IN TAINTED TULIA DRUG SWEEP: LESSONS STILL UNLEARNED?

TULIA (Associated Press) ­ What happened here is not simply a study in
black and white, despite the skin colors of its characters. It is not
purely a story of stupidity and arrogance, though both are prevalent.

It is a tragedy of small minds and made-up crimes that eventually created
one of the worst miscarriages of justice in Texas history. If it weren´t so
awful, some of what happened in this tiny town might be comical, given the
buffoonish protagonist and his inability to keep his stories straight.

Thomas Roland Coleman, the son of a locally famous Texas Ranger, drove into
this dried-up place that looks in need of a long drink of water. He cruised
the battered roads where black people live. For 18 months, beginning in
1998, he said he was T.J. Dawson, a laborer whose girlfriend needed cocaine
to get in the mood for sex.

He was really an undercover cop for a drug task force based in Amarillo,
about 50 miles up the flat ribbon of Interstate 27. Coleman was allowed to
work alone for The Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force. He
kept no written records, save incident reports filed with seized evidence,
reports later determined to be false. No photographs were taken. No video
was shot. No one observed his buys.

Every ensuing conviction relied on one thing: his word.

By the time he finished testifying, 38 people, 35 of them black, had been
convicted of selling small amounts of cocaine and sentenced to prison for
as long as 90 years. For this, he was named Texas´ outstanding narcotics
officer in 2000.

Problem is, the star witness lied on the stand and several other places.
Another problem - Swisher County District Attorney Terry McEachern, Sheriff
Larry Stewart and District Judge Ed Self, who heard most of the cases, knew
the witness had a long, tarnished record in law enforcement. That
information was kept from jurors and from defense attorneys.

The arrests accounted for about 10 percent of Tulia´s black residents.

The Tulia cases have languished for four years. Last Monday, 12 people in
state prison were released on their own recognizance pending a ruling on
their future from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which could take as
long as two years. Four others remain in custody.

Despite protests from members of Congress, promised hearings before a
federal oversight committee and ongoing federal and state investigations,
not one conviction has been overturned.

No action has been taken against officials from Swisher County or the
regional task force.

The state appointed two special prosecutors earlier this year to hold
evidence hearings to determine if Coleman´s testimony was indeed the sole
basis for conviction in four cases. And to find out if county officials
withheld information damaging to their star witness. The answer to both
questions: yes.

Retired Dallas District Judge Ron Chapman - appointed after Self recused
himself - stopped the hearings one day after Coleman took the stand, saying
the former undercover officer was committing "blatant perjury."

A stipulation signed in May by the judge, the special prosecutors and
defense lawyers working pro bono for the NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund in New York, said all 38 convictions should be overturned,
including 27 plea bargains signed to avoid lengthy prison terms.

Coleman is "the most devious, nonresponsive witness this court has
witnessed in 25 years on the bench in Texas," the judge wrote. Coleman also
was a bigot who used the "n" word in front of task force supervisors while
conducting an investigation against mostly black suspects, testimony showed.

Examples of Coleman's repeated perjury, the document said, included
testifying that he'd never been arrested "except for a traffic ticket back
when I was a kid" and that he´d left previous law enforcement jobs "in good
standing."

In truth, Coleman was arrested in August 1998, in the middle of the Tulia
investigation, on charges of theft and abusing authority while a deputy
with the Cochran County Sheriff´s Office.

He'd walked off that job and skipped town owing more than $7,000 to local
stores that extended credit because he was a deputy, and stole more than
100 gallons of gasoline from county pumps, documents and testimony showed.
Charges were dropped when Coleman made restitution.

He'd also abandoned a previous deputy´s post in Pecos County, just before
he was about to be fired for lying, documents said.

The 129-page finding also faulted local officials for:

*Allowing Sheriff Stewart to testify that he hadn´t received any negative
information about Coleman "despite the fact that he himself arrested
Coleman" on the Cochran County warrant.

*Portraying Coleman in court as an exemplary officer with no criminal record

"It was a comedy of errors, it just wasn´t one mistake," said Lubbock
criminal defense attorney Rod Hobson, one of the special prosecutors. "It
was the task force, McEachern, Coleman, everyone involved screwed up,
practically. And then covered it up and circled the wagons."

Hobson is the kind of lawyer who keeps a loaded gun in his desk. He looks
like he's seen the worst of the criminal justice system and isn't afraid to
shoot it.

"If we handle drug cases this poorly," Hobson asks, "what confidence do you
have in all the people on death row?"

Tulia, population 5,000 and dropping, isn´t much more than a wide spot in
the road between Amarillo and Lubbock in the chimney of Texas nuzzling
Oklahoma. Even now, some residents believe drugs cause most problems here.

A depressed economy is the more likely cause.

There used to be a Dairy Queen and a grocery store named Joe Bob's. There
used to be more recreation options than drinking and drugs and satellite
television. On this unbroken plain that seems to stretch to the ends of the
Earth, it is easy to forget there are other places in the world and other
ways of doing things.

Jobs and people have been leaving here since the Texas economy shifted two
decades ago and buried small oil, farming and cattle businesses. Downtown
Tulia nearly suffocated. It is still waiting to be resuscitated.

There is one section of town where all the homes are nice and all the lawns
are green. The locals call it Snob Hill and the houses are the most
expensive Tulia has to offer. This is where white people with money live,
separated from the burned grass and dilapidated homes of poor families, who
are mostly black and Hispanic.

Black people, who number about 400, mostly work behind the scenes, in the
fields, the restaurant kitchens, and the nearby prison. Some can´t work or
don't, and live on welfare in federally subsidized housing - and it is from
these ranks that Coleman culled most of his cases.

His previous experience with drug cases, he testified during the
evidentiary hearing, came from sniffing out marijuana during some routine
traffic stops as a patrol deputy in Cochran County. The Panhandle Regional
Narcotics Task Force, flush with more than $1 million in federal and state
funds, targeted Tulia because it had asked for help.

Coleman first went after local troublemakers identified by Sheriff Stewart,
according to defense lawyers. The sheriff denied those claims. Then Coleman
went after their family members and friends, until he had 46 indictments.

On July 23, 1999, Coleman, wearing a ski mask and flanked by other
officers, rousted people from their beds not long after dawn and paraded
them across the courthouse lawn before a tipped-off media gantlet. No drugs
or paraphernalia or money or guns were found during the arrests.

Vickie Fry was picked up about 90 minutes after they came for her husband,
Vincent McCray, on the same charge: delivery of cocaine. She had two small
children and was newly pregnant.

Standing outside in handcuffs, she watched her mother come charging up the
street.

"It´s OK," Fry called, though it most definitely was not. "Take care of my
kids."

She got herself into the back seat of the patrol car, fast. "I just wanted
to be out of there before my children got to looking out them windows."

At the county jail, she was surrounded by what seemed to be most of the
black people in Tulia. "What´s going on?" she asked.

Fry was locked up for a week. She got a court-appointed defense lawyer, who
advised her to sign a plea bargain for five years' probation or face two to
12 years in state prison.

She had never seen Tom Coleman in her life, she said, but she signed
anyway. "I needed to take care of my kids," she said recently in the
cramped house she shares with McCray, who also plea-bargained and went to
state prison for three years. He was paroled in 2001.

Local defense lawyers say plea bargains were the best they could do for
their clients. Outside attorneys who reviewed the cases say those lawyers
didn´t do enough.

Fry has lived in Tulia all her life. She knows who uses the crack pipe and
who doesn't. They aren't drug dealers, just small-time users, she says.

"I kept saying to myself, you know what? It´s just these - and excuse the
expression - these white folks out here trying to get us up outta here.
They don´t want us here."

A few days after her release, Fry miscarried. "I had to tell him on the
phone that we lost the baby," Fry says, because her husband was locked up.

The now-defunct local paper, the Tulia Sentinel, ran a headline declaring
"Tulia's Streets Cleared of Garbage."

Mayor Boyd Vaughan did not return phone messages left by The Associated
Press. The Chamber of Commerce president declined comment. But Freddie
Brookins, standing outside the local courthouse Monday after being freed,
smiled broadly when asked about his town. "We have good people here in
Tulia," he said. "There´s no doubt about it, we have great people here in
Tulia."

Fry remembers being called a scumbag. "We were the lowest of the low," Fry
said. "But it didn´t make no sense. If they were going to bust somebody,
they should have got them for rock (cocaine) or weed. Not for powder.
There's no rich people here."

Pig farmer Joe Welton Moore was the first to go on trial. He was the drug
kingpin of Tulia, authorities said. He lived in a shack with a dirt front yard.

After his release last week, Moore exulted in being free. "Ah, it feels
great," he said. Prison, he said, was survived by faith. "I fell on my
knees and asked the Lord to help me. I couldn't handle it," he said.

On Dec. 15, 1999, the state began its case by presenting a bag of cocaine
worth about $400 and Coleman´s testimony. One day later, Moore - a former
bootlegger in this dry county who has a previous narcotics felony on his
record - was sentenced to 90 years.

All of the busts were for powder cocaine, more expensive than the rock
variety. A gram of powder usually sells for $100 or more on the street,
narcotics officers say, a rock often goes for about $20 or more. Powder
cocaine weighs more, and Texas law allows stiffer punishments for heavier
seizures.

This point was not lost on defense attorneys who later reviewed the lengthy
jail terms meted out. Drug laws also allow longer sentences when sales are
made near schools or parks. Conveniently, defense attorneys said, Coleman
reported nearly all of his purchases near these locations.

Also, defense attorneys note, the cocaine evidence was of inferior purity -
in some cases as low as 2 percent. The average purity of street sales is at
least 60 percent, crime statistics show.

Defense attorneys speculate Coleman smashed rock cocaine and mixed it with
a white substance to manufacture several bags of evidence. Special
prosecutor Hobson says Coleman was sold a diluted form by some Tulia
residents who saw an opportunity to make money off this new guy in town.

"I'm not saying now and I have never said that all these people are
innocent," Hobson said. "But here's the thing - out of 38 people, if even
one of them is innocent - then how can you base a conviction on Coleman's
word in any one of these cases?"

One defendant died before trial. Seven cases were dropped. Some defendants
proved they were elsewhere when Coleman said he bought drugs from them.
Tanya White - who was living in the next state - was at an Oklahoma City
bank cashing a check, bank records showed. Billy Don Wafer was at work, and
produced his boss and his time card to prove it.

Yul Bryant, described by Coleman as tall and bushy-haired, is actually
short and bald. He was jailed for seven months before charges were dismissed.

Hobson was appointed to represent Coleman and his employers. Instead, he
felt ethically bound to indict him. "The star witness doesn´t tell the
truth - I mean what am I supposed to do?"

Three counts of aggravated perjury were filed in April over Coleman´s
evidentiary hearing testimony. It´s too late to charge him for his trial
testimony. The statute of limitations for perjury is three years.

Coleman posted $10,000 bail and remains free pending trial. He lives near
Fort Worth and is believed to be working as a welder.

His phone is disconnected. His attorney, Cindy Ermatinger, did not return
phone messages. Nor did McEachern, Stewart or Self. All three have denied
wrongdoing.

At the evidentiary hearings, Amarillo Police Lt. Michael Amos, who heads
the task force, acknowledged Coleman´s employment check produced negative
reports.

"We knew there were a couple of things we needed to discuss about Tom
Coleman´s background," Amos said. Nonetheless, Coleman was hired - 30 days
before funding expired for his position, which defense attorneys say
accounts for why he was hired with such a spotty record.

Amos did not return phone calls.

When defense attorneys tried to get Coleman´s background introduced as
evidence, Judge Self ruled no, saying legal precedent allowed attorneys to
use only prior criminal convictions - not charges - to try to impeach the
credibility of a witness.

Defense lawyers began to complain - to the NAACP, to the Justice
Department, to reporters. But when it came to getting Texas officials to
listen, it was like trying to scream underwater.

Paul Holloway was appointed by the court to represent four Tulia residents.
From the beginning, he found the cases troublesome. He asked Self for
money to hire an investigator. He was denied. He laid out his defense
theory to the judge, suggesting Coleman might have manufactured his own
evidence, and asked for detailed audits of task force spending.

Self denied the requests.

"I said, 'Judge, you understand what this means?' " Holloway recounted. He
was almost begging in open court. If he couldn't impeach the state's star
witness, his clients were done for.

"And he said, 'I know exactly what this means. Now sit down.'

"I went back to my office just dumbfounded, and I said there's no way I can
win this." So the lawyer encouraged his clients to plea-bargain.

"It's not justice," Holloway said. "This is not even vaguely like anything
I've ever known about the system."

Holloway won´t even consider filing a complaint about the trial rulings. He
depends on Self and other judges for his client base. Then he has to argue
before those judges to protect his clients.

"That would be a death sentence," Holloway said. "I would have to leave here."

Outside attorneys agree the system is partly to blame, but they don´t have
much faith in appointed defense counselors, either.

"Court-appointed lawyers in Texas are a one-way ticket to the state pen,"
said Jeff Blackburn, an Amarillo attorney who now represents many of the
Tulia defendants. "These are guys who argue in front of elected judges
serving a hard-line, pro-prosecution electorate."

Hobson´s Lubbock law office is conveniently located across from the county
jail and next to a bail bondsman.

His job as special prosecutor is nearly finished. All that remains is
trying Coleman for perjury.

He doesn´t expect anything to happen to McEachern, Stewart or Self. "I've
seen colossal negligence, lots of stupidity, possible unethical conduct,
but is there a criminal case? I don´t think so. And I know that´s not what
people want to hear."

The statute of limitations for perjury has run out. A threatened civil suit
against Swisher County was dropped in exchange for a total settlement of
$250,000 for the defendants and the promise to not pursue further
litigation. Some residents believe suing the task force could get more.

But neither money nor scandal has changed Tulia, Hobson said.

"Let me tell you how little they've learned," he says, and recounts a
recent conversation with Sheriff Stewart, who wanted to pursue an unfiled
charge against Freddie Brookins, who had already been sentenced to 20 years
for selling cocaine to Coleman.

When Brookins was arrested, he was taken to jail in handcuffs. In his
wallet was an old marijuana butt.

"So they indicted him - not for possession of marijuana, which is a
misdemeanor - but for smuggling drugs into a correctional facility, which
is a state felony," Hobson says. Stewart wanted Hobson to file the
additional charge.

"Y'all haven't learned a thing," Hobson yelled at him.

"I mean, the depth of dumbness of the people I'm working with," he says.
"I'm telling you this thing could happen again tomorrow up there. I mean,
they have learned nothing."