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THE TALE OF TULIA

Small-Town Injustice

TULIA, Texas - 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.

Thomas Roland Coleman, the son of a locally famous Texas Ranger, drove into
this dried-up place and 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.
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 tarnished record in law enforcement. That information was
kept from jurors and from defense attorneys.

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 continuing federal and state investigations, not one conviction has
been overturned, and no action has been taken against officials from
Swisher County or the task force.

Blatant perjury

The state appointed two special prosecutors earlier this year to hold
hearings to determine whether Coleman's testimony was indeed the sole basis
for conviction in four cases. And to find out if the prosecution team
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 Coleman 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, non-responsive 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 on the job, testimony showed.

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" in August 1998.

He had walked off his job as a Cochran County sheriff's deputy 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 of theft and abusing
authority were dropped when Coleman made restitution.

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

Taking out the trash

Tulia, population 5,000 and dropping, isn't much more than a wide spot in
the road between Amarillo and Lubbock. Even now, some residents believe
drugs cause most problems here.

A depressed economy is the more likely cause. Jobs and people have been
leaving here since the Texas economy shifted two decades ago and buried
small oil, farming and cattle businesses.

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

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

On July 23, 1999, Coleman, flanked by other officers, rousted people from
their beds and paraded them across the courthouse lawn before a tipped-off
news media gantlet. No drugs or paraphernalia or money or guns were found
during the arrests.

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

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 a one-day trial, Moore -- who has a previous narcotics felony
on his record -- was sentenced to 90 years. He was among those released
last week.

All of the busts were for powder cocaine, which is heavier and more
expensive than the rock variety. 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.

"I'm not saying now and I have never said that all these people are
innocent," said Lubbock criminal defense attorney Rod Hobson. "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.

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 has run out.

Coleman is free on bail pending trial. His phone is disconnected, and his
attorney, Cindy Ermatinger, did not return phone messages. Nor did
McEachern, Stewart or Self. All three have denied wrongdoing.

When defense attorneys tried to get Coleman's background introduced as
evidence, 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.

Paul Holloway was appointed by the court to represent four Tulia residents.
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.

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

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

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