For the next 12 years, a former Fort Worth-area prison guard will be looking out from the other side of the steel bars. Michael Miller, 39, was sentenced Friday by Judge John McBryde to 150 months in a federal pen for raping inmate Marilyn Shirley at the Carswell all-female federal prison four years ago. He was also ordered to pay her $207,175 in restitution for medical bills resulting from the trauma.

"For all these years, Miller's been like a speck of dirt on my shoe" said Shirley, 49. "This morning, I finally feel like I've brushed him off. "The sentence was a bittersweet ending, she said, to an ordeal that began when Miller raped and sodomized her one March morning in 2000, growling afterward, "Don't even think about reporting this. No one will believe you over a guard."

Twelve jurors believed her -- as did their counterparts in a federal civil suit. Miller still owes Shirley a $4 million judgment in that case, which she won in June 2003. Then there's that $10 million negligence lawsuit filed this year by Shirley against the federal Bureau of Prisons. With her track record, the agency might consider putting some money aside.

In case anyone's wondering, Radio-Shack's highly touted "green" edifice rising on the Trinity River is still owned by -- voila! -- the taxpayers. Technically, the owner is the Fort Worth Local Development Corp., the under-the-radar nonprofit entity run by the mayor and council. That crew bought the former low-income-housing property in 2001, in a deal that was supposed to transfer title to the electronics company as soon as the tenants moved out ("The High Cost of Blight," April 7, 2004). Three years later, the corporate headquarters complex is almost finished and the gazillion-dollar homegrown company has yet to take title. Which, based on the Tarrant Appraisal District's last three years of assessments for the 33 acres of land, means the Shack has avoided about $3.2 million in property taxes -- and counting. This building's green in more ways than one.

Static's a bit late in noting the development in the nationwide sex discrimination suit against Wal-Mart, but not as late as the judge -- it took him nine months to rule. Said Judge Martin Jenkins decided that the suit, filed three years ago on behalf of 1.6 million current and former female employees, may proceed as a class action, with all women who've worked for the retail giant since 1998 permitted to join.

Women have long argued that they are paid lower wages for the same jobs as their male counterparts and routinely passed over for promotions. Wal-Mart spokespersons say it's just that women have different aspirations in the workplace. Ah yes, Static can hear the job interview now -- please, sir, could I have a more menial job making less money.