Guest Column

WHO SHOULD PAY FOR INJUSTICE IN TULIA?

Coleman Not Solely Culpable

The central argument of your Oct. 2 editorial, "Drawing the line for Tulia
justice," was stated as follows:

"So far only one person faces legal charges related to the Tulia drug sting
fiasco and that is former undercover officer Tom Coleman, who fingered 46
people, 39 of them black, on dubious drug-related charges. To hold almost
the entire Panhandle law enforcement community responsible for Coleman's
actions is another travesty of justice."

Actually, that depends upon how it is being held responsible.

To hold every individual in Panhandle law enforcement responsible for
Coleman's actions would be a travesty. But the lawsuit filed on behalf of
Tonya White and Zuri Bossett does not hold anyone individually responsible
for Coleman's actions except Coleman. The lawsuit holds the members of the
Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force collectively responsible for
Coleman's actions.

This is as it should be. Coleman acted as a paid agent of PRNTF.

The Globe-News editorialist wrote:

"The lawsuit alleges that . . . 26 Panhandle counties and four cities
included in the task force used Coleman as an undercover officer. . . . Not
surprisingly, many of these entities have requested the lawsuit be dismissed.

"Why should cities and counties, more specifically taxpayers, be held
financially liable for Coleman, a person most Panhandle county and city
officials probably had never heard of before 1999?"

That's exactly why. The agency they supported, and authorized to act on
their behalf, let a man of dubious reputation, virtually unknown to anyone
in regional law enforcement, put 46 people in prison through his perjured
testimony. Forty-six people were unjustly and unlawfully deprived of their
liberty - some for as long as four years.

What would four years of your life be worth?

It is rudimentary to the law of torts that if you willfully harm someone,
then you are responsible for what you did to him - unless you acted in
defense of yourself or another person. If not, you are liable for the
financial compensation due him. The same principle applies to corporate
entities that inflict harm on individuals. And the more serious the harm,
the greater should be the compensation.

The only legal justification for not holding governments accountable for
deliberate and unjust harm they inflict upon individuals is an old English
common law doctrine called sovereign immunity. This doctrine asserts,
essentially, that an individual cannot be allowed to sue the sovereign,
i.e., the king, because the king is a real important guy and the rest of us
are peasants. That's a doctrine American jurisprudence should have
jettisoned long ago.

I can understand why public officials don't want to pay such damages,
especially in cases where law enforcement officers acted as carefully and
conscientiously as possible and simply made a mistake in arresting and/or
prosecuting someone for a criminal offense he did not commit. But if there
is anything that is clear about the Tulia drug bust, it is that the law
enforcement officer involved acted in a manner totally devoid of conscience
and with reckless disregard for both the truth and the rights of the
persons he accused.

Moreover, the district attorney who prosecuted the defendants did so while
knowing that there was no physical evidence against any of them.

Indeed, in each case, the only evidence (if it can be called that) was the
uncorroborated testimony of Tom Coleman.

Thus, the district attorney in Swisher County also disregarded the rights
of the defendants.

The whole travesty was financed by funds from the PRNTF. Coleman was the
agent of the PRNTF. The PRNTF never repudiated his actions during the
trials of any of the persons accused. (It still hasn't!)

So the PRNTF, whatever kind of legal entity that is, is responsible for his
actions.

PRNTF should be compelled by the courts to compensate the individuals who
were unjustly imprisoned. The responsibility for this unjust imprisonment
is not merely Coleman's. It extends to those who hired and empowered him.

Far from setting a "horrible precedent" for law enforcement officials and
taxpayers, the paying of compensation in this suit would set an fitting
precedent.

If officers of a law enforcement agency show a contemptuous disregard for
the rights of the citizenry, then the agency will be held accountable for
the actions of those officers. Indeed, it may lose the funds that enable
its officers to operate in such a reckless and reprehensible fashion.

Allen Finegold, a longtime resident of Amarillo, is a frequent contributor
to the Other Opinion page.