Article #4
Labels: English 50
Article Summary #3
Summary Here
Labels: English 50
English Summary #2
Daniel Contreras
Professor Jacinto Gardea
ENGL P050 CRN 32356
23 February 2011
The Fatal Mistake
According to an anonymous author, death penalty victim Carlos De Luna was a victim of both false accusation and wrongful execution. He claims that the delayed response shows how crucial the investigation was to the officers. The author asserts that De Luna was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He disagrees with the procedures that the officers made during the investigation. The author explains the store manager could not believe that officers would allow the evidence to be wiped away so early in the investigation. The anonymous author says that De Luna was underneath a vehicle because he had violated his parole, by drinking nearby when the crime occurred. The author also points out that no money was stolen during the crime, so De Luna's punishment was unreasonable and unjust.
The prosecution argues that De Luna was indeed responsible because of three things. First was the victim's 911 phone call that has no visible evidence. Second was the only witness nearby when the crime occurred, but even he was unsure if De Luna was the culprit. Last were the mugshots of De Luna and Carlos Hernandez, which looked very alike. But both men were criminals of very different charges. De Luna was charged on drinking while Hernandez was guilty on crimes using a large knife. The author concludes by saying, "No one has apologized to Carlos De Luna or his family for wrongly taking his life. Nor has anyone apologized to Lopez's family for botching that investigation or to Hernandez's subsequent victims, who would have been safe if police and prosecutors had properly investigated the Lopez murder. And what about the jurors who were led to believe that De Luna was guilty? They too deserve an apology" (6).
Labels: English 50
Carlos De Luna
On December 7, 1989, Texas executed 27-year old Carlos De Luna. Sixteen years later, the Chicago Tribune published a three-part investigative series implicating another man and discrediting the evidence against De Luna. Labels: English 50
In February 1983, Wanda Lopez was stabbed to death during the night shift at a gas station convenience store where she was clerk. Lopez did not have to die. If police had responded to the first of her two 911 calls, she would be alive today, as would De Luna. Instead, police waited to respond until the end of Lopez's second call, after a series of yes or no questions with a dispatcher revealed that a Hispanic male was in the store with a knife and after Lopez screams revealed she had been stabbed. The officers' delay in reaching the scene may explain their haste to complete the investigation, compounding the tragedy by convicting and executing the wrong man.
After a brief manhunt, police found De Luna hiding underneath a pick-up truck. Recently released from prison, De Luna had been violating parole by drinking in public. Police reports say he was staggering and intoxicated. School reports show he was developmentally impaired.
De Luna immediately told police he was innocent and offered to name a man he had seen inside the gas station. Police ignored De Luna. Also ignored was the fact that he didn't have a drop of blood on his body or clothing, even though the knife victim and killer had physically struggled, drenching the crime scene in blood. De Luna was arrested too soon after the crime to have cleaned himself up.
Back at the gas station, police brought Kevan Baker, their single eyewitness to the crime, to the squad car where De Luna was shirtless and handcuffed in the back seat. After police indicated to Baker that De Luna was the killer, he identified De Luna. Baker told the Tribune he was never sure De Luna was the man he had seen and would have been less sure if police had not hinted they had the right man. Baker originally told police the killer wore a moustache, was dressed like a derelict, and ran northwest behind the gas station. Witnesses placed De Luna east of the gas station. He had no moustache and was dressed in a white button-down dress shirt and dress pants.
From the moment De Luna was arrested until the night he was executed, he insisted he hid under the truck because he was on parole and got scared when he heard sirens coming. He told the officer who arrested him that he was not guilty but knew who was. At trial De Luna named Carlos Hernandez as the man he saw inside the gas station, across the street from the bar where De Luna had been drinking. As the Tribune investigation revealed, Carlos Hernandez was a well-known Corpus Christi criminal and armed felon. He habitually wore a moustache, dressed like a "hobo" and carried a buck knife like the one found at the Lopez crime scene.
Police ignored De Luna's statements. Moments after Baker identified De Luna, police ended their investigation and turned the crime scene over to a stunned store manager who couldn't believe he was allowed to wash down the store so soon after a major crime. Police photographs of the scene reveal (1) a shoe heel print framed in blood (the victim was barefoot when she was killed; De Luna's shoes had no blood on them); (2) a partially smoked cigarette butt near the location of the stabbing (the assailant brought a Winston cigarette pack to the counter before attacking the victim; Winston was Hernandez's brand); (3) a dark red button (Baker told police the killer was wearing a red flannel shirt; according to friends, Hernandez's "winter uniform" was a red flannel shirt); and (4) the murder weapon, an 8-inch buck knife smeared with blood.
Except for the knife, police seized none of these items. Their photographs show the lead investigator trampling on bloody evidence that was never seized. Only four fingerprints were lifted from the scene, none from the knife, and none matched De Luna. A well-known former Corpus Christi police detective, Eddie Garza, told the Tribune the police investigation was incompetent.
At trial, the prosecution argued that De Luna had stabbed Wanda Lopez during the commission of a robbery. The Tribune's investigation revealed, however, that no money had been taken from the scene. Baker told the police the victim's struggle with the assailant looked like a lover's quarrel. Hernandez's neighbors say he knew Lopez and was romantically interested in her. There is no indication De Luna knew Lopez. The supposed robbery was the only factor elevating the murder to a death-eligible crime.
Absent blood, fingerprints, or other physical links to the crime, prosecutors rested their case against De Luna on three things. First was the 911 audio tape of the brutal killing. The tape incensed the jury but gave no hint of who killed Lopez except that it was a Hispanic male. Second was Kevan Baker's night-time identification of De Luna. Baker was prompted by police and shown only a single suspect, not the line-up that standard procedure required. Mug shots reveal that De Luna and Hernandez look strikingly similar. Both were 5'8" tall, 160 pounds, with wavy black hair. Shown pictures of the two men, relatives of both repeatedly mistook one for the other. The only difference was in the two Carloses' m.o. De Luna had many arrests but was never found to have possessed or used a weapon. Hernandez committed most of his crimes with a large knife.
Third, prosecutors said De Luna was a liar. De Luna identified "Carlos Hernandez" as the killer, but - argued the lead prosecutor - Hernandez was "a phantom." In fact, the untruth was the state's. Hernandez was known and notorious to police and prosecutors. Just two months after Lopez was killed, police arrested Hernandez behind a 7-11 Store at night, a knife in his pocket. Around the same time, police informants told Detective Garza that Hernandez had told them he killed Wanda Lopez. When given this information, the lead detective on the Lopez case ignored it. Still worse, one of the prosecutors at De Luna's trial admitted that he knew Hernandez personally. Only three years earlier, he had interviewed Hernandez on suspicion of knifing a young Hispanic woman to death. When arrested for that crime, Hernandez was carrying a buck knife.
Just as police steered Kevan Baker to identify De Luna, the prosecutor's claim that Hernandez was a phantom prompted the jury to convict DeLuna and sentence him to die. De Luna's attorneys also were misled. Although De Luna's family never wavered in their belief that their Carlos could not have killed Wanda Lopez, the lawyers they hired to help him never went to the courthouse to look up Carlos Hernandez's lengthy record of violent convictions and never otherwise investigated his crime. It was not until a decade and a half after De Luna was executed that the Tribune found five people, including Hernandez's own niece, who heard Hernandez confess to stabbing and killing Lopez. Hernandez repeatedly laughed about his "stupid tocayo" who went to jail for Hernandez's crime. "Tocayo" is the Spanish word for "namesake." All five kept this information to themselves, fearing Hernandez's wrath. Some assumed they would be questioned but never were.
In 1999, ten years after De Luna was executed, Hernandez died in prison of liver cirrhosis. During that decade, Hernandez stabbed another young Hispanic woman nearly to death and accumulated five additional arrests, the last of which, an assault with a knife, landed him in prison for the last time.
When confronted with the evidence of Hernandez's guilt and De Luna's innocence, the De Luna prosecutors admitted they should not have told the jury Hernandez was a phantom. Still, they offered no apologies for their actions. No one has apologized to Carlos De Luna or his family for wrongly taking his life. Nor has anyone apologized to Lopez's family for botching that investigation or to Hernandez's subsequent victims, who would have been safe if police and prosecutors had properly investigated the Lopez murder. And what about the jurors who were led to believe that De Luna was guilty? They too deserve an apology.
Works Cited
"NCADP - The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty." DemocracyInAction | Empowering Small, Progressive Nonprofits with Technology and Support. Web. 17 Feb. 2011.
DID ONE MAN DIE FOR ANOTHER MAN'S CRIME? THE SECRET THAT WASN'T
DID ONE MAN DIE FOR ANOTHER MAN'S CRIME? THE SECRET THAT WASN'T Labels: English 50
Violent felon bragged that he was real killer
By Maurice Possley and Steve Mills
Tribune staff reporters
Published June 27, 2006
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas -- It was a secret they all shared. Some kept it out of fear. Some because no one ever asked. Whatever their reasons, it was a secret that might have saved Carlos De Luna from the execution chamber.
Twenty-three years after Wanda Lopez was murdered in the gas station where she worked, family members and acquaintances of another man, Carlos Hernandez, have broken their silence to support what De Luna had long asserted: Hernandez, a violent felon, killed Lopez in 1983.
A Tribune investigation has identified five people who say Hernandez told them that he stabbed Lopez and that De Luna, whom he called his "stupid tocayo," or namesake, went to Death Row in his place.
They also say he admitted killing another woman, in 1979, a crime for which he was indicted but never tried.
Although some aspects of De Luna's actions on the night of Lopez's killing remain suspicious, the Tribune uncovered substantial evidence that undermines his conviction. Among the findings:
The only witness who came face to face with the killer at the station after Lopez was stabbed now says he was not positive of his identification of De Luna. He identified De Luna, he said, after police told him they had arrested De Luna hiding under a truck near the scene of the attack--information that eased his uncertainty.
The Tribune's analysis of financial records from the Sigmor gas station also undercuts the state's assertion that the killing took place during a robbery, an aggravating circumstance that elevated the murder to a death penalty case. Newly examined inventory documents suggest no money was taken at all.
The prosecution argued that Hernandez was a "phantom," even though one of the prosecutors knew well of Hernandez but failed to inform De Luna's attorneys--a possible legal error that could have been a reason to overturn his conviction.
And one of Corpus Christi's senior detectives at the time of the crime now says he believes De Luna was wrongly executed. The former detective, Eddie Garza, said tipsters told him that Hernandez killed Lopez, the mother of a 6-year-old girl. Yet it appears those tips were not pursued.
Garza knew both men and said Lopez's slaying was the kind of crime Hernandez would commit, not De Luna.
"I don't think [De Luna] had it in him to do something like this and stab somebody to death," Garza said.
But Hernandez, he added, "was a ruthless criminal. He had a bad heart. I believe he was a killer."
A SECRET NO MORE
After Hernandez died in prison in 1999, word reached Corpus Christi, and people began to talk.
Janie Adrian remembered how Hernandez bragged about stabbing Lopez, how he said Carlos De Luna, the man who shared his first name, was innocent.
"He said, `My stupid tocayo took the blame for it,'" she recalled recently.
Adrian, a neighbor of Hernandez's mother, Fidela, said she always thought someone would ask what she knew. Nobody ever did, so she never told.
"I kept it to myself," she said in her Corpus Christi home. "Maybe I could have said something then."
Dina Ybanez waited because she was afraid. She met Hernandez in 1985, and after he befriended her and her husband, he confided that he killed Lopez.
"He said he was the one that did it, but that they got somebody else--his stupid tocayo--for that one," Ybanez said in an interview. "Carlos would just laugh about it because he got away with it." Like a number of people in Corpus Christi who knew Hernandez, Ybanez said he also admitted committing the 1979 murder of Dahlia Sauceda, a local woman who was strangled and had an "X" carved into her back. Hernandez was questioned in the murder in 1979, then indicted for it in 1986, although prosecutors never took him to trial.
Ybanez said she so feared Hernandez that she never contacted police about his admissions, not even after he cut her from her navel to her sternum during a quarrel. "He said he was going to kill me like he did her," she said.
Beatrice Tapia and Priscilla Jaramillo never spoke about what they knew because they wanted to forget.
Although they had not seen each other in years, they independently recalled the same chilling details from the day they heard Hernandez say he killed Lopez.
Jaramillo is Hernandez's niece, and during the 1980s she lived at his mother's home, where, she said, she was sexually abused by Hernandez.
Not long after Lopez was slain, Jaramillo, then 11, and Tapia, 16, a neighborhood friend, were sitting on the front steps, mostly talking but also listening to Hernandez and his brother Javier, who were on the porch drinking beer.
Carlos told his brother that he had killed the woman at the gas station.
"He was saying he did something wrong and said Wanda's name. He said he killed her," recalled Tapia, who still lives in Corpus Christi. "He said he felt sorry about it."
Jaramillo's recollection is similar. "My Uncle Carlos said that he had hurt somebody--that he had stabbed somebody," said Jaramillo, who now lives elsewhere in Texas. "Javier didn't believe it.
"Carlos said, `I did.' And he named her, and Javier knew her," Jaramillo said. "He said the name was Wanda."
In addition to the four women who recounted Hernandez's admissions, the Tribune interviewed a Corpus Christi man who told a similar story. Miguel Ortiz, who has a criminal record, said the two were drinking in a park when Hernandez talked about a clerk he had "wasted" at a gas station.
"I just let that go," Ortiz said.
TIPS ON HERNANDEZ
While some in Corpus Christi kept silent about Hernandez, others apparently did not.
Garza, a detective at the time, recalled getting tips just days after De Luna was arrested that someone else was talking about how he had stabbed the gas station clerk.
"We were getting information that Carlos Hernandez was the one that had done the case," said Garza, who now is a private investigator. "Several people were telling us that."
Garza says he passed along the information to the detective leading the investigation, Olivia Escobedo.
Escobedo, now a real estate agent and police consultant in Florida, said she remembers no such tips. "I don't recall anything about a Carlos Hernandez," she said in a recent interview.
"I always followed every lead," added Escobedo, who primarily had investigated sex crimes and handled the De Luna case alone. "I went down rabbit trails when I didn't have to. I followed everything I could think of."
Garza's partner at the time, Paul Rivera, now a captain in the county sheriff's department, also said he doesn't remember the tips.
Garza did not testify at the trial but did at De Luna's sentencing, asserting that the defendant had a "bad" reputation in town. Garza says that by then he assumed the tips had been checked out and determined to be false. Now he believes the tips were ignored.
His recent examination of the case's police reports, at the Tribune's request, renewed his skepticism about De Luna's guilt. Garza concluded the initial crime scene investigation was sloppy and brief.
He noted that none of the blood spattered on the floor of the station was collected for testing, so there was no way to determine whether the attacker's blood was present. The only items sent for blood testing were the knife, De Luna's clothing and a $5 bill.
One police photo shows Escobedo standing in the middle of the spattered blood behind the station counter. The station reopened a few hours after the crime.
"This case wasn't put together right," Garza said.
Noting that investigators found no physical evidence that could be used to identify the attacker, he said, "It probably was there to be found. It was just overlooked."
WITNESS' DOUBTS
With no forensic evidence linking De Luna to the crime, prosecutors relied heavily on two eyewitnesses who said they saw him at the station--one before and one after the murder.
Arrested less than an hour after the attack, De Luna was handcuffed and placed in a patrol car, then driven to the gas station, where an officer shone a light on his face.
Of those witnesses, only Kevan Baker came eye to eye with the killer after Lopez had been stabbed. Now living near Jonesville, Mich., Baker recalls that night vividly.
He had stopped to buy gas and saw Lopez and a man struggling inside the station. When he approached the door to help, the assailant emerged, they locked eyes and the attacker fled.
De Luna and Hernandez were about the same height and looked alike in police mug shot profiles.
Baker identified De Luna but now says he was uncertain. "I wasn't all that sure, but him being Hispanic and all . . . I said, `Yeah, I think it is him,'" Baker recalled recently. "The cops told me they found him hiding under a truck. That led me to believe this is probably the guy."
This form of identification--called a show-up, in which a witness views only one suspect instead of attempting to pick a suspect out of a lineup--can be accurate, but it also can give eyewitnesses a false sense of certainty, according to experts. They say shackling a suspect exacerbates the potential for a mistaken identification.
"Law enforcement figures `we got our guy,' so their whole demeanor, their language, the way they handle the guy suggests to the witness that this is the person," said Gary Wells, a research psychologist at Iowa State University and a leading expert on eyewitness identification issues. "That's a lot of pressure to put on a witness."
The other witness who identified De Luna as he sat in the police car, George Aguirre, declined to be interviewed for this article. At a pretrial hearing, Aguirre was unable to point out De Luna in the courtroom. At trial a month later, though, he did.
Two additional witnesses at the trial, John and Julie Arsuaga, said they caught a glimpse of De Luna's face as he ran slowly through a parking lot east of the station a few minutes after Lopez was attacked.
De Luna told authorities that when he saw Hernandez struggling with Lopez, he fled from the area because he was on parole and didn't want to be spotted by police.
Julie Arsuaga could not be reached for comment. In a recent interview, her former husband said he still believes De Luna was the man he saw down the street.
But he acknowledged he never saw De Luna at the gas station: "I didn't see the man commit a crime."
NOT A ROBBERY?
The discovery of $149 in De Luna's pocket when he was arrested was important to the prosecution's case because it was one more way to tie him to the crime.
But a review of the station's business records show that's a shaky assumption.
De Luna's defense lawyers established that he had cashed a paycheck for $135 the day of the murder and $71 a week earlier. Further, they noted that the $149 was in a neat roll--unlikely if the money had just been snatched from a cash register--and that none of the bills tested positive for blood. Money found scattered in the Sigmor station was bloodstained.
At trial, a district manager for the chain of stations told the jury that an inventory performed the night of the crime showed a shortage of $166. He couldn't say how much of that was merchandise and how much, if any, was cash.
But another Sigmor employee at the time, Robert Stange, never believed any money was taken.
Stange, who said he was never interviewed by police, prosecutors or defense lawyers, worked the day shift at the station before Lopez. In a recent interview, he said he was called back that night after the murder to clean up the blood and conduct the inventory.
He said he found $55 in cash receipts as well as $200 kept at the station to make change for customers.
Lopez, he said, always made sure that when she accumulated $100 in receipts, she immediately put it in the safe and noted the time and the amount of the cash drop in the station's daily log.
A copy of the log shows that Lopez last made a drop of $100 at 7:31 p.m., 38 minutes before she was attacked.
For De Luna's $149 to have been robbery proceeds, Stange explained, Lopez would have had to take in at least that much in the half-hour before the crime occurred, without putting any of it in the safe. Lopez, he said, "would have never kept that kind of money in the drawer without making a drop. She didn't want that kind of money on hand. Nobody did."
At the request of the Tribune, Kevin Stevens, a DePaul University accounting professor, examined the inventory report prosecutors used at trial. Stevens, who coincidentally worked at a gas station while in college, concluded that the Sigmor's bookkeeping system was too haphazard to be accurate.
"They can't know how much cash was missing," Stevens said, "because they can't know how much cash was there."
STILL CONFIDENT
After the Tribune began its investigation, the lead prosecutor in De Luna's trial, Steve Schiwetz, decided to examine the case file.
Troubled by some of the questions being raised, he spent hours at the Nueces County district attorney's office with a reporter poring over the trial exhibits, police reports and other documents in the case, as well as studying documents the Tribune provided.
Now a lawyer in private practice, Schiwetz acknowledged that the case relied heavily on eyewitness testimony. "Sometimes it's reliable. Sometimes it isn't reliable," he said in an interview. "And sometimes, in cases like this, you're not entirely sure how reliable it is."
Schiwetz labeled Hernandez a "phantom" at trial, but said he would not have done so if he'd been informed by a fellow prosecutor that Hernandez had been a suspect in the murder of another woman. Schiwetz also said that if he had been told of reports that Carlos Hernandez was claiming to be Lopez's killer, he would have investigated them.
"Anytime somebody's going around saying they killed somebody, I think it's worth looking at," he said. "But I've heard a lot of people make claims for stuff they did or didn't do that weren't true."
Ultimately, Schiwetz points to several elements of the case that still persuade him the jury convicted the right man. De Luna, he said, lied when he claimed to have talked to two women at a skating rink on the night of the crime and lied when he apparently said he first met Hernandez in jail. De Luna had lost all credibility, Schiwetz said.
"He's lying about the most important story he's ever going to tell in his entire life," he said.
In addition, while De Luna said he lost his shirt while scaling a fence, he gave no explanation for how he lost his shoes, Schiwetz noted. Though the crime lab found no blood or other evidence on them, Schiwetz told the jury that De Luna could have stabbed Lopez without getting blood on his shirt and that any blood on his shoes washed off when he ran through wet grass.
As for Hernandez's history of knife crimes, he said, "Every man in this town has carried a knife. And most of us still do. I carry a knife. I did not kill Wanda Lopez or anybody else."
Schiwetz's co-prosecutor on the De Luna case, Ken Botary, also remains confident the verdict was correct.
"I'm not ready to concede Carlos De Luna was innocent," Botary said.
ANGER AND REGRETS
Wanda Lopez's murder still haunts those who were touched by it.
Her brother, Louis Vargas, no longer is filled with the rage that so consumed him that he imagined sneaking into the prison and killing De Luna himself.
Now, when he thinks about his sister's death, he mainly is filled with horror at how she died. He cannot forget her screams on the 911 tape.
"This is like opening a can of worms," he said. "All this time, we were told it was this one guy. Now do we have to think it was somebody else?"
His parents adopted Wanda's young daughter. Now a mother of four, she is raising a family of her own and still lives in Corpus Christi.
De Luna's sister, Rose Rhoton, has long believed in her brother's innocence. She blames his lawyers for not mounting a more aggressive defense and authorities for not pursuing Hernandez as a suspect.
She has regrets of her own as well.
"If God ever gave me a second chance," Rhoton said, sitting in her Dallas home and beginning to cry, "I would fight harder for Carlos."
When Rhoton departed the death house in Huntsville, having seen her brother for the last time, she left him in the care of a minister, Carroll Pickett.
The death house chaplain, Pickett prayed with De Luna and, as he did with all inmates facing execution, gave De Luna an opportunity to confess and make his peace. De Luna, he said, insisted he was innocent.
De Luna was the 33rd Death Row inmate to whom Pickett ministered, and in the years that followed he would minister to 62 more. But this one stayed with him always: how De Luna claimed he was innocent, how he took longer to die than most inmates, how he tried to raise his head from the gurney and speak to Pickett before the lethal injection left him lifeless.
"When I saw him die," Pickett said, "part of me died too."
The experience forced him to ask a question he says he still can't answer: Do the innocent die differently than the guilty?
Works Cited
Possley, Maurice, and Steve Mills. "Chicago Tribune: EXECUTED TEXAS MAN WAS LIKELY INNOCENT." Death Penalty Information Center. 27 June 2006. Web. 17 Feb. 2011.
Youtube Video
The Death Penalty is a Step Back
The Death Penalty is a Step Back Labels: English 50
Coretta Scott King
Although I have suffered the loss of two family members by assassination, I remain
firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses.
An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the
taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder. Morality apart, there are
a number of practical reasons which form a powerful argument against capital punishment.
First, capital punishment makes irrevocable any possible miscarriage of justice. Time
and again we have witnessed the specter of mistakenly convicted people being put to death in
the name of American criminal justice. To those who say that, after all, this doesn’t occur too
often, I can only reply that if it happens just once, that is too often. And it has occurred many
times.
Second, the death penalty reflects an unwarranted assumption that the wrongdoer is
beyond rehabilitation. Perhaps some individuals cannot be rehabilitated; but who shall make
that determination? Is any amount of academic training sufficient to entitle one person to
judge another incapable of rehabilitation?
Third, the death penalty is inequitable. Approximately half of the 711 persons now on
death row are black. From 1930 through 1968, 53.5% of those executed were black
Americans, all too many of whom were represented by court-appointed attorneys and
convicted after hasty trials. The argument that this may be an accurate reflection of guilt and
homicide trends instead of racist application of laws lacks credibility in light of a recent Florida
survey which showed that persons convicted of killing whites were four times more likely to
receive a death sentence than those convicted of killing blacks.
Proponents of capital punishment often cite a “deterrent effect” as the main benefits of
the death penalty. Not only is there no hard evidence that murdering murderers will deter
other potential killers, but even the “logic” of this argument defies comprehension. Numerous
studies show that the majority of homicides committed in this country are acts of victim’s
relatives, friends, and acquaintances in the “heat of passion.” What this strongly suggests is
that rational consideration of future consequences is seldom a part of the killer’s attitude at the
time he commits a crime.
The only way to break the chain of violent reaction is to practice nonviolence as
individuals and collectively through our laws and institutions.
Works Cited
King, Coretta Scott. "The Death Penalty Is a Step Back." San Joaquin Delta College. Web. 15 Feb. 2011.
Compare/Contrast David & Gericault
Daniel Contreras
Professor James Entz
ART P112 CRN 322842
2 March 2011
Sur l'étalon
Art is constantly changing. However, artists continue to construct compositions that are preservers of their time. Every new era brings along with it a change in style that reflects the evolving factors of the world. In addition to the shifting styles, forms and values replace previous ones in accordance to the role of art. The artworks' tones revolve around the technique used by an artist. Artists sought inspiration from ideas such as courage and honor (neoclassicism) to eras such as Baroque and Medieval (romanticism). Neoclassicism and romanticism were just two of the many prominent movements in Europe.
The movement that occurred first was Neoclassicism, which began in the 1780’s. The neoclassical movement did not just affect art. In fact architecture, literature, and music, among others, also transformed in the neoclassical era. Impressiveness and order were two of the main values within neoclassicism. A great inspiration of many works was Classical Rome and many subjects were based on Greek and Roman history. In neoclassical art, most figures were placed in the foreground of the image since their role was to morally lift and inspire the masses. The tone was rational and the artist’s brush strokes were removed, leaving a calm attitude within the painting. The most recognizable neoclassical painter was Jacques-Louis David who was born on 1748. David’s most famous paintings are the Oath of the Horatii and The Death of Marat. Both are true to the neoclassical era, as both contain emphasized lines, patriotism and a moral propaganda.
Jacques-Louis David was the creator of a commissioned painting drawn in 1800 titled Napoleon at Saint Bernard Pass. Napoleon Bonaparte relied on artists to spread his folklore and myth so he could appeal to all of Europe. He soon becomes the most powerful man in Europe. In the painting, Napoleon is given a heroic and God-like appearance, not because Napoleon was the emperor, but because he was the respective commissioner. As French Emperor, Napoleon was in control. In reality Napoleon rode a mule and not a horse across the Alps. Napoleon was not impressive in physical stature. David's painting is considered to be neoclassical because its style is the traditional Roman equestrian portrait (Adams 695). The light in the image heavily illuminates Napoleon and his stallion in the center of the piece. The light seems to come from one single direction up above, because it is strong in a single spot between the horse's legs. Napoleon's cloak blows simultaneously with the horse's mane towards their destination, showing us that he is in control. However, the cape is painted with a strong red while waving in the air, unrestrained like Romantic art which followed neoclassicism.
Romanticism began in the 1800's, overlapping the neoclassical period, and ended sometime in the 1840's. Like neoclassicism, romanticism set its foundation on antiquity and the nostalgic past. Romantics were inspired by exotic worlds such as the Far and Middle East. The Baroque and Medieval eras also inspired romantics. The role of art during this movement was to carry the viewer away by its dramatic depictions. Romantic artists did not hide the brush strokes, while neoclassical artists did. Romantics also used unrestrained and rich color in their paintings. However, romanticism brought new ideas that challenged neoclassical beliefs. Instead of monarch power of a select few, ideas such as individual power and rule by the people started to come forth. Romanticism was their return to nature and dive into the supernatural realm. Romantics were fascinated by the sublime, the unknown and unknowable. They expressed individual imagination in their art works. The pieces also exuded subjectivity, dramatic depictions and wild emotion. One of romanticism's well known painters was Theodore Gericault.
Theodore Gericault was a young painter who left a big mark in art history. He was responsible for the art piece titled Mounted Officer of the Imperial Guard which was painted in 1812, twelve years after David's Napoleon at Saint Bernard Pass. In Gericault's painting, the horse appears to be untamed, whereas David's the horse is idealistically posed and contained. The background is unclear yet the presence of battle is apparent with its dramatic scenery. The officer is confronted with by violent nature of battle. This emotion is conveyed through the use of energetic textures. By closely examining the details of the horse, the "artist's hand" is much more visible in this painting than in David's painting. In this piece, the subject makes no eye contact with the viewer, making it more subjective. The use of diagonal lines is also present within the rearing horse; the line begins at the lower left of the image. It then shoots diagonally across the spontaneous stallion (Adams 714).
In comparison, Gericault's Mounted Officer of the Imperial Guard is much more dramatic than David's Napoleon at Saint Bernard Pass. However, both paintings do share a taste for classical antiquity. David's image is much more clear and idealized than Gericault's. David leaves no sign of brush strokes. Contrastingly, Gericault has visible brush strokes in his painting. In addition, the lighting is significantly different in both drawings. A source of light seems to hit the subject from behind in Gericault's painting, while David's painting has a light hitting the subject directly from above. Both paintings also had different purposes. The role of David's image was to inspire and morally uplift the masses. On the other hand, Gericault's painting was made to carry the viewer into a mysterious reality. Romanticism valued imagination and emotion while neoclassicism valued order and rationality. Exotica, nature and violence were common subjects in romantic art. The romantic paintings were non-conformist and filled with subjectivity. David's painting was neither crowded nor violent, but it was more calm and honorable than Gericault's.
All in all, Jacques-Louis David and Theodore Gericault were both mavens in their own respective fields. David's Napoleon at Saint Bernard Pass will forever continue to preserve the antiquity of the past. This painting is a highlight of the neoclassical era that stands proud alongside other great neoclassical creations. In comparison, Gericault's Mounted Officer of the Imperial Guard allowed us to explore the majesty and unknown quantity of the human imagination. To this day, surviving hundreds of years, the artworks are available for the entire world to observe.
Works Cited
Adams, Laurie. "Chapter 19 & 20." Art across Time. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill College, 2010. 690-731. Print.
Labels: Art History
Sublime in my Life
The sublime in my life is my reflection in the mirror. I see what I am very clearly. All you see is all you get. But I cannot change the reality. It is the ugly truth in the world. No flaws are hidden underneath. Yet, at the same time, it is so pure. The being on the other side looks at me with such tender sadness. So sometimes I feel like I am on the wrong side. The reflection can wander off into a vast world with no worries. I, however, can not do the same. In our world we have responsibilities from the day of birth. Grow, work, live and then die. In my reflection, none of that occurs. Time is at a stand-still as I look into this reverse universe. The reflection brings me ascending joy on the days of sunlight. Our reflections may not seem important to us at most times, but could you imagine a world in which it's sublime presence was gone?
Labels: Art History
The Tide Shifts Against the Death Penalty
Daniel Contreras Labels: English 50
Professor Jacinto Gardea
ENGL P050 CRN 32356
9 February 2011
The "Demise" of the Death Penalty
According to Richard Lacayo, "Capital punishment has a lot less life in it." He explains how executions have declined since 1999, the peak of executions by the death penalty. Lacayo points out that almost all executions are carried out exclusively in the South, most notably Texas. He also points out that 14 out of 50 states have done away with the death penalty entirely. The availability of DNA evidence has permitted numerous prisoners to be released from death row. "That's had a ripple effect," claims Richard Dieter. "The whole system has become [much] more cautious about the death penalty," says Dieter (2).
Kirk Bloodsworth’s case highlights the importance of using DNA testing on death row inmates to determine whether or not they are innocent. In the mid 80’s, Bloodsworth was charged for first degree murder, sexual assault, and rape against a nine year old girl. His sentence was death. Not until eight years later did they agree to DNA testing. By using both Polymerase chain reaction and DNA testing they concluded that Bloodsworth was not at fault. He became the first in history to be exonerated from death row by the means of DNA testing. Bloodsworth went on to become a member of Maryland’s commission against the death penalty ("The Innocence Project").
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley claims that the death penalty is “outdated, expensive, and utterly ineffective” (2). Baltimore Senator Lisa Gladden comments that the the commission report confirms her knowledge about the death penalty. Gladden agrees that the death penalty is expensive, unjust and a useless deterrent against crime (4).
Works Cited
"The Innocence Project - Know the Cases: Browse Profiles:Kirk Bloodsworth." The Innocence Project - Home. Web. 08 Feb. 2011.
Lacayo, Richard. "The Tide Shifts Against the Death Penalty - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. 3 Feb. 2009. Web. 07 Feb. 2011.
Art History Terms
Formalism - The doctrine or practice of strict adherence to stylized shapes or other external forms.
Iconography - The analysis of works of art through the study of the meanings of symbols and images in the context of the contemporary culture.
Iconology - The study of the meaning or content of a larger program to which individual works of art belong.
Marxism - The process of making art and its exploitation by the ruling classes.
Feminism - Before 1970s art textbooks did not include female artists. Feminism was to stop discriminating women from being discriminated against.
Biography/Autobiography - Biographical method that emphasizes authorship using the author's life as an underlying text.
Semiology - The study of signs.
Deconstruction - To interpret an artwork by the method of deconstruction.
Psychoanalysis - The imagery examined found in dreams, waking fantasies, jokes, etc and reveals the unconscious mind.
Labels: Art History
My Photos
(Coming Soon)
Labels: Photography
Jacques-Louis David questions
Daniel Contreras
Professor James Entz
ART P112 CRN 32284
9 February 2011
Jacques-Louis David was born on the 30th of August, 1748 in France. As a child he was self contained. David searched for virtue in life up until he reached the age of seven, when his father was killed. Afterwards he moved in with his uncle who at the time happened to be the town's most famous painter. David's family urged him to pursuit being an architect or a lawyer but he knew that those weren't the right careers for him. David's life drastically changed after a fencing accident. His face was slashed by a sword which later on caused him to have a tumor like figure on his cheek. Afterwards he had trouble with his speech so many mocked and teased the way he sounded when he spoke. Like the narrator in the film said, both David's mind and face were marked by the blade.
Jacques-Louis David's composition Oath of the Horatti has remained renown amongst art critics and average art viewers alike for many decades. This piece contains a balance between two conflicting ideas: Stoicism and Grief. The focal point is the father (center of the image) standing in an erect stature. David's style in this work of art resembles the Roman Fighting class with the bold color of red. The figures to the right of the plane are cast in a smaller space. In proportion with the right, the left does not share as much light and space thus leading the directional forces away. The content this piece could be used as moral propaganda with its clear patriotism.
The most tragic yet beautiful piece by Jacques-Louis David is The Death of Marat. This composition is David's tribute to fallen friend Marat, whom was assassinated in his bathtub. The space and vast darkness beyond the dead Marat is apparent. You can almost feel the directional forces pulling your attention to the dead figure. One fascinating feature is the pose which is similar to that of the dead Christ. The image's content is a projection of the deep conflicting ideas that David struggled with.
Labels: Art History
Death Penalty Articles, Facts, and Discussions.
Vigilant Citizen Forums. "The Value of Human Life."
http://vigilantcitizen.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10452&hilit=Death+Penalty
Hoshuha. "The Death Penalty: Morally Defensible?"
http://www.hoshuha.com/articles/deathpenalty.html
Fun Facts
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf
5 Reasons to Oppose the Death Penalty
http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/get-the-facts/five-reasons-oppose-death-penalty
Life, Death, and Uncertainty
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/527
Labels: English 50
Art Language
Composition - Overall plan
Plane - Flat surface
Balance - Blending of elements
Contrast - An abrupt change
Unity - harmonious whole
Emphasis - A focal point
Scale - Size relation
Proportion - Size relationships
Directional Forces - "Paths" to follow
Repetition - Regular recurrence
Line - Moving point
Shape - 2-D area
Mass - physical bulk
Volume - space enclosed
Space - general receptacle
Light - value
Color - Hue, value, & intensity
Texture - Tactile quality
Form - Total effect
Content - The meaning
Style - characteristic handling
Labels: Art History