LEGISLATORS MUST ACT TO FREE TULIA 13 ON BAIL IF COURT DOESN'T MOVE

Texas legislators should move quickly to pass legislation aimed at freeing
13 Texans who were railroaded into prison on bogus drug charges. The bill,
filed by Sen. John Whitmire, is aimed at releasing Tulia residents pending
action by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

The 12 men and one woman from Tulia have been behind bars for about four
years now and remain there despite a month-old recommendation that their
convictions be thrown out. Judge Ron Chapman made that recommendation after
the undercover police officer whose testimony convicted those 13 and 25
others was discredited. Special prosecutors last week agreed that those 38
convictions should be thrown out and asked the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals to do so and to immediately release the 13 people on bail.

If the state Court of Criminal Appeals can't or won't act on
recommendations for bail, then lawmakers should pass Senate Bill 1948 by
Whitmire, a Democrat from Houston and chairman of the Senate Criminal
Justice Committee.

"It is unconscionable that people are still incarcerated when the only
witness against them has been completely discredited and indicted for
perjury," Whitmire said. "Justice demands that they be released and
reunited with their families."

So true.

The continued imprisonment of the Tulia 13 rubs salt on a festering sore on
the Texas justice system. Delaying their release only deepens the injustice
and certainly prolongs the suffering they and their families have endured.

What better news could two young children receive this Sunday -- Mother's
Day -- than their mom will soon be home?

That mom, Kizzie White, was ensnared by an obviously racially motivated
drug sting by then-undercover agent Tom Coleman. Coleman targeted African
Americans in his 18-month unorthodox drug operation that resulted in the
1999 arrests of nearly 10 percent of Tulia's black residents. No drugs,
money, weapons or other evidence were recovered in the arrests. No one
witnessed the drug buys Coleman claims he made in public places. He didn't
use surveillance or recorders. The drugs Coleman presented as "evidence"
didn't bear the fingerprints of Tulia defendants. Coleman didn't produce
notes or records. He said he scribbled details of those drug buys on his
leg and thigh.

Coleman admitted in testimony to referring to African Americans as
"niggers," and his ex-wife swore in an affidavit that he carried a Ku Klux
Klan membership card.

Thirty-eight people were convicted on the uncorroborated, unsubstantiated
testimony of Coleman. For that effort, he was awarded Texas Lawman of the
Year in 1999. Coleman never could have gotten away with that deed without
cooperation from Swisher County prosecutors, the sheriff and the trial
judge. He also got help from the all-white juries who convicted dozens of
folks on no more than Coleman's say-so.

Since April, the American-Statesman has urged editorially that the state
criminal court arrange bail for the Tulia 13 or that state legislators pass
legislation to free them. We also have urged the federal government or
state Attorney General Greg Abbott to investigate the role of the Swisher
County sheriff, prosecutors and other higher-ups who were, at the very
least, complicitous in this scheme.

Whitmire's legislation is a first step. Hearings on the bill begin next
week, and it must be approved by both the Senate and the House. Then it
goes to Gov. Rick Perry. We urge legislators to act expeditiously as they
did in an Austin case in 2001 to help bring about immediate freedom for two
wrongly convicted men after DNA proved their innocence.

Another positive development was the decision this week by the U.S. House
Judiciary Committee to investigate the 1999 Tulia drug bust. The whole
episode warrants an independent, transparent investigation to heal this
sore on Texas justice.