FORMER OFFICERS UPHOLD DEFENSE

Lawyers Planning To Focus On Perjured Trial Testimony After Appeals Court
Reinstates Indictments In Oregon Case

Two former Houston police officers accused in the 1998 shooting death of
Pedro Oregon Navarro will still focus on his brother's perjured testimony
in trying to prevent the case from moving forward, their attorneys said
Thursday.

The federal civil rights indictments against Darrell H. Strouse and James
R. Willis were reinstated by an appellate court Wednesday.

A lower court threw out the indictments in April 2000, saying the grand
jury was falsely influenced by Rogelio Oregon Pineda's perjured testimony.

However, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said prosecutors did not
knowingly present Rogelio Oregon's perjured testimony to the panel.

Strouse and Willis are charged with violating Pedro Oregon's civil rights
when they, and four other officers, stormed into Rogelio Oregon's southwest
Houston apartment during a drug investigation.

The officers, who did not have a search warrant, were acting on an
informant's inaccurate tip. All six officers were fired.

Rogelio Oregon, who pleaded guilty to perjury and received a 10-year
probated sentence, admitted making false statements to a grand jury. He
testified he had never met the informant and that the officers beat him
severely after they entered his apartment, according to court records.

The next step may be to request a hearing to argue that prosecutors should
have known that Rogelio Oregon's testimony was false, said Mike Ramsey,
attorney for Strouse.

Ramsey said he was "not terribly discouraged" although he and the other
attorneys have not yet decided whether to appeal the 5th Circuit ruling.
"We were hoping this would all be over," said Willis' attorney, Brian
Benken. "This has been going on for four years."

A prosecutor handling the case did not return calls seeking comment Thursday.

The appellate court's ruling boosts the Oregon family's wrongful death case
against the officers, its attorney Richard Mithoff said.

"This gives positive reinforcement to our civil case," he said.

The other officers named in the federal civil suit are David R. Barrera,
Pete A. Herrada, Lamont E. Tillery and David Perkins. Willis was the only
one indicted after a lengthy state investigation. He was later acquitted of
a misdemeanor criminal trespass charge.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Pedro Oregon's mother, sister and the
mothers of his two daughters, claims the officers entered the apartment
without a warrant or consent.

The suit had also alleged that an unwritten city policy allowed Gang Task
Force officers to conduct unconstitutional, warrantless searches of homes
in predominantly Hispanic areas.

That claim was dismissed in December 2000 when U.S. District Judge Sim Lake
ruled that the family had failed to provide sufficient evidence of such a
policy.

Mithoff said he has appealed that dismissal and the case will be before the
5th Circuit in two weeks. He will argue that the city demonstrated
"deliberate indifference" about the practices employed by the Gang Task Force.

The family also alleges the officers routinely were involved in narcotics
investigations, although untrained and in violation of department policy
dictating they serve simply as patrol officers.

Two law enforcement experts hired by the Oregons provided evidence of
numerous incidents of task force officers entering homes without warrants,
more so during the months leading up to the Oregon shooting.

The city, in response, argued that the incidents cited did not prove an
unwritten policy of unconstitutional searches and, even if they did, the
numbers found were "statistically insignificant."