JAIL TERMS ONLY PART OF JUSTICE GONE WRONG

There are 13 wrongly convicted Texans still imprisoned as the wheels of
justice grind on.

Until it gets the right paper work, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has
said its hands are tied. It can't release the 11 African Americans, one
Hispanic man and one white man who were railroaded by a rogue cop in Tulia
and a Swisher County posse. It doesn't matter that a district judge
recommended a month ago that their convictions be thrown out, or that the
prosecutor in the case said Swisher County won't retry those 13 or 25
others whom Tulia juries convicted of drug trafficking. It was an
astonishing but welcome acknowledgement that Tulia defendants suffered
enough for crimes they apparently didn't commit.

Every day those 13 people remain in prison is a day justice is deferred and
another insult to a humiliated criminal justice system.

Logistics, not fairness or justice, are keeping Tulia defendants in prison.
But the U.S. and Texas constitutions may offer a way out for the Tulia 13.

Among those still in prison is a 61-year-old Swisher County hog farmer
afflicted with severe diabetes. He was the supposed kingpin. There is a
young mother, Kizzie White, whose two children have had maternal guidance
and love taken away from them for more than four years. There are several
others in prison who just want to move on with their lives and get out of
Texas.

Even though the state's star witness, Tom Coleman, has been thoroughly
discredited and indicted on felony perjury charges, Tulia defendants must
remain in prison.

Austin attorney Bill Allison says the legal team representing Tulia
defendants should force the hand of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
The defense lawyers should file for bail, citing due process and due course
of law that the U.S. and Texas constitutions guarantee. Currently, the
state court is following laws that appear to prohibit bail in such cases.
But Allison, formerly a member of the faculty of the University of Texas
Law School and an expert in criminal procedure, said the state and national
constitutions trump those laws.

"Judges have an obligation to follow the constitution," Allison said. "To
my knowledge, this has never been litigated, but it can and should be in
the Tulia case."

Allison faced a similar situation in a notorious Austin case. In 1988,
Christopher Ochoa and Richard Danziger were convicted of raping and killing
an Austin woman who worked at a Pizza Hut restaurant in Northeast Austin.
In 2001, the two were cleared of the crime by DNA evidence. Travis County
District Judge Bob Perkins released Ochoa on bail while waiting for the
state court of criminal appeals to act, Allison said.

The appeals court subsequently balked at formally clearing Ochoa and
Danziger, despite DNA evidence that proved their innocence. Technically,
they were only free on bail and subject to re-arrest and imprisonment for a
crime they didn't commit. It took emergency legislation and clever
lawyering to fix it, so the constitutional issues were never litigated.

The Tulia defendants should challenge their incarceration on constitutional
grounds or seek emergency legislation to free them. Every day they remain
in jail widens the cracks in the Texas criminal justice system.

By now it's obvious to all that the 18-month drug sting that resulted in
the arrest of 10 percent of Tulia's black population was bogus. It's also
obvious that the 38 who were convicted of drug trafficking -- who are black
or have ties to Tulia's black community -- were set up.

Let the battle begin -- the sooner the better. The rest of us have waited
long enough for justice. Kizzie White's children have waited long enough
for their mother.