End of the Rope

Seeking justice in Houston

Shortly before midnight last May 5, an Army veteran named Joe Campos Torres, 23, was arrested for shouting insults and threatening customers at the Club 21, located in a Mexican-American community on Houston's east side. Wearing Army fatigues and combat boots, Torres appeared drunk but apparently healthy when police officers took him away. A few hours later, when the police brought him to jail, he was so badly bruised that duty officers refused to book him. They told the arresting officers to take Torres to Ben Taub General Hospital for treatment. Instead, six policemen drove him one mile to an area known as "the Hole," behind a large warehouse facing the muddy Buffalo Bayou that winds through the city. There, according to subsequent testimony, they pushed Torres off a 20-ft. dock into the bayou. His body was discovered two days later, floating in 15ft. of water.

Two of the policemen, Terry Denson, 27, and Stephen Orlando, 22, were prosecuted at a trial that was moved from Houston to the small town of Huntsville. They were convicted last Oct. 7, but only of negligent homicide. Each got a suspended sentence of one year and a $2,000 fine.

After that light sentence, the U.S. Attorney for Houston, J.A. ("Tony") Canales, himself a Mexican American, brought federal charges against Denson, Orlando and a third policeman, Joseph Janish, 24, on charges of conspiracy and violating Torres' civil rights. He acted under a new Justice Department policy inaugurated by Attorney General Griffin Bell that allows federal trials for defendants previously tried at the state level when this is necessary "to vindicate broader principles."

Last month the second trial, too, ended in conviction, but again the sentence was mild: one year in prison for the civil rights violation plus a ten-year suspended sentence for conspiracy. Said U.S. District Judge Ross N. Sterling, a former law partner of ex-Governor John Connally: "A long period of confinement would have little impact on the Houston police department, where I believe the heart of the trouble lies."

That explanation hardly satisfied Houston's outraged Mexican Americans, who staged a protest march through downtown Houston. "I think our community is at the end of its rope," cried State Representative Ben Reyes. Similarly angered by the second light verdict, Prosecutor Canales last week obtained Bell's personal approval and then filed a rare legal challenge to Judge Sterling's sentence, demanding prison terms of ten years. Argued the Justice Department: "The U.S. has grave concern that the imposition of probation in this case will cause citizens of all races and backgrounds to believe that the sentence was a result of continuing inequality of treatment accorded to minorities."

The policemen's defense lawyers promptly retorted that the U.S. Attorney was "making political speeches rather than legal points." Indeed there were grounds to question Justice's actions. Technically, the only way the Justice Department could find to challenge Judge Sterling was to claim that suspension of the sentence was illegal for so serious a crime under federal law. One expert on Justice Department procedures argued: "The Houston sentence is not illegal and the department knows it isn't illegal. But there's no other way to appeal it."

The dispute over the sentence may be resolved eventually by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court; meanwhile it gave added force to the argument that more uniform guidelines for sentencing are needed. Such guidelines are contained in the revised U.S. Criminal Code that has been approved by the Senate and is now awaiting action in the House.

Still, the new U.S. Code will have little immediate impact on the administration of local justice. Unfortunately, in Houston, which is fast acquiring an unsavory reputation for "frontier justice," there are some who believe Judge Sterling's sentences for the police officers were too harsh. After all, as one citizen noted, "A few years ago, they would have been set free."

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