THE FALSELY ACCUSED DESERVED BETTER

How's this for a dagger to the heart?

After a federal jury cleared former Dallas police Detective Mark Delapaz
Tuesday in what has been the only criminal trial to stem from the infamous
fake-drug scandal, some of the Mexican immigrants victimized in the scam
were asked to comment. The reaction was about what you would expect from
people who were wrongfully imprisoned after being framed with phony
evidence and who now saw the man they held responsible walk away scot-free.

Some lost families. Others watched businesses blow away like pool chalk.
They sat in court grasping bits of testimony in a language they barely
understood to make sure justice was done. It wasn't.

One of the immigrants who testified for the government wondered why his
word wasn't enough to convict Mr. Delapaz when the detective's word put
victims in jail for long stretches. Another insisted that the city's
powers-that-be stepped "on us because we are Mexicans." Still another
declared that the justice system in the United States didn't live up to the
billing. "I came here from a corrupt country," he said. "Mexico is corrupt.
And for what? To find the same thing here."

What do you say to that?

One could say Mr. Delapaz had a great defense team, led by former U.S.
Attorney Paul Coggins. Not that it was the defense that established
reasonable doubt. The prosecution did that. Two of the government's star
witnesses - former police informants and current inmates Enrique Alonzo and
Roberto Amador - explained how they packaged pool chalk to look like
cocaine and planted the evidence to collect snitch fees from the Police
Department. They said all that - right before they said how they conned Mr.
Delapaz into thinking the drugs were real. That raised the possibility that
Mr. Delapaz wasn't a criminal as much as a fool.

Strike one for the government.

The whole enterprise hinged on the assumption that narcotics officers
wouldn't test the merchandise. And did they? Who knows? The reports say
that tests were done, but that means believing there could be dozens of
false positives.

No matter. Before the proceedings began, U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn
granted a motion to exclude any discussion of the tests. And who made the
motion? Prosecutors did, apparently hoping to focus the trial on whether
Mr. Delapaz violated people's civil rights by falsifying arrest warrants
and then lied about it to authorities.

Had the tests stayed in, jurors might have wondered how it is that Mr.
Delapaz's signature wound up on all those warrants declaring that the drugs
had been tested and that they were real. They might have begun to suspect
what some local lawyers believe - that the police never tested the drugs
but sloppily processed paperwork without bothering to confirm they had real
dope. That might have forced Mr. Delapaz to testify in his own defense,
which could have opened opportunities for the prosecution.

Strike two.

The part about the victims feeling as if they were stepped on because they
are Mexican sticks in my craw. And it should for anyone who believes in the
simple proposition that every human being regardless of color or class
should have an equal shot at finding justice.

Mention the scandal to judges and lawyers in North Texas, and they will
argue that it had little to do with ethnicity. That's a delusion. Thanks to
the informants' testimony, we know that the victims were selected because
they were Mexican immigrants and thought to be easy prey. What we don't
know is whether the scandal went on undetected as long as it did largely
because police and prosecutors gave into deeply ingrained prejudices about
what drug dealers look like and whether it was those prejudices that caused
them to ignore red flags the size of billboards.

City officials have one last chance to redeem themselves. Dallas City
Attorney Madeleine Johnson said Wednesday that the city will conduct its
own investigation into the scandal, something that should have happened
long ago. She also said the city has offered Mr. Delapaz his job back.

No word on whether anyone has offered to give the victims their lives back.

As for the charge that the justice system in the United States is no better
than the one in Mexico, I can't go along. I have to believe that in this
country - unlike the one my grandfather left nearly 100 years ago - most
people do have a fair shot at justice.

Although, I'll grant you, that's easier to believe some days than others.
Today is not one of those days.