Naked City

Both the Senate and House Committees on Criminal Jurisprudence heard testimony March 25 on a slew of death penalty reform bills -- including one mandating the creation of an "innocence commission" and crime lab oversight board and another abolishing the death penalty. Among the lengthy list of witnesses: Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project, Josiah Sessions -- recently freed from jail based on a Houston DNA lab screwup -- and Ray Krone, the nation's 100th inmate freed from death row for actual innocence. -- J.S.

The House State Affairs committee is considering bills endorsing the Universal Living Wage, the minimum-wage formula (developed by Austin advocate Richard Troxell) designed to allow anyone working a 40-hour week to afford basic rental housing and other necessities. HB 915 calls for a ULW minimum wage for state employees, and HCR 74 asks the federal government to adopt a ULW as the federal minimum wage. Both were filed by Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth. -- L.A.

Texas Campaign for the Environment continues its push to make computer manufacturers more responsible for what happens to their product at the end of its useful life: HB 2967 and SB 1239 would hold manufacturers financially responsible for recycling and properly disposing of electronic waste. The bills are sponsored by Austin's Rep. Elliott Naishtat and Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos. No action has been taken on the House bill; Barrientos' version has been referred to the Natural Resources committee. TCE has been particularly targeting industry leader Dell Computer. Dell announced last week that it will have a five-city recycling tour beginning Saturday, offering home pickup of personal computers to be donated to charity. The tour includes Nashville, Columbus, Charlotte, and Portland, Ore., and ends in Austin on April 22 and 27. TCE and its ally, the Wisconsin-based Computer Takeback Campaign, criticized the tour as a mere PR move. -- L.N.

Citizens along the Rio Grande have long been troubled by the heavy-handed, sometimes-fatal tactics of the federal government in patrolling the border (see "Fatal Error," Dec. 25, 1998). Last week, border-area ranchers announced the formation of the Border Land Association "in an attempt to strengthen the cooperation with the U.S. Border Patrol and enhance the security of our nation's borders." "Over the past four years -- long before September 11 -- the USBP has begun to act like an 'occupation force,' ignoring, not only private-property rights, but repudiating the assistance that landowners can provide -- and have previously provided -- to help control illegal entry into Texas," says BLA President Gene Walker of Laredo. "Unfortunately, landowners have begun to fear the USBP's practices more than they fear the illegal aliens crossing their land." A BLA press release complains that, among other things, agents build roads and install wireless monitors without landowner permission, chase and harass both livestock and ranchers, prevent landowners from entering and leaving their own property, and endanger livestock by cutting fences and ignoring quarantines. It also says that landowners' attempts to negotiate with the USBP "have been unilaterally rejected by USBP agents and supervisors." -- L.N.