Bush's position on the issue is illustrated by a series of events that took place last summer. A Texas state representative had offered an exceedingly modest bill to the legislature that would have allowed counties to choose whether to continue with the current system, in which judges appointed defense lawyers, or to set up public defender's offices of their own. The bill would have also have created a county-by-county list of minimally qualified capital defense attorneys from which the judges could choose. (One index of the state of the Texas legal system is that another provision of the bill would have guaranteed suspects the right to meet with a lawyer within 20 days--almost three weeks--of their incarceration. In most areas of the U.S., the accused rarely spend 72 hours in jail before they receive a lawyer.) Both houses of the Texas legislature voted unanimously--unanimously--in the bill's favor, and the overdue reform seemed likely to become a reality.

Before the bill reached the Governor's desk, however, Texas judges, aghast that they might lose the valuable (and perhaps profitable) ability to choose the lawyers themselves, used their full political influence to get the bill killed. As a result of the judges' lobbying efforts, many members of the legislature, including one of the bill's original co-sponsors, feigned ignorance of the bill's provisions and dropped their support for the measure. Bush agreeably followed with a veto, saying that the changes were too "drastic" and judges were "better able to assess the quality of legal representation" than county officials. He also stated that the requirement that the state release suspects who had not been assigned a lawyer after 20 days in jail "poses a danger to public safety."

Before one can "restore honor to the White House," one should first restore honor and fairness to the state judiciary. The judicial system in Texas, taken as a whole, uniquely disadvantages poor defendants by depriving them of fair representation at trial, of fair chances on appeal, and of fair treatment at all levels by judges to whose campaigns they cannot afford to contribute. Yet unless a court victory forces a change in the judicial process, Texans may have to wait for public officials who have the resolve to overcome political interests and stop the sale of justice to the highest bidder.

Stephen E. Sachs '02, a history concentrator in Quincy House, is associate editorial chair of The Crimson.