State and Local Governments

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1. T. „Dub“ Wise was robbed and killed on April 18, 1983 in his house in Houston, Texas. Burdine and Wise had a homosexual relationship and lived together for three months. Calvin Burdine admitted that he was there when W.T. Wise was killed and he also said that he had known that a robbery was planned. But evidence point to accomplice Douglas McCreight as the one who did the murder. Interesting is that Douglas McCreight pleaded guilty of murder. Calvin Burdine pleaded not guilty, but in trial the jury found him guilty. Calvin Burdine was sentenced to death, Douglas McCreight was released on parole after 8 years in prison
The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) on Monday rejected an appeal by Texas, which wanted to execute a death row inmate even though his lawyer slept repeatedly during his 1984 murder trial in Houston.
The justices let stand a U.S. appeals court ruling that Calvin Burdine deserved a new trial because his lawyer dozed off frequently enough and for long enough stretches to deprive him of his constitutional right to effective legal assistance. Texas wanted to carry out the execution. Even though the court-appointed lawyer was "repeatedly unconscious" during the trial, Texas argued it did not affect the outcome, which ended with Burdine being found guilty and sentenced to die for fatally stabbing his gay lover.
2. This case clearly has nothing to do with homosexuality, more so than equality and justice. This case goes to show that justice is not always served through the legal system. It illustrates that every one is not always offered a fair trial. I believe they did the right thing in letting Burdine be retried because his lawyer kept falling asleep. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty but this case reveals that once society has formed their own opinion about you, or his lawyer in this case, there's is nothing anyone can do to help in the legal system. That’s sad because if Burdine is innocent, he had no voice to speak up for him and this could be another case of an innocent man being executed.
3. Public policy is any type of actual or proposed government action to address social problems. There are three branches of our government: legislative, executive, and judicial. The actions that are taken by members of these three branches are public policies. In elementary school, you learned that the legislative branch makes the laws, the executive enforces them, and the judicial interprets them.

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