A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the lawsuit Newman filed against five Beaumont police officers, the city, its city manager and since-resigned police chief for misconduct and Constitutional rights violations stemming from an August 2007 incident in which he was struck 13 times with a nightstick and repeatedly shocked with a Taser.

[NOTE:  The author did not attend the hearing at the Fifth Circuit courthouse in New Orleans, but instead listened to a recording available on the court's website.]

In May 2011, U.S. District Judge Ron Clark granted summary judgment to the city, City Manager Kyle Hayes and former Police Chief Frank Coffin, who had been added to Newman’s civil complaint in after it was removed (or transferred) from a Jefferson County civil court to federal court in January 2011. The lawsuit was first filed in state court in November 2008.

In September 2011, Clark also dismissed three of five Beaumont officers named as defendants in the case  — Jason Torres, John Brown and Charles Duchamp.

That left two remaining defendants — since-resigned officer David Todd Burke and James Cody Guedry. Clark found there was enough merit to Newman’s claims against Burke and Guedry that neither were entitled to qualified immunity in the case and that those claims should go to trial. When the pair appealed his ruling, Clark indefinitely suspended the case’s trial date, then set for November 2011.

Burke and Guedry were convicted in 2010 by separate juries of the Class A misdemeanor charge of official oppression, Burke for using his custom-made police baton 13 times against Newman and Guedry for repeatedly using a Taser against him. [For more background on the case and a link to a video of the incident, click here.]

In his May 2011 order, Clark found that Newman’s claims against the city, Hayes and Coffin were invalid because they were added to the case after the federal two-year statute of limitations had elapsed. (In September 2011, Coffin resigned after nearly 40 years with the Beaumont police department.)

On Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit panel heard arguments in Newman’s appeal of Clark’s order dismissing the city, Hayes and Cofffin from the lawsuit.

Langston Adams, Newman’s civil attorney, admitted at the outset of Tuesday’s hearing that he was nervous in what was his first occasion making an argument before the federal appeals court.

Adams began by relating the somewhat meandering course Newman’s case has taken, beginning with his filing of a grievance against the officers with the city — one that ultimately led to Coffin disciplining Burke with a two-day suspension. That decision was later overturned by an outside arbitrator.

It was not until testimony in Guedry’s criminal trial in December 2010, Adams told the jurists, that he learned of the so-called “zero tolerance policy,” in which Beaumont police department officials use “COMPSTAT” data to direct officers to take a harder line against suspected criminal activity in certain parts of the city. Newman and his two companions were stopped in the South Park area, a predominantly African-American community.

Since that information was unavailable to him, Adams argued, he couldn’t include in Newman’s original petition his claims that the city failed to properly train and supervise its officers, the crux of his claims against the city.

After some give-and-take between the judges and Adams about what his actual claims against the city were, Judge James E. Graves, Jr. honed in on what would become the central theme of the approximately 45-minute session: how and whether the existence of  the”zero tolerance policy” led to Newman’s detention and treatment by the officers, and when Newman should have known of the existence of the policy.

Adams said during the course of the proceedings, he and Newman made numerous open records requests to the city for the police department’s polices and procedures. But, he said, none of the information provided by the city hinted at a zero-tolerance policy.

“Is it your understanding that this zero tolerance policy is an unwritten policy?” Graves asked.

“It’s (an) absolutely unwritten policy,” Adams answered. “I wouldn’t even know to ask about it (during discovery requests).”

“I think ultimately the fear is that cities will now be encouraged to have these unwritten polices that you can’t find anything about,” especially if they target residents of predominantly minority areas, he said.

Quentin Price, a Beaumont assistant city attorney, led off his argument by noting that Clark had entirely dismissed Newman’s claims against Hayes and Coffin, and that he was representing only the city.

He then addressed what he somewhat ironically called “the hidden policy of the COMPSTAT.” Price said this policy — in which senior police officials hold weekly meetings to discuss which areas of the city have the highest incidences of crimes — is hardly a secret, since the statistics are published weekly by the Beaumont Enterprise newspaper and its website.

The department quite reasonably instructs patrol officers to look for particular kinds of activities in those areas, such as prostitution and drug-dealing, and step up enforcement of any violations, Price told the panel.

But Graves pointedly asked Price about how a policy of “stepped-up” patrolling and surveillance led to a zero tolerance policy. Price answered that he didn’t know if rank-and-file patrol officers even know exactly what the policy is — that the police chief, captains and lieutenants simply tell officers to be on particular lookout in certain parts of town, certain blocks, even particular houses, and make stops or arrests on any criminal activity they encounter.

Graves asked Price when Newman should have known of the existence of such a policy so that he could have included in his original lawsuit.

“What question could he have propounded (during discovery) that would have elicited the answer, ‘We have this zero tolerance policy,’” Graves asked.

Price said that during his deposition of Coffin, Adams (Newman’s attorney), could have asked, “Chief, does the city of Beaumont Police Department adjust its law enforcement based upon high-crime areas?’”

Price argued that the city in no way tried to prevent Newman from finding out information — that in fact, it worked with him during the grievance proceeding against Burke, the officer who was later disciplined.

He also argued that Adams had failed, both in written pleadings and in his argument, to make a connection between the “zero tolerance policy” and the treatment Newman received on the night in question. He called Adams’ focus on the policy a “red herring,” since federal courts have already held that such policies do not violate the Constitution.

“(Adams) says his client got the Dickens beat out of him for having not committed any offense,” which Adams claims wouldn’t have happened “but for” the policy, Graves interjected. “I don’t have a hard time seeing the connection myself.”

But, Graves said, he wasn’t trying to get into a discussion of the policy itself, but when and whether Newman should have properly investigated it for the purposes of his lawsuit. Price argued that since the COMPSTAT program was published in the newspaper and was said to be “common knowledge,” Newman should have suspected it on the night of his detention and arrest.

During Adams’ five-minute rebuttal, Judge Fortunato P. Benavides, who throughout the hearing was most critical of Adams’ argument, asked why it wasn’t incumbent upon Newman to begin investigating the possibility of a zero tolerance policy soon after the incident occurred. Unless Newman had reason to believe the city was deceiving him, Benavides asked, why wasn’t it up to Newman to fully investigate his claims.

“Why should (the city and police department) think that that policy led to the beating of your client?” Benavides asked. “You place the burden on them to tell you that they think  that but for their policy that your guy wouldn’t have got beat up. Why shouldn’t it be your burden? Why isn’t it the burden of the person who’s bringing the claim, who knows that he got beat up, to find out why he got beat and what are the circumstances?”

Adams pointed to the closing arguments made by Jefferson County Assistant Criminal District Attorney Pat Knauth during Guedry’s criminal trial, in which the prosecutor said even his office was surprised by the fact that such a policy existed within the Beaumont police department.

It is unknown when the Fifth Circuit panel will make a ruling. The same court will later hear arguments on the separate appeals of Clark’s September ruling related to the five officers named as defendants.

Find links to full coverage of the Guedry and Burke cases here.

RELATED:  Beaumont police chief says department will rebound from setbacks

Copyright © 2012 Ken Fountain. All rights reserved.

Eric Schmitt, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who covers terrorism and national security issues for the New York Times, spoke about his dealings with Assange during the 26th annual “Law and the Media” seminar Saturday.

The event, dubbed “The WikiLeaks Debate,” presented a range of views on the “legal, ethical and practical implications for WikiLeaks for journalists, lawyers, and the people and institutions” affected by the organization.

Schmitt was sent by his editors to London in 2010 to meet with fellow journalists from The Guardian and the mysterious Assange, who wanted to coordinate the release of thousands of classified U.S. documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with several major U.S. and European news organizations.

When after a few days Assange finally arrived at the Guardian offices, Schmitt said, the “tall, lanky guy” with a shock of white hair cut a striking figure. “He was both alert and disheveled, like a bag lady off the street.”

Rustling around in a backpack filled with a laptop and assorted equipment, Assange pulled out a small plastic box. “In here are the crown jewels,” Assange told the journalists.

Schmitt described the painstaking process he and his colleagues at the Times and other news organizations (including Germany’s Der Speigel) used to sift through the electronic documents, comprised largely of raw field reports from U.S. commanders, and shape them into journalistic form.

Schmitt said it was immediately apparent that the documents were important, and would help provide context on the war to the public. But, he said, there was almost immediate tension between Assange, who favored posting them wholesale online, and the traditional journalists, who wanted to take a more measured approach, including redacting most of the names and providing context and analysis.

Schmitt said he and his colleagues sought to treat Assange as a traditional source of information. Assange, however, saw WikiLeaks and the news organizations as collaborators, almost like the Three Musketeers.

But not always. Schmitt said that in his meetings with Assange, he tried to tease out the mysterious Australian’s motivations. Depending on the day, he said, Assange would take a different stance on what his role was:  sometimes a source, other times a journalist/publisher, and still others an activist dedicated to complete transparency of information with a strong antiwar bent.

Schmitt described Assange’s mercurial nature — technologically brilliant, well-studied in history and law, and “incredibly paranoid, he sees conspiracies everywhere.” But he also has a kind of “Peter Pan quality,” Schmitt said. During a discussion while walking down a London street, he said, Assange suddenly began skipping along the pavement and singing before stopping abruptly to resume the talk.

Schmitt said Assange was angered by the Times‘ insistence on discussion the upcoming stories with U.S. government officials in order to gauge what material might prove harmful to individuals or reveal genuinely critical operations.

That ultimately led Assange to cut his ties with traditional news outlets, which he describes in a current a Rolling Stone interview. (Former Times executive editor Bill Keller describes the relationship here.)

Earlier in the seminar, Geoffrey Robertson, a prominent media lawyer who represents Assange in his efforts to fight extradition to Sweden (where he is being investigated for allegations of sexual misconduct) spoke to the audience via Skype from London.

(Assange maintains that the investigation is a pretext to have him extradited to the United States, where a federal grand jury is investigating WikiLeaks, possibly for violations of the Espionage Act.)

Just as Robertson was beginning to describe some of WikiLeaks’ more inflammatory disclosures, the tenuous Skype connection broke down. (Later, panelist Don DeGabrielle, a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas as well as a former FBI agent who now is a defense attorney, joked that he’d received confirmation via his Blackberry that his former government colleagues were responsible.)

Once the connection was resumed, Robertson described the tensions at play as governments (particularly the U.S.) seek to classify ever-increasing amounts of information in a time when technology has exponentially expanded the ways that information is disseminated. Robertson laid out four principles he said should govern the new media landscape in democratic society.

First, he said, the public’s right to know about the workings of the goverment that acts in its name must be paramount. Second, the government and its agents have the sole responsiblity to protect legitimately classified information. Third, outsiders who receive classified information should not be prosecuted, unless they’ve received it by means of fraud, bribery or duress. Lastly, governments must not use “national security” as a pretext against the exposure of human rights violations or other criminal acts.

In the final panel, Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, David Adler, a federal criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, and DeGabrielle discussed the implications of WiliLeaks and like-minded groups and individuals for jounalists and government agencies.

Dalglish said that as the WikiLeaks disclosures continued, it seemed to her that Assange was likely being advised by his lawyers to act more “responsibly” in order to buttress his position that he is acting as a journalist.

She the WikiLeaks phenonemon is much like the “Pentagon Papers” controversy of the early 1970s, with one critical difference: the “speed and volume” of information available to the public through electronic technology.

For journalists who cover national security issues, Dalglish said, the opportunities that technology offer also come with increased risk. She related a private conversation with government officials who told her agencies no longer need to seek supoenas for information about contacts between journalists and sources.

“We know who you’re talking to,” one of the officials told her, she said. [NOTE:  See this related Poynter Institute post.]

Today, Dalglish said, journalists must avoid using email, cell phones and the like to contact confidential sources. They need to go back to the model of famed Watergate reporter Bob Woodward, who used the movement of potted plants to arrange secretive meetings with “Deep Throat” (now-deceased FBI official Mark Felt) in an undeground parking garage.

Adler, referring to the recent charges against former CIA agent John Kiriakou of disclosing classified material, including the name of a fellow agent involved in the interrogations of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, stressed the level of betrayal felt by intelligence personnel against those within their own circle who disclose information to the press — particularly if it appears the whistleblower’s main agenda seems to be to gain publicity.

“People in the intelligence community are saying ‘Enough of this. This is getting out of hand,’” Adler said.

The “Law and the Media” seminar at the South Texas College of Law was presented by the Houston Bar Association, the Houston chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Houston Press Club.

RELATED: Seminar addresses defending and reporting on terrorism suspects

Copyright © 2012 Ken Fountain. All rights reserved.

The former Prudential Building (later given the more generic moniker Houston Main Building), built in the 1950s, had been the Southwestern headquarters of the insurance giant. When it was built, the 20-story structure was the tallest building in Houston outside of the central business district, and it was considered an architectural icon of its era.

To be honest, while the building, one of the stalwart structures of Houston’s famed Texas Medical Center, had long been part of the background of my hometown’s history, I hadn’t thought much about it for years before it was announced in 2010 that it would soon be imploded to make way for new construction by M.D. Anderson Hosptial, which long ago had purchased the building and used it for administrative offices.

But the Prudential Building had stood as a premiere example of mid-20th Century modern architecture in Houston, a town which, sad to say, doesn’t often pay much homage to its past.

Last Saturday, I took a final opportunity to take some photos of the building before its destruction, planned for early the next morning. My longtime friend and sometimes collaborator, photographer Pin Lim, had agreed to meet early Sunday to take the Metro light-rail train from nearby Hermann Park to the Texas Medical Center to set up to shoot the building’s destruction, planned for 7:52 a.m.

Unfortunately, each of my first scouted locations proved to be fruitless, as TMC and Houston Police officials had prepared to keep observers far away from the actual implosion site, ostensibly for safety reasons. Pin and I thought we’d found a near-perfect location, in an enclosed skyway between St. Luke’s Hospital and an adjacent parking garage, directly across the street from the Prudential Building.

But as Zero Hour neared, a police officer told the fairly large group of people who had gathered in the skyway that we would not be permitted to stay. He said the nearest place where the public would have a good look at the implosion was outside a hotel that, while within walking distance, would not provide nearly as good a look.

Pin and I made our way to the hotel (actually, at a street that ran behind it) and set up camp with hundreds of other people already there. We actually found a spot that gave us a straight-on look at the Prudential Building , if not a particuarly close one.

As it happens, the spot turned out to be opportune — particuarly since, because of an unusual late-morning fog, officials kept pushing back the time of the demolition. As we gathered from rumors and various news reports, officials were concerned that the fog might make the windows of nearby builings (including St. Luke’s) blow out from the force of the explosions.

Ultimately, we got the word:  the implosion would go forward shortly after 11 a.m., several hours after originally planned. Just minutes before the new time, I ran into Tom Fowler, a former colleague from a daily Houston newapaper who now works for the Wall Street Journal, and his young daughter. Tom told me that his editors had asked him, since it was a slow weekend, to contribute a story on the implosion, which you can read here.

The plan was for Pin to shoot still photos, while I used his flip-cam to shoot video. I had just turned it on when I heard the first explosions, and was fortunate to capture the entire event — including the aftermath, when the crowd quickly dispersed in the wake of the ensuing dust cloud which was much larger than I anticipated. You can find Pin’s photos here  and his blog entry here, and my video here.

Are there any great lessons to be learned here? Perhaps not. Houston has long been thought of as a town that moves relentlessly forward, with little regard for the relics of its past, even monumental ones like the Prudential Building. That attitude has been undergoing a slow adjustment, but it still seems to prevail.

In any event, I did watch the implosion with some sense of bittersweet nostalgia.

NOTE: Here’s a link to a photo slideshow of the implosion, courtesy of the Houston Business Journal.

Copyright © 2012 Ken Fountain. All rights reserved.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,300 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Here’s what happened. Back in July, in the midst of Texas’ hottest, driest summers in modern history, Houston had a rare thunderstorm one Friday evening. On that particular night, I had planned to settle in to watch some DVD episodes of The Wire, the excellent HBO series about life in inner-city Baltimore. I’d managed to miss it during its entire run because I’ve never had cable at my home. My friend Angie had lent me the entire five-season boxed set.

But when I arrived at my apartment, my landlord told me that lightning had struck the house, frying virtually every single piece of electronic equipment inside — including my DVD player and the digital antenna for my television. (The flatscreen TV, just over two years old, was spared.)

Both the DVD player and the antenna (with which I receive only local stations) are both relatively inexpensive. But the economy’s still sagging, and I decided not to spend the money to replace them just yet. And, as a side benefit, I could do a little experiment on what it’s like to live without TV as a near-daily experience.

And the truth is, aside from a couple of bumps, I’ve hardly missed it. For its entire 2004-2010 run, I was addicted to the show LOST, whose nefarious creators found a way to propel viewers from one episode to the next, one season to the next, like expert drug pushers. Long before the show ended, I swore I’d never let that happen again.

Thanks to a little meteorological intervention, I haven’t seen one of the networks’ latest offerings this season. I’ve missed a few old favorites such as The Office and 30 Rock, as well as some perennial PBS programs and my Sunday political talk show fix.

I’ve cheated a little. My friend Angie and her husband lent me an old DVD player to finish watching The Wire, and, nostalgic for a bygone era of newspapers that I barely knew, I’ve watched a couple of episodes of the old Lou Grant show on Hulu.

But, overall, I’ve enjoyed the quiet immensely. I go out to walk in my neighborhood more. On Sunday nights, I’ve been listening to “Little Steven’s Underground Garage,” the great classic rock program from Steve Van Zandt of E Street Band and The Sopranos fame, which a friend turned me on to.

And I can tell you that one thing I absolutely have not missed is the ads. And that rings particularly true during the annual commercial-palooza known as the holiday season.

But then again, if you’re looking for a gift for me, a digital television antenna might be …. nah, just kidding.

Copyright © 2011 Ken Fountain. All rights reserved.

No. 99: All things considered, I would probably not have gone to see the David Duchovny sci-fi comedy Evolution the night Tropical Allison hit Houston. Or any other time, really.

No 98: That Grand Slam I had at the Denny’s near the trolley stop in San Diego. ‘Nuff said.

No. 97: Most of 1995.

No. 96: Reading Madame Bovary. Then again, it was assigned.

No. 95: AutoTune. Actually, I can’t take credit for that one.

No. 94: Last night’s dream, in which a prominent feature was Rick Perry’s hair.

No. 93: That time I … eh, never mind. I’ll just keep that one to myself.

No. 92: That other time, when I … on second thought, that was pretty cool.

No. 91: That year in high school when I only wore cowboy boots. I mean, that was the only footwear I wore. You know what I mean.

No. 90: Tomorrow. I can just feel it.

NOTE:  These life regrets have previously appeared on my Facebook page. If you feel cheated, go ahead and ask for your money back.

Copyright © 2011 Ken Fountain. All rights reserved.

Jim Wallis, president and CEO of the nonprofit group and magazine “Sojourners,” gave a talk called “Forging a More Civil Democracy: A Discussion of Faith, Value and Politics” before a more-than-capacity audience at the James B. Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

“These are the taboo subjects,” Wallis acknowledged. “Religion and politics are the things you don’t discuss at the dinner table. They’re very scary.”

But Wallis, who has made several appearances on John Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” said he is heartened by his interactions with younger people who are beginning to “clear up the confusion about what it means to be a person of faith.”

After his first Stewart appearance, Wallis said, he received e-mails from members of its young audience who had turned away from the church because of “bad television preachers, pedophile priests, and White House theology,” and told him, “I didn’t know you could be a Christian and care about poverty or the war in Iraq.”

Wallis traced a mini-history of religious leaders’ involvement in social and political movements — from the abolition of the slave trade in Britain, led by William Wilberforce, to the Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign for Indian independence to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership of the civil rights movement and his later “People’s Campaign” on behalf of the poor.

Wallis said religious folks – including evangelical Christians, among whom he counts himself — need to think about how their faith calls them to examine how society is structured to prevent the poor from pulling themselves out of poverty, and how that must be addressed in the political arena.

“The Bible reveals a God of justice, not just a God of charity,” Wallis said. The Biblical prophets, he said, challenged “those who were in charge of things” over such issues as land, labor, capital, wages, and institutional relationships. “This is the stuff of politics.”

Wallis said that he’s most interested in “post-candidate politics” — that is, the politics take place before and after elections.

“Change never originates in places like Washington,” he said. “Decisions are finally impacted by the conversation (among citizens).”

When you go to the U.S. Capitol, he said, it’s easy to pick out members of Congress. “They’re the ones with their fingers in the air. And every once in a while, they wet their fingers to find out which direction the wind is blowing.”

“Your job is to change the wind,” Wallis told the audience, made up of people of all ages.

Wallis, among whose recent books is God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets is Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, said people on both sides of the political spectrum have misconceptions about the proper role of faith in American society, and about each other.

Referring to one of his own recent articles on the Huffington Post, Wallis said many in the media and other quarters are too quick to label evangelicals as “intellectually flawed” and “antithetical to democracy.” He noted that there is a movement among evangelicals, like himself, toward addressing such topics as climate change, immigration reform, and war and peace.

Too often, he said, people on the religious right think that being a Christian means being “pro-rich, pro-war and pro-America, always.” People on the left, on the other hand, wrongly think that “any conversation (about faith) is a violation of the separation of church and state.”

Wallis said that the overriding fact in America is the recent Census Bureau figures showing that 46 million people live below the poverty line, which is pegged at $22,000 a year for a family of four. “And three quarters of them have jobs — part-time jobs, or half-time jobs,” he said.

Wallis said (with some amount of pride) he’d been featured on “Glenn Beck’s blackboard for a year” for asking “the Why question”:  why a country as rich as the United States has such disparity of income.

“Is there such a thing as the Common Good anymore?” Wallis asked, noting that many in the religious right revere former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who once said “There is no society, there are only individuals,” and writer/philosopher Ayn Rand, famous for her theory of “rational egoism.”

“That will be the issue in this election,” he said. “What is the nature of the Social Compact, or is there one at all?”

A video of the event, including a conversation between Wallis and Rice emeritus sociology professor William Martin and questions from the audience, can be seen here.

 RELATED: Santorum takes on JFK, a half-century later

Copyright © 2011 Ken Fountain. All rights reserved.

In a partial summary judgment issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Ron Clark left two remaining defendants in the case — since-resigned officer David Todd Burke and James Cody Guedry.

In May, Clark dismissed Newman’s claims against the city of Beaumont, City Manager Kyle Hayes and then-Police Chief Frank Coffin. He ruled those claims, which were added to the lawsuit after it was removed from a Jefferson County state district court, were beyond the two-year statute of limitations. Newman’s attorney, Langston Adams, is appealing that ruling at the U.S. Fifth Circuit of Appeals.

Burke and Guedry were convicted in 2010 by separate juries of the Class A misdemeanor charge of official oppression, Burke for using his custom-made police baton 13 times against Newman and Guedry for repeatedly using a Taser against him. [For more background on the case and a link to a video of the incident, click here.]

In the 15-page ruling, Clark found that officers Jason Torres (who initiated the traffic stop), John Brown (who arrived on the scene afterward) and Charles Duchamp (then Guedry’s patrol training officer, now a detective) did not mistreat Newman nor have an opportunity to prevent Burke and Guedry from doing so.

(Generally, in the summary judgment phase of a federal civil lawsuit, a judge must consider the alleged facts in the case in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Other, so-called material, facts must be left to the jury in the trial, or to the judge in a bench trial.)

Clark also found that the three were entitled to “qualified immunity” in the case, meaning they acted reasonably in the scope of their official duties.

“While it is clearly established law that an officer must take reasonable measures to protect a suspect from another officer’s use of excessive force, Mr. Newman has not shown any evidence that Officers Duchamp, Torres, and Brown had a reasonable opportunity both to realize that excessive force was being used, and to intervene to stop it,” Clark wrote.

Clark found there was enough merit to Newman’s claims against Burke and Guedry that neither were entitled to qualified immunity in the case and that those claims should go to trial (barring a settlement).

On Sept. 20, Burke filed a petition for discretionary review of the Texas Ninth Court of Appeals’ ruling upholding his conviction to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, based largely on the question of whether state District Judge Layne Walker wrongfully allowed one of the potential jurors on the jury.

Meanwhile, the Jefferson County Criminal District Attorney’s Office is appealing state district Judge John B. Stevens’ decision granting Guedry a new trial at the Ninth Court. Guedry, who had originally been dismissed after his conviction, is back on the force as a community services officer pending the resolution of his case.

UPDATES:  On Oct. 21, Craig Schexnaider, the civil attorney for Burke and Guedry, filed a notice of appeal of Clark’s ruling to the Fifth Circuit. Four days later, Clark canceled the case’s Nov. 28 trial setting, pending the resolution of the appeal. [Read about Schexnaider's participation in Guedry's criminal trial here and how that impacted a later ruling by state district Judge John B. Stevens Jr. here.] On Nov. 10, Langston Adams, Newman’s attorney, filed a notice of cross-appeal of the portion of Clark’s ruling granting summary judgment to officers Torres, Brown and Duchamp.

On Feb. 7, 2012, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in Newman’s appeal of Judge Clark’s order dismissing Hayes and Coffin from the civil lawsuit.

CLARIFICATION:  In many of the court proceedings involving the Derrick Newman case, the exact number of times Guedry used his Taser has been ambiguous. In the original version of this post, it was stated that Guedry used the weapon “twice.” In his ruling, Clark notes that deposition testimony establishes that the number of times was three.

NOTE:  Clark’s ruling was first reported by KMBT-TV.

RELATED: Beaumont police chief says department will rebound from setbacks

Find links to full coverage of the Guedry and Burke cases here.

Copyright © 2011 Ken Fountain. All rights reserved

For years, I’ve started the day listening to the morning news on National Public Radio, sometimes for an hour or so before getting up. And on that day, like many, my attention drifted in and out, in a sort of half-dream state. I remember hearing vague references to the World Trade Center and thinking that this must be some kind of retrospective on the 1993 bombing.

(On that occasion, I was in the last months of my hitch in the U.S. Navy. A buddy of mine, a native New Yorker, told me of how he had often stopped at the subway station at the center.)

But then the word “collapse” broke through the fog of my semi-subconsciousness. I bolted out of bed and turned on the television in my tiny garage apartment. When I saw the images, I remember, I screamed something, probably not very nice.

Then, I started getting ready. For all the shock I felt, I knew I had a job to do.

That fall, I was the news editor for The Daily Cougar, the student-run newspaper at the University of Houston, where I had returned a couple of years after leaving the Navy to study journalism. I’d been on the job since that summer, which itself had been pretty eventful for the newspaper staff.

Just as I was leaving my apartment, my phone rang. It was Nikie Johnson, the Cougar’s intrepid and usually unflappable editor-in-chief. “This is crazy,” she said.

In my car, I turned on the radio again. As someone long steeped in the full spectrum of the media culture, as well as a veteran, I felt during the short drive to campus that I knew already what kind of people were responsible. I also believed I could predict the tenor of the political discourse to come in the next days, weeks and months. Turns out, I was largely right.

I arrived at UH and made my way to the offices of the Cougar. Dick Cigler, the university’s longtime director of Student Publications (he retired last year), saw me approach. “You’ve got a long day ahead of you,” he said.

There was only one television in the newspaper offices, a small portable atop the refrigerator in the break room. A couple of students were glued to it. I watched for a few moments before telling them in the most authoritative voice I could muster that I was taking it into the newsroom.

I got to work. There were only a few people in the newsroom at that hour, and I was the first editor. But after a bit,  the small but dedicated staff made their way inside, and we started fanning out.

As a veteran, and one of the oldest people on the staff (with the exception of Tom Carpenter, himself a Vietnam vet), I felt a special responsiblity that we not only get stories that described the events in the Northeast, but the ramifications for our own campus and our fellow students.

(By a strange circumstance, that day’s front page featured a story about Indian-British author Salman Rushdie, who had visited the campus on Sept. 10 to talk to literature students and made a public appearance downtown that night. Rushdie, who had spent years targeted by a fatwa from Iran’s clerical government for alleged blasphemy, was picketed outside the Alley Theatre by Islamic protestors.)

Houston is a diverse city, and the University of Houston — long thought of, unfairly, as a “mere” commuter school — is an extremely diverse campus. Then, as now, it had a large contingent of Muslim students. At some point during that day, I took a walk outside. I saw a friend of mine from the paper, a young Muslim woman, walk past me. I saw extreme apprehension in her eyes, and I felt sure I knew why it was there.

I  assigned myself the wrap-up story describing the events and the immediate response. Looking at it now, I can see it as a long, somewhat rambling affair, borne of my effort to pack in as much information as I possibly could. It also suffers from my then-lack of familiarity of the closeness of states in the Northeast, when I seem to presume that the United 93 flight, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field, may have been directed toward Philadelphia instead of Washington D.C.

One of our reporters, Tim Williams (now an attorney) provided an excellent, and much tighter, look at the background of the attacks.

And two other reporters, Tom Carptenter and Icess Fernandez (who both have gone on to careers in teaching and journalism) took on perhaps the most senstive story that day: the impact of the events on Muslim students.

That story, in fact, became an object lesson for all of us both in the practice of newsgathering and the issues that would soon begin playing out. One of the students quoted in the story came in the next day with a friend to complain that his name had been used. He said he’d agreed to talk to Tom Carpenter only on condition of anonymity.

Looking back on the notes of the interview, Tom admitted that he’d made a mistake, and we both apologized profusely. The student, understandably angry, demanded that we print a “retraction.” It was left to me, as editor, to explain as best I could that we couldn’t retract something that was true.

That next day’s front page also featured a superb photo by Kusum Desai which captured the mood of the campus that day — students gathered around a small television in the University Center, watching the events unfold. [NOTE:  Click on the link to read then-Photo Editor Pin Lim's recollections of the day.]

Nikie Johnson, the editor-in-chief (now an editor at a California daily), penned the editorial board’s response to the attacks, and Ed De La Garza contributed a provocative cartoon. We also had strong opinion columns from Kristin Buchanan and Matthew E. Caster.

I don’t remember precisely when we put the paper to bed that night. I know it was one of the most intense days in my life in journalism, and I was not yet a professional. I imagine that like myself, my colleagues that day were so involved in the work that they didn’t give full vent to their emotions that day. That would come later.

In the weeks and months that followed, I tried as news editor to bring some sense of how the attacks, and the events that followed, impacted our campus. In Houston, that wasn’t hard.  A wealth of events that fall spoke to the 9/11 events and their aftermath, from speeches by academics at UH and other universities to programs put on by the local chapters of the World Affairs Council and the Asia Society.

The fear and nervousness that permeated the country that day also found its way to UH. In one instance, a Quran had been left unattended on some steps outside the University Center. A bomb squad was called out, and it proved to be nothing.

Later, after the anthrax attacks occurred, a professor called authorities when he received a mysterious package in the mail. Again, it was a false alarm. But I remember the photo we ran of a student in tears while the investigation was underway.

It’s now been a decade, but I can remember vividly nearly every moment of that day.

RELATED: Seminar addresses defending and reporting on terrorism suspects and  Of newspapers, storms and whistleblowers 

Copyright © 2011 Ken Fountain. All rights reserved.

In the summer of 2001, I was the freshly named news editor of The Daily Cougar, the official student newspaper at the University of Houston. I was a nontraditional student, having returned to the university after serving in the U.S. Navy.

In one issue that summer, I wrote a story about a whistleblower lawsuit filed against the university by Stephen Barth, a hospitality industry lawyer and tenured professor in the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management. Barth alleged that then-Dean Alan Stutts had retaliated against him for reporting purportedly improper and possibly illegal actions.

I’d written about Barth’s allegations before, in a three-part series that spring, after Barth approached me after I’d written about another lawsuit filed against the university. I followed the series up with another story on UH’s internal investigation of Barth’s allegations.

Like most civil lawsuits, Barth’s case went through quite a ride through the Texas judicial system, with the university appealing to the Texas First Court of Appeals even before the case went to trial. When it finally did more than four years later, I covered the trial, again for the Daily Cougar as a special assignment.

After five days of testimony, a Harris County jury found that UH had indeed retaliated against Barth and awarded him $305,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees.

Again, the university appealed. I won’t trouble you with all the convoluted legal rigmarole involved, but ultimately the case went to the Texas Suprme Court, which remanded back to the First Court. This week, more than a decade after Barth filed suit, that court ruled in his favor. [The Daily Cougar reports on the appellate decision here.]

That summer of 2001 was an eventful one for me, the Daily Cougar and the University of Houston. Tropical Storm Allison parked itself over the Houston region for days, flooding much of the university and preventing the Cougar from publishing for a couple of weeks while we worked out of a cramped advertising office.

Later that fall, of course, a storm of a different sort struck the United States, and much of our reporting involved the aftermath. But those months at the Cougar were some of the most fun I’ve had as a journalist, and I formed friendships there that continue to this day.

Since then, I’ve been a working newspaper journalist, and it’s been a very interesting period, to say the least. I’ve continued to write about the courts, even as a full-time courts reporter for a Southeast Texas newspaper for a while.

The media landscape has changed tremendously in these past 10 years, and it’s still up in the air where it all will shake out. But when I came across this week’s ruling in the Barth case, it sure took me back to a time when both I and the world seemed much younger.

RELATED:  How I remember 9/11

CORRECTION:  This post originally misstated the path the Barth case took through the judicial system before going to trial.

Copyright © 2011 Ken Fountain. All rights reserved.