County lawyers defend ‘safety zone’
Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden as punishment— but that’s not the spirit of Harris County’s legal effort to ban 92 suspected gang members from a 2-mile area of south Houston through a civil injunction, the plaintiffs contend in court filings.
County officials disagree with three criminal defense lawyers’ groups that have questioned the constitutionality of the civil action.
The lawsuit, filed in September by Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson and Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan, seeks to exclude individuals from a 1,326-acre area bounded by Interstate 610, Texas 288, Old Spanish Trail and Cullen.
The Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association and the Harris County Public Defender’s Office filed motions last month to “alert the court to some of the broad implications of the injunctive relief requested by the state.”
The motions say that the proposed “Southlawn Safety Zone” action would “set a dangerous precedent contrary to the spirit of Texas’ Constitution, which forbids the banishment or transportation of citizens from this state” and asks the court for “more narrowly tailored relief.”
A4½-page response entered into the record by Ryan’s office this month said the lawyers’ groups have overlooked the perspective
of community members under criminal siege who require a strategy beyond simple law enforcement to resolve an onslaught of illegal activities. The injunction, the filing said, is a vehicle to combine the state’s “symbiotic” laws on organized crime and public nuisances.
Officials also accuse the lawyers’ groups of twisting the meaning of “banishment” to mean “exile” — quoting Genesis 3 (in the New International Version) when Adam and Eve were “banished” from the Garden of Eden — because the “gang injunctions are more like a protective order” to stop violent acts in the future.
Hot spots
In fact, the filing said, alleged participants in organized crime and gang activity are the reasons why law-abiding residents of the South Union community — particularly a smaller neighborhood called Southlawn — are being denied a safe place to call home.
“Organized criminal gangs subject the community to harsh and authoritarian treatment. Heightened police enforcement of the criminal law, alone, is not enough. One cannot expect to continue to do the same things and expect different results. The Southlawn Safety Zone is a way to take back this area for the decent people who live there. It is both the legal and the right thing to do,” the response said. “The purpose of a gang injunction is to promote the peace, not to punish. This battered, crime-ridden community deserves relief.”
Officials also stressed in the filing that Harris County’s latest and largest gang injunction by zone size and number of defendants is not punitive.
“The purpose of the protective order statute is not to remedy past wrongs or punish prior criminal acts; rather, it seeks to protect the applicant and prevent future violence” — further noting that violating the injunction is a Class A misdemeanor.
The lawyers’ groups contended that the “state’s unlawful request to banish the defendants” violates the individuals’ constitutionally protected activities — particularly economic rights (eviction from their homes and inability to work within the zone), family rights (association with relatives) and religious rights (freedom of assembly for worship). Further, in a civil context, the “defendants have no absolute right tothe assistance of counsel.”
Crime in the South Union community has festered for decades, particularly in the area’s numerous apartment complexes. Law enforcement has blamed much of the activity on gangs. The injunction petition was filed as finger-pointing about the area’s crime reached a point of frustration. Officials contended that apartment managers weren’t doing enough about strains on city police resources, while complex supervisors said they needed more help from lawenforcement.
Some community organizers favor civil lawsuits as a tool for crime relief, but Southlawn injunction opponents have accused officials of using the injunctions to unfairly target and legally exclude black men from certain neighborhoods.
Robert Soard, first assistant Harris County attorney, has told the Chronicle that the injunction lawsuits are filed in response to reports from law enforcement about crime hot spots.
Earlier injunction
Last November, 55 defendants who had legal representation reached agreed orders to stay out of a smaller Southlawn area along Scott between Yellowstone and Lydia that includes Southlawn Palms and several other apartment complexes.
In February, 14 other men were excluded from the entire zone by “default” because they did not respond to the lawsuit.
A hearing on a permanent injunction is scheduled for April. Defense lawyers have requested a jury trial.
Southlawn would be the third “safety zone” created since 2010 in Harris County. The population of that area is 78 percent black and 20 percent Hispanic. The first injunction zone in northeast Harris County’s East Aldine/Haverstock area has a population that is 70 percent black and 25 percent Hispanic, according to calculations basedon U.S. Census Bureau figures. The second, in southwest Houston’ s B rays Oaks community, is 41 percent black and 40 percent Hispanic.