TULIA NOT AS RARE AS WE THINK

More than four years after the infamous Tulia bust, Gov. Rick Perry finally
has allowed justice to be served by acting on the Texas Board of Pardons
and Paroles' recommendation to pardon the 35 convicted defendants whose
cases were pending before the State Court of Criminal Appeals. Mr. Perry's
action offers a rare opportunity to feel proud of our state leaders after a
summer of bitter partisan battling. We are grateful to the governor for
doing the right thing.

But our battle is far from over.

The Tulia defendants ultimately, if very belatedly, received justice
because of the persistent demands and commendable efforts of their families
and friends, civil rights and civil liberties organizations and a small
phalanx of volunteer attorneys. An intense media focus also was
instrumental in keeping the Tulia story on the public's mind. But in few
other cases are so many resources available or mobilized or news stories
written.

The Tulia sting drew international attention, in part because 39 of 46
defendants were black. But those numbers hardly represent a unique case.
Statewide, black people regularly are targeted in drug stings set up by
regional narcotics task forces like the Panhandle Regional Narcotics
Trafficking Task Force, which through racial bias and institutional
recklessness made Tulia a household name. Like the Tulia defendants, many
blacks are convicted based upon the uncorroborated word of an undercover
police officer, with no additional evidence to show they ever committed a
crime.

We expect the Tulia saga to remain an international symbol of the many
failures plaguing the Texas justice system - particularly the continued
operations of regional drug task forces, which are inefficient and
wasteful. The Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force and its
kin are structured as unaccountable extra layers of bureaucracy that behave
as free agents, financed by federal grant funds, and don't report to any
elected government body. Most of them focus too much attention on low-level
drug stings in poor, minority neighborhoods and never track drugs "up the
ladder" to big-time drug importers. And many of them perform racial
profiling on Texas highways, using traffic stops as a pretext to search
cars randomly for drugs.

The court system, the Legislature and, now, Mr. Perry have recognized and
publicly acknowledged that what happened in Tulia was wrong. What they
haven't done is to change the criminal justice system in order to avoid
future "Tulias," either by eliminating drug task forces or by changing
existing laws that honor convictions based solely on the word of undercover
officers. One person's word shouldn't qualify as evidence "beyond a
reasonable doubt" - even when that person is a law enforcement officer.

Mr. Perry deserves tremendous credit for pardoning the final 35 Tulia
defendants. We hope he and the Legislature will demonstrate leadership in
2005 and fix the failures that created Tulia by eliminating regional
narcotics task forces and ensuring that no one is convicted on an
undercover officer's uncorroborated word.

Will Harrell is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of
Texas. His e-mail address is wharrell@aclutx.org.

Suzy

"Who would believe that a democratic government would pursue for eight
decades a failed policy that produced tens of millions of victims and
trillions of dollars of illicit profits for drug dealers, cost taxpayers
hundreds of billions of dollars, increased crime and destroyed inner
cities, fostered widespread corruption and violations of human rights - and
all with no success in achieving the stated and unattainable objective of a
drug free America?" Milton Friedman, winner of 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize
for economic science

"You can get over an addiction but you can never get over a conviction."
Jack Cole, Retired undercover police officer www.dpft.org
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