CAN HOUSE MEASURE SLOW EXCESSES OF WAR ON DRUGS IN SMALL TOWNS?

How can Tulia, a town of 5,000, support 43 drug dealers?

The U.S. Justice Department is searching for an answer. And state
lawmakers are looking at what they can do to stop the war on drugs
from becoming a war on civil liberties.

Tulia is the Panhandle town where a drug sting by an undercover
officer resulted in the arrest of 16 percent of its African American
population in July 1999. I wrote about the arrests after visiting
Tulia in January.

No money, guns or drugs were confiscated during the arrests by a
regional drug task force. The defendants were convicted solely on the
testimony of an undercover officer. Tom Coleman had neither wiretap
nor video surveillance to back up his allegations.

As if that weren't shaky enough, Coleman resigned from a previous law
enforcement job amid allegations that he had abused department
resources and skipped town to avoid paying $7,000 worth of bills.

Sweeping the streets of drugs shouldn't mean law enforcement
officials can get away with shoddy work. Many hard-working law
officers rely on corroboration, whether evidence or videotape, to
back up undercover work. But some don't.

House Bill 2351, which the House could vote on soon, would require
more than just the testimony of an undercover officer against a
defendant in a drug case. The bill wouldn't apply to officers who
have been in good standing with law enforcement agencies for two
years prior to an undercover operation.

The bill, which was amended after opposition from district attorneys,
is sponsored by Rep. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen. A bill sponsored by
Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, restricts testimony by
undercover informants. The bill could be voted on by the
jurisprudence committee today.

The excesses of the war on drugs extend from the Panhandle to the
Central Texas town of Hearne, where 28 African Americans were charged
in a drug sting last year. The charges were based on the work of an
undercover informant for another regional drug task force. But when
he failed polygraph tests for evidence tampering, charges were
dropped against 17 of the defendants.

What happened in Hearne and Tulia shouldn't be repeated. Will
legislators stop the war on drugs from becoming a war on civil
liberties?