Mad about M.A.D.D.?

Many years ago, in a Galaxy Far Far Away; I was the Municipal Judge of the City of College Station, Texas.  My appointment to that post, was not without its critics and detractors.
 

One old high school friend opined that I was the best qualified for the post because I had committed virtually every Class C offense imaginable.  While that was something of an overstatement, I had happily and consistently violated all statutes regulating the consumption of alcohol.

Accordingly I did not regard under 21 years old possession/consumption of alcohol as a crime calling out to the Lord for vengeance.  I gave many of the defendants deferred adjudication (non conviction probation) and ordered them into Alcohol Education.

This leniency brought me into the crosshairs of the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.).  I believed I was unfairly and inaccurately targeted in the M.A.D.D. newsletter and in retrospect I did not handle it in a tactful and diplomatic manner.

When I talked to the local M.A.D.D. President (a very intelligent and articulate lady) she said “I don’t appreciate being called a liar!!”

I responded “Ma’am, if you will quit lying about me I’ll quit calling you a liar": and things went south from there.  I felt and still feel like I was right, but I should not have been so personally truculent.   The attached article from June 12, 1990 is a by product of that exchange.

Volume III –The Great Squeaky Campaign of 1978

                After high school, I didn’t have much contact with John Jr. (Squeaky). On one memorable occasion he rode by my folk’s house on College View in Bryan; while I was sitting on the front porch with a high school friend drinking a beer.

                John had already been indulging, so he joined us and we started discussing topics of the day. John was very unhappy about the “busing” of students to achieve racial balance. He launched into a very eloquent denunciation of this concept and while waving his arms, lost his footing and fell into my mother’s hedge.

                We pulled him out of the hedge and he continued his oration as if nothing had happened. During this time I learned that Squeaky had secretly placed a football goal post on his grandfather’s ranch and had taught himself how to kick a football.

                He had never played in junior high or high school so I was amazed to see him suited up with the Aggie football team during the pregame and booming kicks through the uprights on Kyle Field. He was a walk-on and never got to play in a regular season game; but the fact that he was willing to even try out for the team showed his enormous courage and spirit.

                It was when I served as his campaign manager in the 1978 Democratic Primary, that I became close to John and realized that underneath his surface he was a man of great intellect, compassion and sensitivity. He was an original, completely honest and devoid of any pretense or hypocrisy.

                Despite his natural shyness and other personal issues he was able to defeat a brilliant young attorney named O.E. “Ed” Elmore, who had just moved to town and subsequently became a successful and respected member of the Brazos County legal community. John ran extremely well in the Black and Hispanic precincts and I believed it was because those voters knew instinctively that John Jr. was a fair and sympathetic man.

                Our local bar just observed the 6^th annual Atticus Finch day, and in retrospect John M. “Squeaky” Barron, Jr. had many of the qualities that made Atticus Finch such an iconic linchpin for the legal profession. I appreciate all the kind words and encouragement I have received for writing about Squeaky. It has been very therapeutic for me to reminisce about him. As is often the case, we don’t realize how much we care about certain people until they are gone. Thanks for helping me to remember a very special man. 

Squeaky Volume II

John M. Barron, Jr. (Squeaky) was the son and grandson of two (2) very powerful and talented attorneys.  His grandfather, W.S. Barron, Sr. was Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives in the 1920’s; and later District Judge in Brazos County from 1940 to 1955.

          W.S. or Uncle Stuart as we called him grew up Iola, Texas in Northern Grimes County.   His parents had moved to Texas as children after each family lost their land in Alabama during Reconstruction.

          W.S. was a lifelong “Yellow Dog” Democrat, due at least in part to the misconduct of the Radical Republicans after Appomattox.

          He was extremely successful politically as well as financially due to his drive and work ethic.  He loved raising cattle and acquiring land to run them on.  A deeply religious man, he didn’t drink or smoke yet he was not judgmental about those who did indulge.  He started the original Business Man’s Bible Class and was a founding member of the Central Baptist Church in Bryan.

          His oldest son, John M. Barron, Sr. (known as “John M.”), was also a talented lawyer but enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh.  He had a Hemingway aura about him and was ruggedly handsome and adventurous.  He loved to drink, fight, chase women and gamble as often as possible.  He served as District Attorney and District Judge in Brazos County and served as a Justice on the 14^th Court of Appeals in Houston.

          Like his father W.S., John M. was a tough act to follow.  His relationship with Squeaky was very complicated; being at once protective and abusive towards his eldest son.  It always seemed to me that he favored his younger son David, who was both more volatile and more charming and personable than Squeaky.

          The pressure of living in a small town with a legendary father and iconic grandfather who were both still active in the community was in many ways more than John Jr. could handle.  As a result John was a shy, even withdrawn young man whose only escape was his alcohol and occasional mischief as related in Volume I.

          He attended law school and returned to practice law almost as a duty or obligation rather than a choice.  John Jr. was shortly afterwards appointed County Attorney largely on the strength of his family name.  When he was facing a strong challenger in an election to keep his job; John M. tapped me to be his Campaign Manager.  I will discuss the great Squeaky Campaign of 1978 in the next entry.

Qualified for Death

“Capital murder juries must be "death qualified," meaning anyone who fundamentally disagrees with the death penalty cannot serve. You get a jury of your peers as long as those peers all agree it's okay for the government to kill you.”  http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2014/01/no-right-answers-questioning-capital.html

If the tide of public opinion eventually turns and abolitionists are more prevalent than pro-death penalty folks on capital jury panels, will it still be constitutional to insist all jurors be death qualified?

High Crimes? Pondering Colorado, Marijuana, and Murder

The internet is abuzz over legalized recreational marijuana, so I thought I would toss in my two cents. 

It is going to be fascinating to watch what happens in Colorado and Washington State.  My guess is that they will see benefits in not only tourism and tax revenues, but hopefully also a reduction in some violent drug-related crimes. 

In Brazos County, we have had at least four marijuana related murders in the last few years.  In none of the cases did marijuana consumption itself make people behave violently (they weren’t so high that they killed somebody), but the illegal sale or theft of marijuana was a crucial part of each case.

In 2013, Phil Banks and I represented Christopher Hernandez a quiet nineteen year old who was charged with murder along with two other young men after a weed deal went South. Throughout the case I couldn’t help but think whether or not the murder would have happened if marijuana was legalized.  Could the lives of the victim, the three young men charged, and all of their families been saved if possessing weed was not a crime? 

Obviously no one can answer that with certainty, but I am hopeful the Colorado experiment might shed some light on the larger criminal repercussions of decriminalization.     

Reflections of November 22, 1963

That Friday morning I caught a ride to school with my good friend Craig Davis; his Dad, Judge W.C. “Bill” Davis drove us in his green Buick.  The Judge was a “Yellow Dog” Democrat, which wasn’t surprising because in 1963 only Democrats were electable in Brazos County.

Judge Davis always liked to tease me and so he asked me if I was going to the JFK $100.00 a plate fundraiser that night in Austin.  I was much more interested in my first basketball practice that afternoon as a Lamar Bulldog.  I was quite pleased about having “made” the seventh (7^th) grade team after tryouts a week earlier.

I was probably day dreaming about my glorious future as a hoopster when the loudspeaker announcement came about President Kennedy being shot in Dallas.  A few minutes later we were told he was dead.  Everyone was stunned and it seemed like a fog of depression enveloped everyone in the school.

There was one of my classmates who was laughing about the killing (his family was virulently anti-Catholic and therefore anti Kennedy) I was too bewildered to respond at the time, but the next week I was able to pick a fight with him in P.E. class.

It seemed like everyone else, even people who hated JFK, were appalled and saddened by this completely unexpected tragedy.  While my perspective was no doubt influenced by the concurrent onset of my adolescence; it always seemed to me that November 22, 1963 marked the end of an era of innocence and optimism and that things went downhill rapidly into an era of cynicism and fear.  Looking back on the last 50 years of our history I find nothing that changes that perspective.

So let’s say a prayer for JFK and for our Country and hope we can find our way back into the light and optimism that we lost 50 years ago.

A Reminisce of Squeaky

I turned 63 on November 5, 2013 and it was significant in that it was the first November 5^th since I was born that I didn’t share a birthday with my cousin Squeaky, aka John M. Barron, Jr.  Squeaky was an extremely colorful individual both as a youngster and later as a successful attorney.

 

To be perfectly honest, there were times during my adolescence that I tried to downplay my relationship with John Jr. (old Bryan people referred to him as “Squeaky”).  When I studied Anthropology and Sociology in college I started thinking of John Jr. as a contemporary Ancestor.  It always seemed like Squeaky was a step or two closer to the frontier that I was.

 

Squeaky and I had a Speech class together (I was a Sophomore and he was a Senior) at Stephen F. Austin High School.  John was a painfully shy man and to say he was socially awkward would be a massive understatement.  Example, while I was trying to talk to a girl in class another student came up and said “You are kin to Squeaky, Banks can you fart at will the way he can?”

 

Earlier than that I would hear reports that Squeaky had been banished from the Palace and Queen movie theatres due to mischievous and inappropriate conduct.  There were allegations that he had switched the signs on the Men’s and Ladies Restrooms and also that he had dropped quantities of vegetable soup on patrons from the balcony while pretending to be nauseated.

 

There was also a recurring rumor that John Jr. was the BB Sniper who struck repeatedly at night in downtown Bryan.  It was the era of Charles Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald and the local press labeled the unknown perpetrator as the “BB Sniper.”  To be fair Squeaky always claimed that it wasn’t him although later in life he did have a fondness for firearms.  The true identity of the BB Sniper was never discovered.

 

When I took my Bride (Martha) to her first Aggie Bonfire, we were greeted by a drunk man in a cowboy hat, hitting on a bottle of whisky.  He lost his balance and fell in the mud; as we were helping him up his coat opened and it was clear he had a .38 he was packing in a holster.

 

When he left my Bride said “Philip, how do you know somebody like that?”  I said “That’s my cousin Squeaky.”  She still claims she didn’t meet him until after we tied the knot, but her memory is subject to impeachment.  I will continue this reminiscence in a future blog entry.