Naked City

The Texas Civil Rights Project on Tuesday filed suit against the town of Crawford and its police chief on behalf of five protesters arrested May 3 for violating the town's demonstration ordinance. That law, enacted after the McLennan Co. hamlet's most famous resident became president, requires protesters, in groups of any size, to get permits 15 days in advance and to confine protests to the high school football field. The May 3 protesters arrived in Crawford -- where President Bush was entertaining Australian Prime Minister John Howard at his ranch -- from Dallas and Austin (after the Showdown in Texas rally at the Capitol); they were almost immediately arrested and spent the night in the county jail in Waco. TCRP Director Jim Harrington says the Crawford ordinance is "clearly unconstitutional"; in addition to suing to overturn the law, he's seeking dismissal of the misdemeanor charges against the activists. -- M.C.M.

Terry McEachern, the district attorney for Hale and Swisher counties and the prosecutor in the notorious Tulia drug-bust cases, was convicted last week in a New Mexico court of driving while intoxicated last November. Judge Frank Wilson sentenced McEachern to two days in jail and fined him $300; he may also be required to get alcohol counseling and monitoring. McEachern was recorded on videotape while failing sobriety tests, and witnesses in another car said he'd been driving very erratically for some distance. He refused to take a breath test. Swisher Co. Commissioner Billy Settle told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that, "as a public official, I'm sure it would probably be best if [McEachern] stepped down." -- M.K.

If you were tracking the Texas Legislature bill that would have required electronic-equipment manufacturers (especially computer makers) to recycle post-consumer electronic waste, better luck next time. The bill (2967 in the House, Naishtat; 1239 in the Senate, Barrientos) quietly died in committee. "We were disappointed that after the legislative committees finally gave our e-waste bills a hearing that the legislators failed to take action," said Robin Schneider of Texas Campaign for the Environment, which had helped craft the bill. "However, having the legislation allowed us to educate many people about the problem." -- L.N.

In a June 16 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court curtailed the government's ability to forcibly medicate mentally ill defendants to make them competent to stand trial. The 6-3 ruling, penned by Justice Stephen Breyer, held that forced medication must be in a defendant's best interest, must be the only way prosecutors can bring a case to trial, and must be "substantially unlikely" to cause harmful side effects that might infringe on the defendant's constitutional right to participate in the trial. -- J.S.