TX Prison Guards indicted in inmates assault

In this article two former state correctional officers have been indicted on federal charges of assaulting an inmate, Robert Tanzini in November 2002. Eugene Morris Jr., 39, of Huntsville and Tracy Dean Jewett, 35, of Huffman are both accused of not giving an inmate his civil right to be “free of cruel and unusual punishment”. Morris is accused of kicking and injuring Tanzini, and both are accused of making a false entry into a corrections "use of force" report with the intent of obstructing justice. If they are convicted they will receive up to 10 years of prison and a fine of $250,000. This assault was witnessed by other sergeants and correctional officers, but the case was dismissed in 2004 because Tanzini was representing himself and wasn’t able to file the required court documents.
I think this case is ridiculous. This should have been taken cared of a long time ago. If this assault was witnessed by others, not by inmates but by correctional officers and sergeants, then these two “correctional officers” should have been sentenced back in 2002 when this assualt occurred. I thought there was some kind of law giving inmates the right to trial? Why did Tanzini have to be represent himself, isn’t the law supposed to offer him a lawyer? Tanzini didn’t come out of the assualt with just a couple of bruises, no we’re talking about him having to go to a nearby hospital in critical condition suffering from skull fractures and other injuries because of this correctional officer. Regardless of what provoked the officer to commit such an assualt shouldn’t matter, I mean it should to an extent but he shouldn’t have allowed himself to get this far carried away. If I were the judge of this case I would take away both Jewett and Morris’s privileges as a correctional officers, sentence them to prison for 10 years, fine them $250,000 and offer some help to Tanzini’s family with his future health bills.

Let teens work at polls

Should teenagers be allowed to work as election clerks? Roger Williams, former state’s chief elections officer, recently made the suggestion that people who are not old enough to vote should be allowed to work at the polls as election clerks. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with this proposal because I think that by allowing teenagers to be involved with elections at a young age will prepare us and give us some insight/experience for when we do become of legal voting age. During the nonpresidential elections from 1990-2002 the turnout between young Texans declined to being below the national average according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Maybe by allowing teenagers to be involved before they are of legal age, there will be a rise in the percentage of young Texans in nonpresidential elections. Some people may argue that teenagers are “too immature” to be able to handle something as important as this, but really all the teenagers would be doing is sitting for 12 hours making sure nothing goes wrong, just signing people in. I don’t think the teenagers who would volunteer to do this will most likely be ones who are thinking about having a career somewhere in politics. Forcing teenagers is a different story though. Rep. Trey Martinez Fisher tried carrying a proposal that require high school students to work as election clerks in order to graduate, but this House Bill 994 was never heard. If teenagers were forced to work as election clerks then of course you’re going to get the immature flock and they most likely wouldn’t take things as seriously as they are. Being a teenager still myself, I think by allowing us to work as election clerks by the age of 16 would definitely give us more knowledge of politics and that way we wouldn’t be so clueless when we go to vote. The only time we hear about politics is in our senior year during high school when we are required to take a government class, and that’s not enough. So I don’t see a problem with letting teenagers work as election clerks, it could possibly increase our turnout.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/10/05/1005elections.html

Privately run youth lockup's closure raises questions about state oversight (Stage 3)

This article is talking about the living conditions of teenage delinquents. These juvenile delinquents are wearing the same disgusting dirty clothes day after day there were even kids sleeping on dirty mattresses, how sanitary is this? Some of the beds go without bed linens. Sure these kids have done some pretty horrible stuff, they don’t deserve to be treated this bad. Even state prisons have a cleaner facility than this youth commission. If this youth commission is being monitored by four state workers how could this abuse have passed unseen? Youth commission official announced that they were going to transfer 197 juveniles from Coke County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte to Youth Commission-run lockups because of the unsanitary and dangerous conditions they have these juveniles living in. These kids were clearly neglected. If there is four state members supposedly closely monitoring the Youth Commissions, then they need to be reevaluated because this shouldn’t have gone unnoticed, this is ridiculous. The Youth Commission officials are seeing that this matter is being fixed. Psychological assessments are going to be given among all the youths and they are also going to be given clean clothes and a haircut. I’m not saying these kids should be given a luxurious lifestyle, but they also surely don’t deserve being treated like abandoned puppies. These kids did something horrible, but nothing horrible enough to be sent to this Youth Commission and be sent to their death. The complete article can be read at
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/10/03/1003tyc.html