STATE-SPONSORED TERRORISM IN TEXAS

Scripps Howard News Service

WASHINGTON (SH) - Amidst the increasing turmoil that surrounds the nation's
criminal justice system, from the Patriot Act to the debate over the death
penalty, few things in memory have shaken the faith in its basic fairness as
the monumental travesty that took place in Tulia, Texas. Even though Gov.
Rick Perry has pardoned the 35 mostly black residents of this small town of
alleged drug dealings, the reverberations from the injustices perpetrated by
legal authorities will be felt for a long time - hopefully as a warning of
what can happen when the process goes wrong. One thing for certain: Someone
owes these victims a pile of money for their pain and suffering, and they
are rightfully going to go after it.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it is simply that a regional drug task
force hired an undercover agent and let him loose on the African-American
community in Tulia, a town of 5,000 in the Texas Panhandle. With no
substantiation, the agent then put together allegations and charges that
resulted in the indictment of 31 African-Americans and four others and
earned him "policeman of the year" honors in Texas.

More frightening than this agent's activities (he has been indicted now for
perjury) was the culpability of the task force officers, prosecutors, judges
and juries in this affair, all of whom should face at least disciplinary
action in addition to civil suits for not stopping it in its tracks.

The investigator, one Tom Coleman, never presented a shred of credible
evidence beyond his own word that those charged were guilty. No drugs, large
amounts of cash or weapons were found during a mass arrest in 1999. Coleman
never taped or video recorded his alleged buys and the plastic bags
containing the drugs he said he purchased from the defendants were never
dusted for fingerprints. Incredibly, he said he wrote notes on his leg after
making the alleged buy from those he admitted referring to with a racial
slur.

What kind of prosecutor accepts that kind of evidence? More importantly,
what kind of jurist would allow such a case to be tried in front of him? In
this month of the 40th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King's
electrifying "I Have a Dream" speech, it is difficult to believe that such a
miscarriage of justice still could be rooted in official racism. Have we not
passed this point? But what other explanation can there be for this outrage
perpetrated almost solely on the town's African-American community?

After watching some of those arrested receive incredibly long jail terms,
other defendants were intimidated into accepting plea bargains for lesser
terms. In June, the governor signed legislation that freed on bail the 14
persons still in jail while courts were considering their cases. His latest
action supersedes that.

Sadly, the explanation for the regional task force's culpability in this
matter seems to be federal funds. The Texas Panhandle Regional Narcotics
Trafficking Task Force is a consortium of 26 counties financed by the
government. The more productive it is in drug enforcement, the more money it
receives. It's just that simple. So those allegedly supervising Coleman gave
him pretty much carte blanche to make as many cases as possible by whatever
methods, including, of course, what turned out to be his specialty of
choosing the most vulnerable town residents and accusing them without
evidence.

Rarely have the imperfections of our system of justice been so glaringly
revealed. It is a process that is too often overbalanced by ambition and
economic inequity and constitutional misunderstanding. Those charged with
its management are frequently there not out of a commitment to fairness but
for other far less noble motives. The cause of civil rights needs constant
vigilance and attention. With the scientific ability to determine without
question guilt or innocence, for instance, there can be no reason to execute
the wrong person. Nor can there be an excuse to ignore the constitutional
imperative of beyond a reasonable doubt.

Much of the nation is now concerned about the encroachments of the Patriot
Act. It is good that these questions are being asked, for - as we have seen
in this dusty Texas town - all sorts of things can go wrong in overzealous
pursuit and overreaction. The threat of terrorism is nothing to scoff at,
but it is proper to ask if there is a price to preventing it that we should
not pay lest we accomplish the terrorists' agenda for them.

Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service.