AUGUST 4 / Yet again, Texas does not measure up . . .

.. . this time to the entire world.

"The status quo has been an international embarrassment," state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said recently, and we agree.  

That's the Chronicle opining in favor of a new state agency to manage death-row appeals. (Editorial, "Office of last chance: Texas will soon make sure that competent lawyers handle death-row appeals," Houston Chronicle, August 3, 2009)

Trusting the Chronicle's judgment is rarely wise, but at first blush this new agency sounds like a good idea. 

But my point in the quotation above is to demonstrate the editorial board's reflexive notion that places other than Texas are invariably better than Texas -- that outsiders laugh at us and embarrass us by their finer moral sensibilities, and rightly so, per "we agree."  

Here is one example, and here is another.  

The Houston Chronicle doesn't understand Texas and doesn't much like Texas. Yesterday's "international embarrassment" is just the latest example. There will, alas, be more and more and more.

* * *

The other reflex exhibited by "Office of last chance" is the Chronicle's perpetual distaste for private solutions to the woes of this world and unfailing preference for state solutions. Said the Chronicle:

Private lawyers appointed by the courts have too often done lousy jobs.

When it happens -- as it will -- that a government lawyer does a lousy job representing a death-row inmate, international embarrassment will not ensue. And the Chronicle will be insulated from embarrassment or scorn by its pristine good intentions and towering self-regard.

UPDATE: Thanks for the link from Lose an Eye. And for the accompanying comment -- a challenge that all opinionators should take seriously, including those who argue for tax hikes. How much would be enough?

UPDATE: Thanks for the link from blogHouston.

Comments

[Rorschach]

Last time I checked, public defender offices and district attorneys offices and city and county attorney's offices all tended to be postgraduate on-the-job training for lawyers that did not have a high enough GPA or score well enough on the bar exam to be recruited by private law firms.

The reason is simple: The pay and hours are not exactly anything to write home about. As a result the turnover in those jobs tends to be very high.

I really cannot see how this arrangement will be the least bit better than the current one. Granted under the current one, friends and political supporters of the judge in question seem to get the lion's share of the court appointments, so there is the ethical perspective to consider. But on the other hand, they are generally better lawyers, at least on paper.