TAMPA NATIVE ON LEGAL TEAM THAT FREED 12 IN TEXAS CASE

TAMPA - Tampa native Laura Fernandez was a key member of the legal team
that freed 12 people Tuesday wrongfully jailed in Tulia, Texas.

A judge released the 12 -- 11 of them black -- after they had spent four
years in prison on drug convictions the judge and prosecutors agree were
secured because the court accepted uncorroborated testimony from a racist
white police officer.

Since September, Fernandez had been attending evidence hearings, filing
motions and helping a team of about 20 lawyers from the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People and nation's largest law
firms working free.

"It was an incredible opportunity for me,'' Fernandez said.

Fernandez, 25, the daughter of lawyer Ralph Fernandez of Tampa, was
valedictorian at Academy of the Holy Names in Tampa in 1995. She attended
Harvard and graduated magna cum laude a year early. She studied law at
Yale, graduating in 2002. She lives in New York and works for the NAACP
Legal Defense Fund.

Fernandez says she wants to keep working on the Tulia case until all the
defendants are released.