ACLU FILES FEDERAL SUIT OVER HEARNE DRUG BUST

In a federal lawsuit filed Friday in Austin, the American Civil Liberties
Union accused Robertson County authorities of violating the civil rights of
28 people from Hearne arrested in a drug sting.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court and accuses Robertson County
District Attorney John Paschall and members of the South Central Texas
Narcotics Task Force of targeting people for drug investigations based on
their race. The lawsuit also alleges authorities charged innocent people
with drug offenses and locked them up.

Paschall and Joe Davis, drug task force commander, denied the accusations.

"We don't target any race or any specific drug," Davis said.

The lawsuit accuses the county and the task force of a pattern of
discriminatory practices. It cites the Hearne drug busts as an example of
the behavior.

In November 2000, 28 people from Hearne were arrested on charges of
possessing or distributing crack cocaine. The arrests followed a six-month
undercover investigation involving a confidential informant.

Eleven of the defendants pleaded guilty. Ten received probation, and one
went to prison. Charges against the remaining 17 defendants were dropped
after Robertson County authorities discovered the confidential informant
had stolen some of the drugs and money.

Graham Boyd, director of the ACLU Drug Litigation Policy Project, said the
Hearne arrests should never have happened.

"If you just scratch the surface at all, any reasonable person would have
some serious doubts about believing the word of . . . the informant in this
case. And yet . . . they were willing to arrest people and take away their
freedom based on just the word of one person," Boyd said.

Hearne is a community of 5,000 people just north of College Station.