Adiós, Señor Taylor y Romero - with love and respect!

 They were raised in farm country and not wealthy. Both men traced their ancestors far back, one to a conquistador traveling our valley in 1598, the other to a young Brit who immigrated in 1635.

One served four years in the Navy during World War II, the other graduated from the Naval Academy right after the war.

Each was a partner in a loving, lifelong marriage that could be an example to all of us. (Death ended one after 63 years and will soon end the other after 76.)

They were deeply religious (one Catholic, one Southern Baptist, until the Baptists ceased letting women be pastors.) Both were gentle, courteous, and thoughtful, yet could be firm when appropriate.

As boys, both saw ethnic prejudices up close.

One was Hispanic/Anglo. When he and his wife moved out to an old house in Mesilla (not yet so fancy), visitors from his professional life said, “You can’t raise your kids in this sort of place.” He replied, “I was born in this sort of place.” The other, a white southern boy, lived in a village populated mostly by “coloreds.” His staunchly segregationist father let him befriend Black farmhands’ kids. Both grew to oppose racism passionately.

Both continued to serve the public into their 90s. When one retired from teaching, he got talked into running for our state legislature and served 20 years, known as “the Conscience of the Legislature.” For the rest of his life, he actively supported progressive ideas and inspired and mentored younger candidates. The other, after politics, won a Nobel Prize and was fostering peace and hammering nails with Habitat for Humanity for decades.

J. Paul Taylor was a beloved friend, with a great sense of humor. He repeatedly amazed me. Meeting scores of people, he not only knew everyone’s name but asked after each person’s parents, siblings, or dog. Listening to him talk about the legislature with a mutual friend who’d known him back then, I wondered if he ever forgot anything.

I never met Jimmy Carter. Wikipedia notes that “As a dark horse candidate not well known outside of Georgia, Carter won the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination.” As a young reporter in Las Cruces in 1975, I suddenly noticed all these middle-class folks from Georgia walking our streets, visiting with people. They said that soon we’d be hearing about their wonderful friend and neighbor Jimmy Carter, ‘cause he’d be running for President. They were sincere and persuasive, but no one felt real sure they were sane.

The first time candidate Taylor canvassed in Mesilla, he emerged from the first house at the same time a supporter finished a whole block. One year, a constituent’s dog bit him. Days later, someone asked if he’d confirmed with the owner that the dog had been vaccinated against rabies. He said he hadn’t, because asking would make the owner feel so terrible about the bite. He just looked over the fence every so often to make sure the dog was acting normally.

Both fought for justice early, without waiting ‘til it was fashionable. J Paul did much to lessen inequality here; and Carter’s early antiracism positions were startling in a southern politician. (Right before and right after Carter, Georgia’s governors were virulent racists.

These were special people. One died this month at 102. The other, 98, is receiving hospice care at home. Each enriched our world considerably.

                                                    – 30 --

 

J Paul Is 95!

[The above column appeared Sunday, 26 February 2023, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and on KTAL (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and be available on both stations’ websites.]

I previously wrote columns on J Paul June 10, 2012 ( "A Saturday Afternoon in Mesilla" ), May 11, 2014 ( “An Admirable Friend” ), September 7, 2015 ( "Where Love Abides - J Paul Taylor is 95!" ) [this was prepared as a column but events preempted it], September 3, 2017 ( "Heroes at 97 - Marthe Cohn and J Paul Taylor" ) [this one’s less about J Paul and more about Marthe Cohn], and September 2, 2018 ( "Civil Political Discourse -- an Endangered Practice" ), and mentioned him in numerous others.

He was a wonderful man, a great friend, and, obviously, someone who helped many, either privately, in personal relationships or as a teacher, or publicly, as legislator and respected and beloved elder statesman.

Reading through those five columns, and reflecting on more private times with Paul, is like leafing through a photo album. (And most, particularly the one from his 95^th birthday, include many photos.)

What none of this quite says is how delightful he was to spend time with one-on-one or in a smaller group. He stayed witty, sharp, curious, and caring at ages most people won’t reach and many will be querulous, quarrelsome, or no longer home. It helps that he was beloved. (I can remember only one person in the past decade who had something negative to say about him, and, as I recall, it was a political grudge more than personal.) But he was beloved because he made himself beloved, by who he was and how he treated others. (A cherished personal memory is of his face when he spoke of my Sunday columns and added, “I get so mad when they attack you!”)

One day we took a ride to the home he grew up in. Kari and I interviewed him, while Rob and sometimes I shot video. It was an interesting visit to his past, adding a dimension to our knowledge of him.

The second of my Sunday columns on Paul includes this:

It's not something we've discussed, but I think he lives each day with gratitude, as all of us should. He mourns his wife, one of his sons, and who knows what and whom else; but while J. Paul is alive he will not only enjoy each day but bring some joy to others.

Though he would likely demur, he has at every stage of his life been an example to his community. As a young man of mixed ethnicity in an unwise world, he got on with his work; was a loving husband and father, and a caring teacher; and (without a chip on his shoulder) said what needed to be said, probably in a way uniquely capable of being heard by those who needed to hear. Later, at an age when most are preoccupied with golf or bridge, he battled politically for what he believed. At an age most of us won't even reach, he continues to stand up for what he believes is right. Quietly, with an apparent humility that only makes his words more effective.

 

That column was also interspersed with this a poem, for what it’s worth:

In Mexican dress
the children dance as they've learned.
The village elder
has only to smile and clap
with delight he seems to feel.

He has seen seasons
come and go, fought many fights.
Now they honor him.
His body fails more and more,
as they learn to control theirs.

He waves as they pass.
He knows all the village kids,
taught their grandfathers.
When a great tree dies, it leaves
a huge hole where its roots were.

 

The account of his 95^th birthday party, at the Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, gives a flavor of J Paul:

J. Paul is a gentleman. He is smart, funny, and sweet-natured; but when he stands up for what he believes, he has a spine of steel.  . . .

Now, as Paul speaks, the Organs are visible through the window behind him. I remember listening when he spoke briefly at an outdoor press conference of Hispanic leaders calling for support for the Monument proposal. The nearby Robledos Mountains, part of the proposed monument, were named for an ancestor of J. Paul's. Tonight a state official reads a tribute birthday letter to Paul signed by Mr. and Mrs. Obama.

. . . 

Some folks have a quality of time and culture I respect. Their generations intertwine like vines, growing thick and strong with the decades. They did not arrive last year from Michigan.

Mark Medoff with Hope

The room is full of Paul's family and friends. Many are my friends too. I photograph a man in his seventies, kissing his infant granddaughter, and see the 28-year-old professor he was in 1969 who held his fiction-writing class out in the Corbett Center lobby because classrooms were too dull. I greet a retired judge whom I have not seen for forty years by apologizing for what I wrote about him in the newspaper back then. (He reminds me that trial lawyers develop thick skins.)

Watching the genuine joy and affection with which Paul greets all these people from so many moments in his long life, I remember his reunion at that book-signing with a schoolmate who now lived in Hatch. They hadn't seen each other in years. With neither able to drive, they might not get to talk again soon – or ever. I do not see him tonight, and wonder whether they will meet again.

Paul combines love of history with openness to new ideas; Catholic faith with progressive politics; and the wisdom of age with youth-like joy.

Paul combines love of history with openness to new ideas; Catholic faith with progressive politics; and the wisdom of age with youth-like joy.

Paul's beautiful house in Mesilla is a state monument that will teach generations of children and tourists something of what life was like in a vanished time and place.

One of Paul's daughters said that what mattered most in that house was “the love that abided there.” I see it in Paul's eyes.

You’ve more than earned your rest, amigo!

Rihanna, Abortion, and Us

I’m not much for Super Bowl half-time shows, though I appreciate that Rihanna successfully ordered a racist presidential candidate to cease using her music at rallies. My wife said Rihanna looked pregnant.

“Pro-life” folks have seized on Rihanna’s pregnancy as if it contradicts her political views. They evidently believe that supporting people’s rights to decide stuff about their own bodies means being against pregnancy.

Pride in a pregnancy, and love and hopes for a child, aren't inconsistent with believing women whose pregnancies are dangerous, abusive, unhealthy, financially disastrous, or just too damned inconvenient right now should be free to end them.

When friends have babies, we share in their delight. Pregnancy, when the child is welcome, is a joyful event. Some pregnancies are joyless. Sure, an unexpected pregnancy can work out fine; but it’s not our business to order folks to abort or give birth.

But the folks twittering about Rihanna see choice supporters as evil, baby-hating monsters. “You voted for Biden but you’re delighted a grandkid is coming? Jeez, what a hypocrite!”

The love and support I’d offer a pregnant friend or relative is not conditioned on whether or not she plans to give birth. If I have an opinion, I might, if asked, mildly voice it. But only as another perspective to toss into her bucket of thoughts and emotions, and factor in – if she cares to. Sure, a desired pregnancy is cause for celebration, while abortion is a medicalprocedure. I’ve never heard anyone express delight at that prospect, but neither need it be debilitating. Bottom line, women should be free to handle their pregnancy as they choose, or feel they must.

I was over 21 when Roe v Wade was decided. I recall the debates thereafter, which seemed largely a part of what are now called “the culture wars.” Some people were frightened or appalled by the specters of “free love,” drug consumption, contraception, draft resistance, and integration. There was a (partly generational) battle over various freedoms.

People argued about what was morally right and whether those with restrictive codes of conduct could continue imposing that code on others: making girls and women wear bras, limiting how sexy dances could be, stifling free speech, and otherwise ensuring that the young followed the established mores and habits, and that rebellious youth behaved “like decent Americans.”

Few spoke of “protecting life.” (To anyone who knew a woman who suffered because her illegal abortion could not involve a hospital, even if things went wrong, the anti-choice frenzy hardly seemed life-affirming.)

A minor official in the Reagan Administration largely invented that rhetoric about killing babies to entice Evangelicals. “Fighting for the life of unborn babies” sounded far more catchy than “forcing pregnant women to give birth.” Heroic, almost. Unborn fetuses were now described as children, to suggest that permitting abortions is like massacring children toddling around a Christmas tree.

“Pro-life” is arrogant and inaccurate. In growing vegetables, writing poetry, trying to improve people’s lives, and urging peace and tolerance, I feel as life-affirming as anyone. I’m pro-life, though I’ll insist on ending my own life when it’s time.

Ironically, “pro-life” advocates not only ignore pregnant women’s life, health, and safety, they tend to be loudest in supporting capital punishment, and least energetic about ensuring the newly-born, even if poor, get the medical care, physical and emotional nourishment, and quality education that ensures we all thrive beyond the womb.

Does that make sense?

                                              – 30 --

 

 [The above column appeared Sunday, 19 February 2023, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and on KTAL (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and be available on both stations’ websites.]

[I wanted to write about our great loss, the death of J Paul Taylor at 102. But I also thought it might be better to wait, and write after whatever public ceremonygenerated more praise about him. I’ve written of him often in this space, and will agao next Sunday or the one after. (His funeral is set for Friday, beyond my next deadline.)

[And I feel strongly about what I did write on. The usurpation of the phrase “pro-life” by folks who least live in ways that foster life and freedom is always an irritant. At some later date, I’ll write about the huge irony of citizens misusing the words of Jesus Christ to perpetrate just the kind of hatred and judgments he spoke against. Enough, though! Enjoy your Sunday!]

Tompkins Square Park, Manhattan - 1968

 

Local Choice Energy Act Could Help Pocketbooks and Environment

The Local Choice Energy Bill (SB165) is so promising for New Mexicans that investor-owned utilities are sending misleading letters to encourage opposition.

“I never imagined that PNM could tout such egregious, easily disproven lies,” said Alysha Shaw of Public Power New Mexico. “Clearly, they are scared of introducing any competition into the market. If other states are an indication, local choice providers can coexist and collaborate with investor-owned utilities.”

What’s the fuss about? The LCE Act, sponsored by Sen. Carrie Hamblen, would empower towns, counties, and tribes to create a new public electricity provider designed to lower customers’ costs and expedite transitions to renewable energy. Existing utilities would still own their grids, but transmit the local provider’s electricity, charging its normal rates. If our county started an LCE, you could choose to stay with El Paso Electric or switch.

LCEs (or CCAs, for Community Choice Aggregation) already serve millions of customers in 1300 local jurisdictions in ten states. Although some states legalized LCEs too recently to generate much of a track record, the facts don’t seem to support the mud PNM is throwing.

In the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Advantages and Challenges of CCAs” list, the EPA cites as advantages: potentially reduces rates, enables a faster shift to greener power, greater responsiveness to local economic and environmental goals, and possible spurring of local jobs and renewable energy development. Revenues are invested back into the community, not sent to investors elsewhere.

EPA lists as challenges: the need for enabling state legislation (which SB165 would be); “successful navigation of various CCA regulations and passing appropriate ordinance;” administrative costs; possible customer confusion about opt-in and opt-out clauses; and “potential for push-back from utilities in traditionally regulated electricity states that would face new competition under CCAs.” Indeed, our biggest challenge is that PNM and EPE might get mad at us.

PNM says local choice energy would empower unregulated out-of-state energy brokers, thus increasing costs to customers. The Agency says LCEs/CCAs can reduce costs as much as 15-20%. Further, a recent university study found that 80% of Massachusetts CCAs offer lower rates than area utilities. (For one thing, you’re not paying extra to keep private investors happy.)

PNM says local choice can’t work because solar battery storage doesn’t have the capacity to store enough power to meet peak demand between 5-9 p.m., resulting in energy shortages. But the EPA hasn’t noticed that. New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island all receive less sunshine and experience shorter winter days than we do. If CCAs work there, I’ll bet on ‘em here. (I understand that shortages haven’t occurred elsewhere.)

Worse, PNM says that it’s done such a great job moving to carbon-free energy that letting local agencies try to do better “would hurt the good progress we’ve made.” That doesn’t even make sense! Again, the EPA and ten states with local choice haven’t reported experiencing that.

PNM also warns that local choice providers wouldn’t be subject to PRC oversight; but SB165 would require PRC advance approval of LCEs’ detailed implementation plans.

This legislation looks appropriate. (PNM hasn’t shown otherwise.) However, considerations include whether cities ceasing to be utility customers would increase rates for remaining customers, and whether customers should have to “opt in” or “opt out.” But there aren’t deal-breakers.

Thursday, SB165 passed the Senate Conservation Committee 6-2. Sen. Joe Cervantes voted for it. The bill next heads to the Judiciary Committee, which Cervantes chairs.

                                                           – 30 --

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 12 February 2023, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and on KTAL (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and be available on both stations’ websites.]

Amelia Baca Is still Dead - Authorities Are Still Silent

Amelia Baca is still dead.

She was killed April 16^th, 2022, by Las Cruces Police Officer, Jared Cosper. He’s back on duty since November, although not on patrol.

The city government has still not explained why Cosper is back on the job. The city has also never explained why the first video the city showed us was a propaganda piece edited to defend the officer – not to share the facts and seek the right course of action. Apparently Cosper’s conduct was acceptable to the city administration.

Prosecutors have still not ventured to say whether this killing was a crime.

If you’ve seen the video of the shooting, you have an opinion. The video is clear and vivid.

It shouldn’t be that hard to watch the video and interviews of Cosper and the few witnesses, review his training, his file, LCPD practices, and the law, and decide whether or not to charge him with a crime.

The local task force finished its investigation June 21. Our DA said a decision “could take several days,” then punted to the AG’s Office on July 31.

Hector Balderas accomplished nothing.

Our new AG, Raul Torrez, I know slightly and respect. Recently Bernalillo County District Attorney, he has ample expertise. I urge him to provide us some response to this very significant public question this month.

Cosper approaches the house, gun drawn. In his defense, he had reason to believe Sra. Baca, 76, was demented and might have threatened someone. She was a diminutive Mexican-American lady who spoke no English. As he arrives, he tells everyone to come outside. Her daughter and granddaughter emerge, not appearing frightened. The granddaughter urges Cosper to “be gentle with her.”

Amelia Baca stands in the doorway. She’s frightened or confused. Her left hand holds two knives, pointed downward. She never raises either or makes a threatening motion. Nor does she drop them. Cosper shouts and curses. She knows no English. Cosper attempts no Spanish. The other ladies are trying to explain something to him.

Ms. Baca does not rush toward him. She probably feels closer to Cosper than she looks on wide-angle video. He has ample room to step back. She seems to take a half-step into the doorway. He fires a shot into her chest.

If I seem to be arguing the prosecutor’s case, I’m not. These are basic facts. What they mean legally is for the AG’s Office to say, and then, perhaps, prove to a judge or jury. (If conviction appears even slightly more likely than acquittal, the prosecution should charge Cosper.)

I do believe that something went awfully wrong here. Whether or not Cosper’s training, experience, and state of mind insulate him from criminal penalties, something is damned wrong. The problem could be LCPD hiring or training, the LCPD administration, Cosper himself, our collective state of mind, or all of these. We must identify and fix what’s wrong.

Not making a clear public statement is a huge insult to Amelia Baca and her family. It’s a huge insult to you and me, and to the male Hispanic lawyer who told me he’d be afraid to report anything to the police. The silence is delaying serious efforts at improvements. Not meaningfully addressing the disproportionate number of questionable killings by Las Cruces police is an insult to all officers and citizens, particularly citizens of color.

City and Attorney-General’s Office: please stop insulting us. Honor Sra. Baca. Do your jobs.

                                        – 30 – 

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 5 February 2023, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and on KTAL (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and be available on both stations’ websites.]

[There’s much more to say, and tesponse to the column has been extensive.

Of particular interest is the concern voiced by many that after promising a work session soon on the proposed Citizens Police Oversight Commission (or something similar, under whatever name), Mayor Ken Miyagashima has yet to announce, I believe, any such work session scheduled. Such entities work in other cities, if set up properly; in others, probably, they have not been so effective, often because their powers have been too limited and/or the police (as here, currently) can sovge stuff under the rug too easily.]

[Of interest to the issue of criminal liability is a change in the jury instruction to be given in cases where “Justifiable Homicide” by a police officer is offered as a defense.

A relevant statute is:

30-2-6. Justifiable homicide by public officer or public employee.

A.  Homicide is justifiable when committed by a public officer or public employee or those acting by their command and in their aid and assistance:

(1)       in obedience to any judgment of a competent court;

(2)       when necessarily committed in overcoming actual resistance to the execution of some legal process or to the discharge of any other legal duty;

(3)       when necessarily committed in retaking felons who have been rescued or who have escaped or when necessarily committed in arresting felons fleeing from justice; or

(4)       when necessarily committed in order to prevent the escape of a felon from any place of lawful custody or confinement.

B.  For the purposes of this section, homicide is necessarily committed when a public officer or public employee has probable cause to believe he or another is threatened with serious harm or deadly force while performing those lawful duties described in this section. Whenever feasible, a public officer or employee should give warning prior to using deadly force.

The relevant question is, was the homicide “necessarily committed in overcoming actual resistance to . . . the discharge of any [] legal duty.” Certainly a quick look at the video suggests homicide was NOT necessary. While cops have a good point when critics urge them to shoot the legs of someone approaching with a knife or club, Ms. Baca was not attacking Cosper. He was not in grave danger. She was arguably not even resisting, but rather bouncing from foot to foot in nervous confusion. If she was resisting his lawful order to drop the knives, the homicide was not necessary. He could have stepped back. He could have shot her in the leg.

He could have tried a quieter voice. Certainly he did not handle this as if he had ever learned anything of dementia or Alzheimers.

A common legal issue is whether or not we determine someone’s mental state (e.g., feeling of imminent danger) objectively (that is, would most reasonable folks in the same situation feel the same way) or subjectively (whatever I think Cosper should have felt, if he was seriously frightened that’s what matters).

On January 1, 2023, a change to the relevant jury instruction took effect.

Uniform Jury Instruction 14-5173 has been amended to read:

14-5173. Justifiable homicide; public officer or employee.¹

An issue you must consider in this case is whether the killing of [Amelia Baca] was justifiable homicide by a public officer or employee.

The killing was justifiable homicide by a public officer or public employee if

1.         At the time of the killing, the defendant was a public officer or employee;

2.         The killing was committed while the defendant was performing the defendant’s duties as a public officer or employee;

3.         The killing was committed while overcoming the actual resistance of [Amelia Baca] to the discharge of [Officer Cosper’s duties]; or

4.         The defendant believed that [Amelia Baca] posed a threat of death or great bodily harm to the defendant or another person; and

5.         Under the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable officer would have acted as the defendant did. The following factors may be considered in evaluating the totality of the circumstances:

            [the officer’s training]

            [the officer’s experience]

            [the officer’s expertise]

            [the feasibility of giving a warning prior to using deadly force]

            [the feasibility of taking lesser measures than using deadly force]

            [(other factor(s))]⁸

The burden is on the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing was not justifiable. If you have a reasonable doubt as to whether the killing was justifiable, you must find the defendant not guilty.

In short, this clearly requires both the subjective belief she posed great danger AND that his action was objectively reasonable.

It’s tough for me to watch that video and conclude that under all the a reasonable officer who cared about protecting human life would have acted as Cosper did. Further, such specific factors may be considered as his failure to give her a warning [though she would not have understood it], and the feasibility of taking lesser measures [such as backing up, aiming for the legs, or trying to tase her, though that last would be unlikely when she held two knives.] (But I am not a police officer, and for all I know the mere fact of her holding a deadly weapon and not following his command to drop it gives him license to shoot her under LCPD rules.)

However, the state must prove these issues beyond a reasonable doubt. To me, if I am making the decision, (a) Cosper’s action does not appear to meet the standard for justifiable homicide, thus (b) there’s a reasonable likelihood that a reasonable jury would see it that way, but (c) without hearing Cosper’s defense or his lawyers arguments, no one can say whether the state could convince each member of a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, barring some insurmountable obstacle, I’d be charging him and feeling confident but far from certain of a conviction. But, again, I do not know all the rules and precedents. My “legal career” involved mostly civil cases, not criminal. ]