roadwings on Vimeo.

DALLAS MAVERICKS NBA Champs 2010-11; Mavs Win NBA Finals 4-2

		1	2	3	4	F
	DAL	32	21	28	24	105
	MIA	27	24	21	23	95
	DALLAS MAVERICKS WIN NBA FINALS 4-2

05/31		Mavericks	84	-	92	Heat		-	Recap-Highlights
06/02		Mavericks	95	-	93	Heat		-	Recap-Highlights
06/05		Heat	88	-	86	Mavericks		-	Recap-Highlights
06/07		Heat	83	-	86	Mavericks		-	Recap-Highlights
06/09		Heat	103	-	112	Mavericks		-	Recap-Highlights
06/12		Mavericks	105	-	95	Heat		-	Recap-Highlights

Really Big D: Mavericks top Heat for NBA title

By TIM REYNOLDS
Posted Jun 12 2011

MIAMI (AP) For Dirk Nowitzki, the resume is complete. He's an NBA champion.

For LeBron James, the agonizing wait continues for at least one more year.

Avenging what happened five years ago in perfect turnabout style, the Dallas Mavericks won their first NBA title by winning Game 6 of these finals in Miami 105-95 on Sunday night - celebrating on the Heat's home floor, just as Dwyane Wade and his team did to them in the 2006 title series.

Jason Terry scored 27 points, Nowitzki added 21 and the Mavericks topped the Miami Heat 105-95 in Game 6 of the NBA finals on Sunday night. The Mavericks won four of the series' last five games, a turnabout that could not have been sweeter after seeing the Heat celebrate their first title in Dallas after Game 6 of the 2006 finals.

"Tonight," Terry said, "we got vindication."

James did not. Not even close, and a year unlike any other ended they way they all have so far - with him still waiting for an NBA title.

He scored 21 points for Miami, shook a few hands afterward, and departed before most of the Mavs tugged on their championship hats and T-shirts. Chris Bosh had 19, Mario Chalmers 18 and Dwyane Wade 17 for the Heat.

Mavs coach Rick Carlisle joined a highly elite group, those with NBA titles as both a player and a head coach. Only 10 other men are on that list, including the presumably retired-for-good Phil Jackson, one of Carlisle's mentors in K.C. Jones, and Heat President Pat Riley - who led Miami past Dallas in 2006, and was the mastermind of what the Heat did last summer by getting James, Wade and Bosh on the same team with an eye on becoming a dynasty.

It might still happen, of course.

But even after 72 wins this season, including playoffs, the Heat lost the last game. And that means this year was a disappointment - except to just about everyone else in the NBA, or so it would seem.

Hating the Heat became the NBA's craze this season, and the team knew it had no shortage of critics, everyone from Cleveland (where "Cavs for Mavs" shirts were popular during these finals) to Chicago (the city James and Wade both flirted with last summer) and just about every place in between lining up to take shots at Miami.

Given their newfound popularity, meet the new America's Team.

Sorry, Cowboys - your long-held moniker might have to be ceded to your city's NBA club. When it was over, Mavs owner Mark Cuban ran onto the court to hug Carlisle, then punched the air and whooped.

Dallas took control in the second half after some wild back-and-forths in the opening two quarters. Miami took its last lead of the game - the season - just 64 seconds into the second half, lost it 16 seconds later and chased the Mavericks the rest of the way.

They never caught them.

Jason Kidd, at 38 years old, got his first championship. Nowitzki got his at 32, Terry at 33. They were featured on the video screen in their building in Dallas during this series on what seemed like a constant loop, each posing with the NBA trophy and looking longingly at it, standing mere inches from it, as if to say "so close, yet so far away."

No more.

It's theirs.

Nowitzki sealed it with 2:27 left, hitting a jumper near the Miami bench to put Dallas up 99-89, and some fans actually began leaving. Nowitzki walked to the Mavs' side slowly, right fist clenched and aloft.

He knew it. Everyone did. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra implored his team to foul in the final minute, and even then, they couldn't catch the Mavericks.

"All those unique individual stories is what propelled us to this victory," Terry said.

Dallas expected a big early push from Miami, and the Mavs' suspicions were proved correct. James made his first four shots, and the Heat raced out to a 20-11 lead.

It was erased - and then some - quickly, as soon as Dallas went to the zone defense that befuddled Miami again.

Dallas needed 5 1/2 minutes to rip off a 21-4 run, making 9 of 12 shots during the stretch. And much of that came with Nowitzki on the bench with two fouls, the first time he's been whistled for more than one in the opening quarter of a playoff game this season.

The Mavs were off and running. DeShawn Stevenson made a pair of 3-pointers within a span of 24 seconds to give Dallas a 40-28 lead with 9:42 left in the half. Dallas turned Miami's first six turnovers into 14 points, and the hundreds of blue-clad Mavs fans stood and roared, with Cuban waving his arms as if to lead the cheers from behind his team's bench.

Things turned quickly and got heated for good measure.

Miami scored the next 14 points to reclaim the lead at 42-40, a streak snapped only after Stevenson, Udonis Haslem and Chalmers got technicals with 6:25 left in the half after a midcourt mini-melee with mostly amounted to some words and a couple of shoves.

"A player will not automatically be suspended for leaving the bench if he has already left the bench because a timeout was called," the NBA announced later in the game. "However, we need to review the circumstances of this particular incident, which we will do, after the game."

So the NBA will watch replays.

The Heat, they probably won't - not for a long while. They had chances to take command and wasted them all. The Heat missed 13 of their 33 free throws, let the Mavericks score 27 points off turnovers and simply could not get a rebound in the final minutes.

Nowitzki finished 9 for 27, and the Mavs still won. He was 1 for 12 in the first half, and they were still ahead, 53-51, thanks largely to Terry's 19 points on 8-of-10 shooting, along with a 17-4 edge in points off turnovers.

Plus, after James got off to such a fast start, he had two points in the final 19-plus minutes of the half.

James didn't score in the second half until a layup with 1:49 remained in the third - his first field-goal attempt since 1:05 remained in the half. Kidd made a 3-pointer late in the period, pushing the Dallas lead to 79-71, and it seemed like the only people standing in the arena were the players, referees, Cuban and a few guys around the Dallas bench.

It was 81-72 entering the fourth, after Ian Mahinmi made a foul-line jumper as time expired in the third, just his third basket of the entire series.

None were bigger.

The Mavs could taste a title.

When the Mavericks took a 2-0 lead in Dallas during the '06 finals, plans for their victory parade were announced. The Mavs didn't win another game in that series.

Now, that parade will finally happen. And when it's over, then the league's uncertainty will truly begin. Labor strife likely awaits, and although more talks geared toward movement on a new deal are scheduled for this week, both owners and players are bracing for a lockout to begin once the current collective bargaining agreement expires June 30.

What happens with the next deal may affect the Heat more than anyone. Some owners will insist on a hard cap, rolled-back salaries and, potentially, trying to bust some current deals - which could break up the Big 3 before get another chance to win a title together.

A gloomy end to the season may bring an even gloomier offseason for Miami.

"Every situation has felt like it was an our-back-against-the-wall situation," James said Sunday morning, hours before Game 6 began. "We've been able to figure it out and find our way through and scratch our way through. This is the last test. This is the last pop quiz for us that we need to pass in order to make it all worth it."

They didn't pass. So therefore, it wasn't all worth it. Except, of course, from the Dallas perspective.

Of the principal characters from the 2006 series, only Cuban, Nowitzki and Terry remain from the Mavericks' side, and for them, the beginning of this championship celebration seemed sweeter than even they could have imagined. Terry won't have to get his tattoo - the one of the NBA championship trophy - removed, which he vowed to have done if Miami won this series. Nowitzki will never be in the conversation of 'Best player without a title' again.

James is clearly the one with that most-unwanted label now.

NOTES: Carlisle improved to 11-3 as a coach with a chance to close out an opponent. ... James got a 21-minute rest in the second quarter in real time, thanks to that midcourt dustup and the referees taking several minutes to look at replays before doling out the technicals. ... Marc Anthony sang the national anthem, then took a courtside seat near the Heat bench.

Dallas Takes a 3-2 Lead in the NBA Finals

		1	2	3	4	F
	MIA	31	26	22	24	103
	DAL	30	30	24	28	112
	DALLAS leads  3-2

Heat-Mavericks notebook

By Dave Ivey, for NBA.com
Posted Friday June 9, 2011

THE FACTS: Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks are one win away from the first championship in franchise history following Thursday's 112-103 defeat of the Miami Heat in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. Nowitzki had 29 points and Jason Terry scored eight of his 21 points during a game-ending 17-4 run that gave the Mavericks a 3-2 lead as the series returns to Miami.

Dwyane Wade fought through a first-half hip injury to lead the Heat with 23 points and Chris Bosh added 19 points and 10 rebounds. LeBron James recorded a triple-double with 17 points, 10 assists and 10 boards, but scored just two points in the pivotal fourth quarter. Five players scored in double digits for each team in what was by far the highest-scoring game of the series.

QUOTABLE: "We're going to play whistle to whistle. I heard that term. Been watching the hockey series. A lot of people in the hockey world use that term, and that's what we're going to do. We're going to try to win each possession and just take it one at a time."
-- Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle

THE STAT: The Mavericks shot a remarkable 68.4 percent (13-for-19) from 3-point distance to offset a 36-26 disadvantage on the boards. Six Dallas players canned at least one trey, led by J.J. Barea (4-for-5), Terry (3-for-5) and Jason Kidd (3-for-5).

TURNING POINT: After Wade sank a 3-pointer from the top of the key to put Miami up 99-95 with 4:37 remaining, the Heat didn't make another field goal until James' layup with 29.6 seconds left. Dallas tied it at 100-100 on Terry's wide-open 3-pointer, then took the lead for good when Nowitzki drove the baseline for a dunk at the 2:45 mark.

QUOTABLE II: "JET was phenomenal. He was aggressive again from the get-go. ... That's the JET we need. We need him to attack and get in the lane. It opens up a lot of stuff for everybody else out there."
-- Nowitzki on Terry

QUOTABLE III: "We'll have to see how it responds tomorrow. When he's able to sweat and keep it warm, he was fine. Fortunately, we have an extra day. We'll see if that's enough."
-- Miami coach Erik Spoelstra on the left hip contusion suffered by Wade when he collided with Dallas forward Brian Cardinal in the first quarter.

HOT: The Mavericks shot 66 percent in the first half (23-for-35). They were 5-for-7 from 3-point range, with five different players each connecting once, and held a 60-57 lead at intermission. In the first four games of this series, Dallas averaged just 45.5 first-half points with a high of 51 in Game 2. Tyson Chandler was 4-for-5 in the half, Terry was 4-for-6 and Nowitzki was 6-for-9.

NOT: James sent out a "Now or Never!!" tweet on Wednesday and called this the biggest game of his career. He was more aggressive, but his shooting struggles continued. He was 8-for-19 from the field, including 0-for-4 behind the arc. During the three games played in Dallas, the two-time NBA MVP shot 38.6 percent from the field (17-for-44) and was 1-for-11 from 3-point territory.

INSIDE THE ARENA: Faces in the crowd at the AAC included former Dallas Cowboys running backs Tony Dorsett and Daryl "Moose" Johnston, Cowboys receiver Miles Austin, race-car driver Danica Patrick and actor/comedian Norm MacDonald.

GOOD MOVE: The Mavericks won their second straight game since moving Barea into the starting lineup ahead of DeShawn Stevenson. Barea finished with 17 points, five assists and just one turnover in more than 25 minutes. He scored a team-high eight points in the third quarter and scored six of the Mavs' first nine points in the fourth with a three-point play and his fourth 3-pointer of the game.

BAD MOVE: Miami's 18 turnovers led to 21 points for the Mavericks. Each member of the "Big Three" -- James, Bosh and Wade -- committed four turnovers.

NOTABLE: Of the previous 26 times the NBA Finals have been tied 2-2, the winner of Game 5 has gone on to win the series 19 times. ... This was the 52nd and final home game of the season at the American Airlines Center, where Dallas was 29-12 in the regular season and 9-2 in the playoffs. The Mavericks sold out all 52 contests. ... This caps an eight-month stretch in which the Dallas area hosted the World Series, Super Bowl and NBA Finals. ... Backup Mavs center Brendan Haywood was inactive with a strained right hip flexor. He also missed Game 3 and played just 3:05 in Game 4. ... Dallas had 23 assists and is 10-0 in the postseason when dishing 20 or more. ... This is Miami's first losing streak since it dropped five straight from Feb. 27-March 8.