The State of Texas: March 6, 2014

Today In History

People have been saying “Remember the Alamo!” for 178 years now, thanks, unfortunately, because on March 6, 1836, Mexican forces led by Santa Anna overran the mission and killed everyone (Davy Crockett included) inside.

Daily Roundup

Sebesta Times, Seworsta Times — Oh how the mighty have fallen. For those who’ve been following Texas Monthly Senior Editor Pamela Colloff’s award-winning coverage of the Anthony Graves case, former Burleson County District Attorney Charles Sebesta is a familiar character. He’s the one who put Graves on death row (for eighteen years) using false testimony and withholding the actual killer’s confession, according to the experts on U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned Graves’s conviction. As far back as December, folks like Colloff were asking “Why Was This Prosecutor Never Punished?” Now, it looks like he might be. “The State Bar of Texas has opened an investigation [into Sebesta,” according to the Texas Tribune, “investigating alleged professional misconduct …which, if proven, could result in his disbarment.” Sebesta has long defended his actions, saying that the State Bar already dismissed previous complaints (it should be noted that those complaints were dismissed due to the statute of limitations). Now it seems Sebesta may get a small taste of his own abuse of the legal system, but it’s Graves himself who seems like an ideal man of the law. More than eighteen years after his experience that would break others, Graves “stood defiant outside a courthouse,” on Wednesday and said, “Give us justice.”

City Of Love — LGBT employees of Dallas will soon receive the same cushy benefits as others in the bureaucracy. Wednesday was a “landmark day for the city of Dallas” after the city’s council approved “a statement of support” for the city’s LGBT employees, according to the Dallas Morning News. And boy did they approve it. “The resolution — which, among other things, directs City Manager A.C. Gonzalez to address inequalities in the city’s pension and health-care plans — passed by a vote of 13-2.” There were only two nay votes, one from Councilwoman Vonciel Jones Hill, a Methodist Episcopal minister, who, one would think, would be pretty familiar with the concept universal acceptance, and one from, Sheffie Kadane, who said the resolution was, of all things, discriminatory against … friends without benefits? “You’re bringing out and considering one group only, and everybody in this city ought to be able to have these same rights” said Kadane, who had apparently just watched the Adam Sandler movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. “Two guys just living together should have the same rights.”

Road Raging — As if the hours-long lines weren’t confirmation enough, Austin’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad traffic problem is actually worse than you think. That is, it’s worse than New York City, according to a study by the National Traffic Scoreboard. On the bright side, “the report details that more people driving to work is proof the economy n a city is in a prosperous state,” according to KXAN. More good news: Austin’s still not as bad as Los Angeles. Keep that in mind when contemplating the bad news: Austin is ranked as the fourth-worst city for traffic. And the study’s most depressing finding? Annually, gridlock commuters waste “41 hours, up 3 hours from 2012.” Everybody knew things were bad when a recent study said that the only viable, possible, potential way to alleviate the city’s traffic problem was to simply drive less. Business-wise, though, some enterprising person could make a killing selling audiobooks on the side of the roads.

Party Til You Drop (Then Keep Going) — In a bizarre incident also known as Weekend at Bernie’s III: Juárez Mortis. “Juárez police arrested three men early Wednesday for driving around town with the cadaver of a friend who apparently died while being out with them partying,” according to the El Paso Times. Apparently, a sixty dollar bribe wasn’t enough to stop the cops from searching the car with the dead man in the back seat. “The men told the officers their friend might have died from partying too much. They said the four of them had been partying for several days and using alcohol and drugs.” The man’s wake is expected to be the party of the century.