Mona D. Sizer - Texas Justice, Bought and Paid For

Mona D. Sizer

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sizer, Mona D.

Texas justice bought and paid for / Mona D. Sizer.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-55622-891-4 (pbk.)

1. Railey, Walker L. 2. Railey, Peggy Nicolai. 3. Victims of crimesTexasDallas. 4. Criminal justice, Administration ofTexas I. Title.

HV6250.3.U53 D34 2000
364.1523'097642812dc21

00-062525

CIP

2001, Mona D. Sizer
All Rights Reserved

Republic of Texas Press is an imprint of Wordware Publishing, Inc.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
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Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-55622-791-2

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I would like to acknowledge Lawrence Blanton, who came to me at the Raymondville High School class reunion in 1999 to ask me to write the story of the disappearance of his father and grandfather sixty-four years ago. I had no more than vague memories of our mothers conversations of the event, but the story was intriguing.

I would like to acknowledge the cooperation of my publisher, Republic of Texas Press, which embraced the idea with enthusiasm. My editor Ginnie Siena Bivona, the source of so many great ideas, suggested that in addition to Lawrences story I research and write about other stories of gross miscarriages of justice around the state.

As I read newspaper accounts, magazine stories, and books, the stories that unfolded affected me as strongly as I hope they will anger my readers.

The result is Texas Justice: Bought and Paid For, a book with an attitude.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle first discussed the parameters of justice in The Nicomachean Ethics. The Romans, perhaps finding Aristotles investigation a bit difficult to convey to the conquered barbarians, devised a different, more practical image.

She is Justicia, who holds the scales that measure what is good and what is evil, what is just and what is unjust. When the barbarians looked at her face, they were supposed to be frightened. They had a right to be frightened. The man who was not frightened was very, very foolish.

Not for Justicia the snake-tressed face of Medusa. Not for her the screaming anger of Minerva, goddess of war, beneath her bronze helmet. Not for her the piercing stare of Diana, the huntress, as she sighted along the shaft of her death-dealing arrow.

Justicia is blindfolded.

She cannot see the faces of those she judges. She cannot read their excuses, explanations, and petitions. On her scale she weighs evidence only. Evidence for defense is placed on one side; evidence for prosecution, on the other. She is blindfolded so that she may distribute rewards and punishments according to principles different from those we see when we mere mortals look at the practical world and may be moved to pity or wrath.

Justicia deals with peoples relationships to each other. She rules in favor of virtue, the opposite of which is vice. In a place like Texas today, she has her place as she did in Greece and Rome. Perhaps here her place is stronger than ever before. Here Justicia must render judgment between two extremes of profit and loss.

Texans understand those words. Texas business is everybodys business. With that overriding thought, Texas Justice properly administered and rendered invariably rules that the penalty for the crime shall be judged by the victims loss and subtracted from the criminals profit.

In cases of theft Texas Justice has a fairly easy timereturn the money that was stolen plus an amount deemed necessary to cover losses to the injured party while the money was not in his possession. If a criminal has no money, he will spend time in prison working off the amount that he stole, plus the others losses. It is an imperfect system, to be sure, but the abiding principle of justice is at work.

But what principle shall prevail when Texans look at murderthe taking of a life. What is a life worth?

The murderer profited by striking a blow that killed a child, a lover, a bystander, a wife. The person who was struck and killed lost that life. Surely the murderers life must be taken from him. Either he must work out his lifetime in prison deprived of his freedom where his life does not belong to him, or he must be executed as a fair exchange of anguish and agony. In this way corrective justice frees society from those who disrupt the community. It allows for happiness. Aristotle thought that the term just applied to everything that tended to create and conserve happiness and the elements of happiness in human society.

And so it should.

But can a blindfolded goddess create and conserve happiness?

Texas Justice: Bought and Paid For explores this concept of profit and loss.

If we have duck for supper, youll have to make it snappy. Its now four oclock.

Myrtle Blanton spoke those words to her son and husband on November 18, 1936. They were almost the last words she said to them.

How many times throughout the nightmare that lastedfor all intents and purposesfor the rest of her life, did she wish she hadnt mentioned duck? How many times did she wish she had decided that she didnt want to bother with fixing wild game of any kind? How many times did she think of other things she could have fixed for supper: scrambled eggs, bacon sandwiches, leftover stew with corn bread?

How many times did she wish she had told two of the dearest people in her world not to go? She could have said the day was too cold. In mid-November it was getting dark early. She should have said it was too dangerous. She knew, for her son had told her, that riders were patrolling the fence her menfolk had to cross.

On Tuesday, the day before, Johnnie Blanton had taken a shotgun and walked out from the familys simple frame house. Five hundred yards northwest was a lagoon where ducks and other waterfowl frequently landed. Flocks of both geese and ducks migrating south for the winter had been noisily honking and quacking through the skies for days. The Blanton family larder could use some of that free protein. Unfortunately for the would-be hunters, it had landed on someone elses landthe El Sauz division of the largest and most powerful ranch in Texasthe King Ranch.

Around the ranchs perimeter rode armed riders, the Kineos, men who had lived on its million acres for generations, who were loyal with their very lives, and who pledged allegiance to only one lawthe law handed down by the grandsons of Richard King. Their orders were to tolerate no trespassing.

Though the millionaire steamboat captain turned rancher and his wife were dead, their daughter had married a clever, ruthless lawyer from Corpus ChristiRobert Justus Kleberg. While Kleberg was now failing in health, his responsibilities had been ably assumed by his two sons, Richard Mifflin Kleberg and Robert Justus Kleberg Jr. Together they commanded a small army to maintain their operation.