LETTERS

Justice Delayed



I found your article about Deia Sutton [“The View From Death Row,” April) a sad commentary on today’s courts and legal processes. It is a sad state of affairs that the victims continue to suffer while the criminals remain protected and unpunished.

Why must we show them mercy? They showed their harmless victims no mercy. These crimes continue due to the lack of punishment that the courts gave to these homicidal maniacs. Everyone talks about equal rights. Well, what about equal rights and compassion for the victims of violent crimes? As a Dallas City Council member once said, “They should hang from the courthouse steps!”

Steven D. Happel

University Park



Your article puts the frosting on the cake of a legal system sore with the cancer of protecting criminals. I am sick and tired of attorneys who press on and on for appeals of verdicts they merely don’t like, overloading our already crowded judicial system for the sake of making more legal fees and costing taxpayers millions of dollars per year in pointless appeals! Where is the sense of ethics and morality in the legal profession? How can attorneys for the defense in this case sleep at night?

Our judicial system will continue to degenerate as long as hard-core criminals are given unjustified protection through routinely enacted appeals processes! As long as the appeals process, designed to be the exception in legal cases rather than the rule, continues to be abused by attorneys, you and I have no protection from hardened criminals.

Cheryl Mason-Litwin

New Orleans, Louisiana



Every person, black or white or other, is entitled to certain rights and safeguards within the legal system. In society’s rush to pacify blacks, we seem to have forgotten entirely about the rights of Mike McMahan and Deia Sutton. They were attacked without provocation, savagely, brutally, and only to fulfill some sick need within the minds of “men” who have less morals than animals; Mike McMahan was murdered and Deia Sutton’s life was forever altered that night. And what about the impact this has had upon their families? Do these innocent people have no rights?

Len Loschen

Lewisville, Texas

Is Boy George Next?



I only have one comment about your wonderful April issue. If Madonna is moving to Dallas, thank heavens I moved to Seattle.

Donald E. Cox

Bellevue, Washington



Madonna moving to Dallas? Please, must we even joke about such a potentially terrifying scenario?

Clay McNear

Music Editor

Dallas Observer



You people are really something. I remember when D magazine was interesting to read and I looked forward to the next issue. You people have gone downhill lately but now I guess you just jumped off the cliff.

All the great things going on in Dallas every month and you have to dedicate six pages and a cover? to America’s biggest pig, “madonna”? It deserves a small m. Who the hell cares if she moves to Dallas or any where else. “How will she change Dallas?” You’ve got to be kidding. Talk about a city getting a bad image.

She fits well with you people. Some of the world’s finest creeps are found in Dallas.

Bob Lunglin

Fort Worth/Dallas



My goodness! I do not believe it! Has Dallas, or more precisely, D magazine, become so “eaten up with it” that the gigantic scoop for April was the fact that Madonna is gracing Dallas with her presence? Is that it?

I do hope that the morals of Dallas-at-large have not become so low that having the “Material Girl” become a transient Dallasite is some mark of status. What a badge of accomplishment for us that we would lure someone of her caliber who could be such an influence for our youth.

Lynda Morris

Rockwall



Being the Madonna fan and memorabilia collector that I am, I have seen as well as possessed many pictures of Madonna. The pictures in your magazine are most disappointing to anyone who thinks the star is still the same gorgeous, sexy woman she always was. At first I believed the pictures to be a fraud and that your magazine had simply made an attempt to find and publish a Madonna. Compared to all of the pictures that I have, the “D Madonna” is not the same one that the world has grown to love. Perhaps I am mistaken and the Material Girl has just gotten a big taste of the married life. I certainly grieve with my fellow Madonna fans if this is the way she looks now. I have to say that this woman cannot be my idol, but a very rat-faced woman who would love to be just like Madonna.

Tony Stevens

Fort Worth



A Joint Effort



Richard West’s article ’The New Immigrants” [March] significantly highlights the dynamic changes taking place in our city. West describes the importance of the cooperative efforts of the many diverse organizations and agencies working in this arena.

To understand the whole picture, however, one cannot overlook the fact that it is only with the combined efforts of these agencies and organizations and the dedication and commitment of individual volunteers that so many shared goals have been attained.

A comprehensive picture of the volunteer effort in East Dallas should take note of the numerous programs developed by the KHMER Community Development Project of the National Council of Jewish Women, Greater Dallas Section. Among these are the publication of a monthly, bilingual newspaper, “The Voice of Khmer”; the translation of the driver’s test and the rules and regulations of the Texas Department of Public Safety into Khmer; the initiation of a tutoring program in Spence Middle School with six Khmer Project tutors; the development of a job bank; the delivery of free milk and formula for those in need; the establishment of a Community Garden project where Cambodians grow their own vegetables; and sponsorship of an exhibition of the art of Cambodian children at D’Art.

Darrel Strelitz

Vice President, Community Services

National Council of Jewish Women

Greater Dallas Section