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A jailhouse witness supplied premeditation
The Hole
In May 1977, Houston police picked up Jose Campos Torres after a bar fight and drove him to an isolated stretch of the bayou known as The Hole. A rookie officer later reported that officers beat him and that one pushed him into the water. A tour boat operator found his body three days later, and some of the officers got little more than a slap on the wrist.
The Moody Park riot
On Cinco de Mayo 1978, a peaceful gathering where people chanted his name and asked for justice turned into a riot, with property damage, injuries, and many arrests. City leaders and the police blamed three shaggy-haired activists they called outside agitators, who became known as the Moody Park Three. Nothing credibly showed they had convinced hundreds of people to riot.
The informant's claim
Inciting a riot in Texas required premeditation. Paul Skalnik, sitting in the county jail on bad-check charges, told prosecutors that Thomas Hershey, one of the three, had confessed to him that the group planned it all well ahead, which Hershey vigorously denied. Skalnik was released with no conditions, and while he worked with prosecutors he enjoyed ice cold air conditioning, fresh coffee, and a private bathroom at the Special Crimes Bureau.
At the 1979 trial the case looked shaky: details from one officer's testimony were missing from his written report, and other witnesses had seen the three at a barbecue. Then Skalnik described how they convinced young people to riot and brought weapons and alcohol. Nothing corroborates any of it. Hershey, facing 20 years, sat at the defense table watching how easily Skalnik lied. All three were convicted.
Why did Torres's death spark such anger in Houston?
Jose Campos Torres was a Mexican American Army veteran, and his death in police custody in 1977 became a symbol of how Houston's Mexican American community felt it was policed. State prosecutors charged officers with negligent homicide, a misdemeanor, and they were convicted and sentenced to probation, which many people saw as far too light. Federal prosecutors later brought civil rights charges against some of the officers.
Why do officials blame outside agitators for riots?
The phrase outside agitators has a long history in American politics, and officials used it often during the civil rights era to explain unrest. Blaming outsiders places the cause beyond the community's own grievances, which makes the disorder look like a plot and a prosecution look straightforward. Investigators of riots have often looked for such plots and found little. The Kerner Commission, appointed in 1967 to study the riots of that summer, reported that the disorders were not the product of any organized plan or conspiracy.
How has Texas changed its informant rules since?
Texas passed a law in 2009 saying a defendant cannot be convicted on a jailhouse informant's testimony alone. The testimony must be corroborated by other evidence connecting the defendant to the offense. The law, Article 38.075 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, applies to statements an inmate says the defendant made while confined in the same facility.
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