Meanwhile, his wife came to visit, as she did regularly. Guards could not explain where Murillo was.

His family sought frantically to find him. Finally, the phone rang. Hospital doctors had consulted with federal marshals and removed Murillo from the life support system. He then died without his family’s consent, or knowledge.

A federal spokesperson told the Los Angeles Tines that the transfer occurred on the weekend and there was no time to notify the family. On the weekends, he said, the marshals are busy “and our offices are closed.”

Murillo had come from Mexico, undocumented, in 1958 and labored in Central California as a farm worker. He was deported and came back, working for some 20 years as a Los Angeles car washer. This past July, he was picked up and held for trial. Charged with illegal reentry. When jailed, prison doctors found he had a blood clot near his heart. A month later, he fell from his bunk and broke three ribs. Then came the heart attack.

The Murillo family is enraged.

A stench too great—Sometimes a judge has got to go. Like, ex-judge Henry Bauer of Troy, New York. The state Court of Appeals booted him off the bench for reducing “justice” to a mockery. He set bail for people charged with misdemeanors that would not draw a jail sentence. Or persistently setting stunning bail. For instance, a $25,000 bail for a man charged with riding a bike on the sidewalk at night, without lights. He did seven days in jail before scraping up the $100 fine. Last June, the judge was awarded the Golden Shield by the local police “union.”

Mom, what’s an infrastructure?—“Rhode Island—Many of the state’s roads and bridges are in poor or faltering condition, which costs residents easily $350 annually in vehicle repairs, according to a national transportation research group. According to the report, 24 percent of Rhode Island’s bridges are structurally deficient, 53 percent of state roads are faltering…. The state Department of Transportation did not dispute the findings.”—News item.

Bonanza for body and fender—A District of Columbia report found that drivers spend more than $2,000 a year on their cars because of poor roads. “The study conducted by the nonprofit Road Information Project warns that the problem will worsen if D.C., Maryland and Virginia don’t invest more in transportation.”—Wire service.

Pushout pills—The New Orleans Times Picayune reported that a study found that hospital patients undergo rehabilitation for major ailments are deemed to get well fast enough to get home sooner. But in a six-month period, their risk of dying is greater. The shorter stays came when the federal government changed its payment method to encourage shorter stays.  
 
 
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