The media makes causes of more and more capital murder convicts. Meanwhile, John Albert Burks dies almost unnoticed, just another inmate moving along on the efficient execution assembly line of Texas justice.
Charles Roberts -- aka Alabama, aka Hell Boy (according to a lawsuit he filed from prison) -- was recently transferred to Huntsville from Edinburg after he claimed, via lawsuit, that the prison didn't allow him to practice his Wiccan religion. Michelle Lyons, the director of public information for the state's prison system, told Hair Balls, "He was not moved to Huntsville for any reason related to the lawsuit." She added that the Lopez Unit in Edinburg, where Roberts stayed for about two year
Last year we wrote about how the Texas prison system was a bit haphazard in deciding which books to ban inmates from receiving (for instance, all S/M-related activity is strictly verboten, yet The Pleasure's All Mine, The Memoir of a Professional Submissive was approved).An editor at Sailing magazine ran across our items while researching the TDCJ policy (or, perhaps, researching S/M activity; we don't judge). Why? She had tried to send two books to an inmate and the TDCJ nixed them.Manning U
