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Texas judges free to decide
State murder law allows them wide latitude in sentencingJim Schutze: Hampton will hang tough. Page A-20.
state judges
A group of seven Oak Lawn ministers and the criminal sen
executive director of the Greater Dallas Communi- but has prove
ty of Churches decried state District Judge Jack should be m
Hampton's remarks about two homosexual murder "This isf
victims Wednesday and voiced a now-familiar re- counsel to th
frain, asking the judge to "repudiate" his com- nal Justice,
ments. years to life
"What I'm concerned about is, in criminal justice, statute. "It's
saying that one life is more important than anoth- systems of s
er," Milton Guttierrez, pastor of the Oak Lawn Hampton,
United Methodist Church, said after the noon news local felony
conference at Bethany Presbyterian Church. outrage after
But that may be precisely what judges in Texas Herald that
are elected to do, state officials said Wednesday. 19, to 30 yes
Unlike the U.S. Congress and legislatures in 13
other states, the Texas Legislature has endowed
4-16 Thursday, December 22, 1988and juries with the power to choose
tences from broad punishment ranges
vided no guidance on how that choice
ade, officials said.
five-to-99 land," said Carl Reynolds,
he Texas Senate's Committee on Crimi-
referring to the sentencing range of five
in prison provided by the state murder
probably one of the most wide-open
entencing in the country."
a Republican who has served on the
bench since 1981, provoked national
r saying in an interview with the Times
he sentenced Richard Lee Bednarski,
ars in prison, rather than the maximum
Please see JUDGES, A-16Jack Hampton remained a tar-
get of criticism Wednesday.JUDGES
From A-1
term possible, in part because
Bednarski's victims were "queers
cruising the streets picking up
teenage boys" and, therefore,
were "asking for trouble." Bed-
narski will be eligible for parole
in 7 years.
Public reaction was swift, furi-
ous and divided: Several elected
officials and more than 500 dem-
onstrators gathered at City Hall
Plaza on Tuesday to call for
Hampton's ouster; and a group of
clergymen plans to march out-
side the Dallas County Court-
house at 5 p.m. today to show
their "appreciation for the judge's
moral stand against sodomy,"
said Donald Skelton, pastor of
the Fountain of the Living Word
Church.
In a joint statement, the seven
pastors, whose congregations in-
clude a large number of homo-
sexuals, and two other ministers
voiced the same concern cited by
civil rights groups in Dallas and
nationally.
The pastors said they "deplore
the mentality" Hampton ex-
pressed because it "suggests that
all human beings are not of equal
value and are not entitled to
equal protection under the law."
"Any one of us who pledges
allegiance to the flag and to lib-
erty and justice for all has to un-
derstand what the issue is," said
Community of Churches execu-
tive director Thomas Quigley,
whose group represents 300
churches in the Dallas area.
Quigley said he also would urge
other Christians to condemn
Hampton's remarks publicly.
"The Judeo-Christian tradition
has always affirmed the equal
worth of all human beings," Gut-
tierrez added.
While the "equal worth of hu-
man beings" may be a dearly
held tenet of American democra-
cy, it is not mentioned in state
murder laws. In Texas, a person
convicted of murder can hpn-I hat's why the
judges are elected
and put on the
bench - to exercise
discretion.'
Ron Rawls, director,
Center for the Judiciary
tenced to as much as life in pris-
on or as little as five years. The
law also allows a judge or jury to
convert any felony sentence of
between five and 10 years in
prison to a suspended sentence
and 10 years' probation, said
Reynolds.
Deciding which punishment is
appropriate is left solely to a
judge's or jury's discretion.
In one case, for example, a lo-
cal lawyer convicted of hiring
two men to kill an associate was
sentenced by a jury to serve 10
years' probation for the man's
death. The death of the target's
girlfriend, which the lawyer had
not planned, brought him 10
years in prison.
Meanwhile, one of the men
who carried out the lawyer's plan
was sent to prison for life.
In Bednarski's case, Hampton
said he decided on a sentence of
30 years after considering Bed-
narski's youth, his clean record
and the fact that he was reared
by a stepfather who is a Euless
police officer, as well as the be-
havior of his gay victims.
"The Legislature ... handed to
the judges and juries of this state
the lower to let the punishment
fit the crime," said state District
Judge Ron Chapman. "And no
two people are going to make the
same decision."
Canons of judicial ethics also
are silent on the issue of discre-
tion in sentencing, state officials
said. Robert Flowers, executive
director of the state Commission
on Judicial Conduct, has saidthat while Hampton may be sub-
that while Hampton may be sub-
ject to disciplinary action for the
indiscretion of his remarks, his
reasons for setting Bednarski's
sentence are not subject to scruti-
ny. The commission, which is in-
vestigating Hampton, will hear
the case on Jan. 13.
"Obviously, the Legislature set
it up that way to take care of sit-
uations where there's a differ-
ence of the crimes, who the vic-
tim is, who the defendant is and
things like that," said Ron Rawls,
director of the Texas Center for
the Judiciary, which sponsors ed-
ucational programs for state
judges.
"That's why the judges are
elected and put on the bench -
to exercise discretion," Rawls
said.
While two legislative commit-
tees have discussed limiting judi-
cial discretion in sentencing, the
issue has attracted more atten-
tion as a tool for managing prison
populations than as a means to
ensure that equal crimes receive
equal punishment, Reynolds
said. Legislation addressing the
issue never has been introduced.
he said.
Elsewhere, however, disparity
among sentences for similar
crimes has caused concern and
action. Thirteen states have
adopted sentencing guidelines,
and in 1984 Congress established
the U.S. Sentencing Commission,
which imposed strict guidelines
for federal sentences effective
Nov. 1, 1987. If the guidelines
withstand a challenge pending
before the U.S. Supreme Court,
every person convicted of first-
degree murder in a federal court
- regardless of the defendant's
record or the behavior of the vic-
tim - is guaranteed a life sen-
tence without parole.
"What Congress saw was that
different judges faced with dif-
ferent defendants charged with
similar crimes were imposing
vastly different sentences," said
Paul K. Martin, communications
director for the commission. "It
was too much the luck of the
draw."By Lori Montgomery
OF THE TIMES HERALD STAFF54
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Montgomery, Lori. [Clipping: Texas judges free to decide: State murder law allows them wide latitude in sentencing], clipping, December 22, 1988; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1584614/m1/1/?rotate=270: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.