PROSECUTORS WON'T RETRY DRUG CONVICTIONS

TULIA, Texas (AP) - Prosecutors said 38 defendants arrested in a
controversial 1999 drug sting won't be retried after a judge ruled their
convictions were based on questionable testimony from a single undercover
agent accused of racial prejudice.

Hours after retired state district Judge Ron Chapman urged the Texas Court
of Criminal Appeals to grant new trials for the defendants, a special
prosecutor vowed Tuesday to dismiss the cases if they were sent back.

"We'll dismiss them," said Rod Hobson, a special prosecutor assigned to the
case that has spurred probes by the Justice Department and the Texas
attorney general. "It would be foolish for us to go forward."

The cases involved an 18-month undercover investigation by former sheriff's
officer Tom Coleman. Most of the defendants he arrested in this
predominantly white Texas Panhandle town were black.

Their arrests on charges of possessing and selling cocaine hinged on
Coleman's testimony. He worked alone and used no audio or video surveillance.

But no drugs were ever found during the arrests and little or no
corroborating evidence was introduced at trial. The Texas American Civil
Liberties Union suggested discrimination was behind the arrests and that
they were intended to eliminate Tulia's black population. Coleman is white.

The appeals court had ordered a hearing to review evidence against four of
the defendants to determine if the men were convicted solely on Coleman's
word and whether prosecutors failed to turn over information from Coleman's
background that may have cast doubt on his testimony.

"It is stipulated by all parties and approved by the court that Tom Coleman
is simply not a credible witness under oath," Chapman announced in the
Swisher County courtroom Tuesday.

Jeff Blackburn, an attorney representing two of the four men whose arrests
were examined in the hearing, predicted Chapman's recommendation would
carry considerable weight with the appellate court.

"This is wonderful news, though nothing is final as of yet," said Vanita
Gupta, an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. "But we
are very pleased that Tom Coleman's word can't be the basis of any standing
conviction."

Mattie White, who had four children arrested by Coleman, was ecstatic.
"That's the best step I ever heard," she said. "We've been praying for this
for four years, and we haven't ever given up."

Swisher County commissioners unanimously approved a $250,000 payment to the
defendants. The amount will be distributed based on how much time each
person was imprisoned, defense attorney Ted Killory told the commissioners.

In all, 46 people were arrested, 39 of them black, during Coleman's
undercover sting. Thirteen are still in prison and others served time or
were sentenced to probation.

Coleman was the main witness during the hearing, and testified that he
stood by his investigations. He blamed work-related problems on marital
trouble and denied allegations that he was a thief and a liar, but
contradicted himself several times on the stand.

Coleman came to Tulia, midway between Lubbock and Amarillo, in late 1997.
He had been a Pecos police officer and Cochran County sheriff's deputy,
though he left that job in 1996 after he was charged with theft and abuse
of power; those charges were dropped after he paid nearly $7,000 in
restitution.

He worked as a welder before being hired in Tulia in 1998 as an undercover
drug agent for the Swisher County Sheriff's Department.

On July 23, 1999, the suspects Coleman identified were pulled from their
beds and paraded, still in their nightclothes, across the courthouse lawn
in front of television cameras. The Texas Narcotic Control Program later
named Coleman "Outstanding Lawman of the Year."

One of his supervisors with the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking
Task Force, Lt. Michael Amos, testified that Coleman had "an exceptional
talent at being an undercover officer."

But Amos acknowledged that Coleman's previous employers had told his staff
Coleman was unprofessional, needed constant supervision, was a discipline
problem and tended to run to his mother for help.

Coleman no longer works in law enforcement or for Swisher County.

Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart said that the judge's recommendation
helps bring closure to years of dispute. It was still unknown when the
appeals court will issue its ruling on Chapman's recommendation.

"The agreement reached among the parties involved is not about guilt or
innocence but is intended to end the controversy that has surrounded these
cases," Stewart said in a statement.