Texas Justice

Don't mess with Texas:

ARLINGTON, Texas — Darrell Roberson came home from a card game late one night to find his wife rolling around with another man in a pickup truck in the driveway.

Caught in the act with her lover, Tracy Denise Roberson -- thinking quickly, if not clearly -- cried rape, authorities say. Her husband pulled a gun and killed the other man with a shot to the head.

On Thursday, a grand jury handed up a manslaughter indictment -- against the wife, not the husband.

In a case likely to reinforce the state's reputation for don't-mess-with-Texas justice, the grand jury declined to charge the husband with murder, the charge on which he was arrested by police.

''If I found somebody with my wife or with my kids in my house, there's no telling what I might do,'' said Juan Muniz, 33, who was having lunch today with one of his two small children at a restaurant in the middle-class suburban Dallas neighborhood where the Robersons lived. ''I probably would have done the same thing.''

It's nice to know that somewhere in this country there's a grand jury that gets it. And Mr. Roberson gets a free shot at a guy he probably would have wanted to shoot anyway. A definite win-win.