It just so happens that the wake for Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the long-time champion of the mentally disabled who died earlier this week, falls on the same day a Texas jury returned a guilty verdict against the first of six former state employees to stand trial for orchestrating fights between intellectually disabled persons in the state's care.

Jesse Salazar, age 26, was found guilty of helping to arrange fights between mentally disabled individuals at the Corpus Christi State School. He faces between two to 10 years in prison.

The Texas case is shameful proof that despite advances in how society deals with the mentally disabled, progress Shriver greatly contributed to as founder and animating force of the Special Olympics, there are still backwaters of the heart, lacking in compassion for those who are more vulnerable through no fault of their own.

Though Shriver is gone, her work is clearly far from done.