HEAVY TRAFFIC

Border Drug Lords Get Rich While Attorney Mike Barclay Gets Worn Out
Defending The Poor Smugglers

Rogelio Sanchez Brito drove his red Ford pickup south to the Millennium
Hotel in the Mexican border town of Ojinaga, where he turned it over to a
man he'd never before seen. Brito, young and nervous, waited at the hotel
for two days before his truck was returned, loaded with 300 pounds of
marijuana hidden in its tires and beneath the floorboards in tape-wrapped
bundles. For his first attempt at smuggling drugs and delivering them to a
dealer in Odessa, Texas, he was to earn $4,000. Had it not been for a
drug-sniffing dog named Rufus, he might have made it.

The desert is cool on most starlit summer evenings in the Texas Trans
Pecos. The open, vast valleys feed the breezes that are but one of many
pastoral qualities in the Alpine-Marathon-Marfa-Presidio region.

This area just north of the Tex-Mex border is peaceful and isolated, the
nearest Wal-Mart 80 miles away in Fort Stockton, the closest shopping mall
a three-hour drive to Odessa. To the immediate south, however, another
world, dangerous and deadly, thrives. On the border, away from the serenity
and soft city lights, it is dirty business as usual. Along the Rio Grande
River, which marks the winding line separating the United States and
Mexico, smugglers of drugs and illegal aliens are on parade. On this night
alone, local Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement Administration officials
make six drug seizures and arrest 42 undocumented immigrants. They
confiscate 1,340 pounds of marijuana, two and a half pounds of cocaine and
one loaded pistol.

A few miles away, fellow agents attempt to stop four alien
"backpackers"--smugglers who walk drugs across the river and into
Texas--but they disappear into the rugged foothills and avoid capture,
leaving behind 400 pounds of marijuana.

At a checkpoint near Presidio, 12 additional drug smugglers are taken into
custody. A few nights earlier, agents stop a suspicious-looking moving van
just west of Pecos and, after removing a wall of furniture stacked in the
rear, find 17 undocumented immigrants--men, women and several children--who
were to be delivered to a "stash house" drop-off in Dallas. In the truck,
agents found just two gallons of water for the dangerous two-day trip.
Despite the collective efforts of the region's law enforcement--Border
Patrol, Customs, DEA, U.S. marshals, park rangers, local sheriff's and
police departments--the illegal flow continues along the 420 miles of
border they are assigned to watch over. "We aren't stopping it," says
Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson. "On the best of days we might just
slow it down a little.

If someone tries to tell you the situation is getting better, he's blowing
smoke.

Actually, most of what we catch is by accident." Dodson and his six
deputies patrol the state's largest county.

Stretching across 6,128 square miles, it is roughly the size of the state
of New Hampshire. The official assignment of DEA agents stationed in the
region is to "disrupt and dismantle." Mostly they can only disrupt.

There is too much money, too many smugglers and too much rugged geography
involved. At the federal courthouse in Pecos, the Western District docket
is so crammed that visiting judges from New York, Vermont and Mississippi
have been asked to help with the caseload.

The 90-bed Pecos jail stays filled to capacity while detention hearings,
arraignments, indictments, jury trials and plea bargains drone on in nearby
courtrooms. Records for the past three years indicate that no fewer than
500 criminal cases, the majority of them smuggling-related, are filed in
Pecos annually. "I was on the bench there for eight years," says U.S.
District Judge Royal Furgeson, who now presides in San Antonio, "and by the
time I was ready to leave, I thought I'd put everybody in the world in
jail. Truth is, I hardly made a dent." Mike Barclay knows well that sense
of hopelessness. Barclay, an Alpine-based defense attorney, has lost track
of the number of traffickers he's represented since moving his practice
from Dallas in the early '80s. He is quite familiar with the smugglers'
determination. "The situation," he says, "is not getting better--and it
won't get any better." Barclay, 73, came here to ease into retirement,
weary of the urban life and the violent crimes he was hired to defend.

Today, however, there is little leisure time for the colorful, gifted
litigator who many now refer to as "the dean of West Texas trial lawyers."
It is not unusual for him to have as many as a dozen cases at a time on the
always-crowded Pecos court docket. Nevertheless, Barclay throws himself
into each case, passionately working for his clients--most of whom are
demonized by the press and public, as they are integral parts of the drug
trade. Barclay defends the middlemen who are the nightly targets of the
Trans Pecos law enforcement agents, the "mules" who transport the drugs and
the "coyotes" who move human cargo from abject Mexico poverty to the
promise of minimum-wage jobs in the United States. While the drug lords and
slave traders wait safely on their ranches and in plush villas, counting
their money, and the U.S. dealers ply their trade in hiding, the smugglers
are the high-risk takers, usually desperate and destitute men from the
poverty-stricken Mexican border towns. Barclay manages to make the best of
this bleak milieu.

His professional yet easygoing style has won him admirers from all sides of
the courtroom.

He has helped make sure that the crushing load of drug cases is not used as
an excuse to deprive the mules and coyotes their due process.

Despite his age, he has rekindled a passion for his work, once again
embracing the youthful, idealistic notion that, with care and hard work, he
can help ensure that something akin to justice--or, at least, fairness--is
meted out day-to-day in this hopeless border war. "He's a throwback to the
lawyers of bygone days," Furgeson says. "For him, making certain our
justice system works is more than a job; it is a calling."

Mike Barclay began his career in Dallas a half-century ago and for 30 years
had a reputation as one of the city's premier criminal defense lawyers.

He defended all manner of thieves, murderers and rapists, and he was viewed
by those in the judicial system as a learned, always-prepared litigator.

His courtroom theatrics were legendary. "Over the years, he's reached a
status where he probably gets away with more in court than he should,"
Furgeson says. "Prosecutors often defer to him and rarely object, he's
friends with everyone in the courthouse and, most important, he commands
great respect." He also commands a caseload far greater than any he ever
juggled in Dallas. "I wasn't here long before I realized that the courts
were literally inundated with cases of drug and alien trafficking," Barclay
says. His phone rings constantly. Weary judges ask if he'll take court
appointments and an occasional client who couldn't afford to hire counsel
for his own defense or that of a family member.

Barclay spends much of his time making the 100-mile trek to the federal
courthouse in Pecos, where a fast-moving "rocket docket" is the order of
the day. The phrase was born during the tenure of the late U.S. District
Judge Lucius Bunton. Because of the flood of cases arriving in his court,
he made it clear to attorneys--defense and prosecution alike--that two
witnesses were not to be called when one unwitting accomplices. Mexican
dealers will spot the parked vehicle of a vacationing family from Texas or
New Mexico and wait until night to place a cargo of drugs in some hidden
spot. That done, they take down the license plate number and do a computer
check to determine the owner's home address. "An innocent-looking family
isn't going to have much trouble getting back across the border," Barclay
says. "They get home, park their RV in the driveway and while they're
sleeping, the dealers sneak up and retrieve their drug shipment." More and
more, he says, unaware victims are being lured into the trade.

He tells of an independent Garland truck driver who responded to a Dallas
Morning News classified ad last winter, seeking someone to haul a load of
cattle from Presidio to Fort Worth. He was informed that a loaded trailer
would be waiting for him. He was not told that he also would be hauling
more than a ton of marijuana.

Nor did he have any idea that he would be stopped, arrested and jailed.
Then there are the backpackers, young men familiar with the rugged terrain
and willing to hike across the border with 50 to 100 pounds of marijuana.
Often equipped with night-vision goggles and two-way radios, they may
travel as far as 80 or 90 miles on foot before reaching their assigned
drop-off point. "Not only are they familiar with the region," Sheriff
Dodson says, "but they're in constant contact with scouts on this side who
alert them to where we [law enforcement] are. I can assure you that every
time I pull out of the parking lot in front of my office and start driving
south, someone is on a cell phone or walkie-talkie, letting the smugglers
know." Getting illegal aliens across is only a bit more difficult.

In some cases, the trucks hauling them northward simply pull over a few
miles before reaching a Border Patrol checkpoint, allowing them to walk
through the desert and around the inspection station, only to be picked up
a few miles beyond it. In other instances, they are picked up by
all-terrain vehicles and driven through the darkened desert to a waiting
truck. "If," Leon says, "they can make it up to Interstate 20, they're
pretty much home free. From there they can go to New Mexico, Lubbock or
Dallas."

It was in Dallas where Barclay honed his craft, where he developed the many
skills he would need to navigate the heavy traffic of the border drug war.
Like his sense of humor. "Mike," says retired Dallas County District Judge
Don Metcalfe, "was a rarity when he was practicing here. He was not only
shrewd; he had this wonderful sense of humor that kept everyone
off-balance." Classmates at SMU Law School, they shared an office during
the early stages of their legal careers.

And occasionally worked on cases together.

It was during that time that Metcalfe became aware of the maverick
tendencies of his lifelong friend. "After I became a judge," he says, "I
immediately appointed Mike to a couple of cases, thinking if I could
successfully control him in the courtroom, I'd be able to handle just about
any situation." It wasn't always easy. "I knew he was an excellent criminal
lawyer--maybe the best in Dallas at the time--but it was just impossible to
anticipate what he might do." He recalls a trial during which a
particularly natty Dallas police detective was on the stand, testifying
against one of Barclay's clients.

It was a time before men routinely used hairspray, yet not a single hair on
the officer's head was out of place.

Suddenly, Barclay interrupted the proceedings to urgently request a
conference at the judge's bench.

Leaning toward Metcalfe, the lawyer handed him a note: Judge, it read, the
boys in Homicide Division are wondering if the witness wears a hairpiece.

May I inquire? It was during that trial that Barclay, in his effort to
prove that the officers who arrested his client had not properly identified
themselves as police after bursting through an apartment door, called the
accused's girlfriend to the stand.

Did she, Barclay wanted to know, hear anyone announce themselves as a
police officer? Barclay, of course, already knew the answer she would
provide: "No sir," the young woman testified. "All I heard was, 'Freeze,
motherfucker, or die.'" Once, while cross-examining a witness who could not
remember if his client was missing an eye, Barclay removed his own
prosthetic eye that he'd worn since a 1947 semipro football accident and
placed it on the witness stand. "If he looked like this," he said, pointing
to his own vacant eye socket, "don't you think you would recall it?" He
clearly enjoyed and was devoted to his work, always quick with an amusing
story to pass along to colleagues; a man to whom laughter came easily.

As the '80s approached, the career malaise that often befalls defense
lawyers hit. Losing three consecutive court-appointed capital murder cases
didn't help. "I finally realized I was burning out," he reflects, "and
began looking for a way to escape everything--the violent crime, the Dallas
traffic, the whole big-city rat race." Years earlier he'd begun the habit
of vanishing into the Big Bend area for Christmas vacations and became
enamored with the wide-open spaces and slow pace of the region.

By the time he'd made the decision to close down his Dallas practice and
semi-retire, he'd decided that Alpine, with a population just shy of 6,000,
would be his new home. "My thinking at the time was that I'd keep my
license and maybe help draw up a will or two now and then," he says as he
sits in his small office behind the home he shares with artist wife
Barbara. Originally the Alpine hospital, built in 1907, it was remodeled
into a bed-and-breakfast during World War II. "Now," Barclay says with his
baritone laugh, "I'm the only lawyer in Alpine with 14 rooms and seven
baths." It's that lighthearted approach that helps him so well in the
courtroom today. Judge Furgeson says he has Barclay's voir dire questioning
to potential jurors memorized: "He'll smile at everyone and then tell them
how he'd moved out here years ago from Dallas. He'll say that after he'd
been here awhile he phoned his mother to tell her how friendly everyone in
this part of the country was. He tells them she just laughed and said,
'Honey, they're not friendly; they're just lonely...'" More than once
Barclay has even resorted to writing his own poetry in an attempt to
deflect a judge's anger over the fact a client has unexpectedly skipped a
court date. Like the time defendant Hernando Felix-Yague (pronounced
"yah-gee") failed to appear: Hernando Felix Yague Has a mind that's now
become foggy. On a search for his person Pre-trial is still cursin'. But I
just learned this day He's down Mexico way. "I can't tell you how many
times I've thought I ought to charge him with contempt or at least
reprimand him," Furgeson says, "but I knew if I opened my mouth, I'd start
laughing."

Despite the free spirit Barclay brings to his work, it is obvious that he
is held in high regard by his peers.

Fellow defense lawyers, and an occasional prosecutor, routinely seek his
advice.

Even law enforcement officials begrudgingly applaud his encyclopedic
knowledge of the law. "He came out here," Sheriff Dodson says, "and taught
us how to do our jobs." Dodson, a member of the Alpine police force when he
first became acquainted with Barclay, admits that the day-to-day details of
matters such as showing just cause for a search warrant were often
overlooked. "The first half-dozen cases Mike defended were dismissed
because he was able to easily show that law enforcement hadn't done
everything by the book. Thanks to him, we learned quickly to dot the i's
and cross the t's." Dodson laughs when Barclay insists on retelling a story
he heard about the sheriff shortly after settling in Alpine. Dodson, it
seems, was sworn in as an Alpine patrolman almost a year before his 21st
birthday. "He was issued a badge and a gun," Barclay says, "but, by law, he
was too young to purchase ammunition. So, for the first year of his law
enforcement career, he had to take his wife with him down to Morrison's
True Value so she could buy him bullets." A recent Barclay client had made
it through the border checkpoint, only to be stopped by a state trooper
north of Alpine for a defective taillight on his truck.

The frightened driver immediately jumped from the cab, his hands stretched
into the air, and yelled out, "You've got me, don't shoot." Stunned by the
quick admission, the trooper investigated and found 750 pounds of marijuana
and a drunk woman in the trailer the man was pulling. Then there was the
smuggler whose pickup engine heated up after he'd reached the American side
of the border.

While pulled over to allow it to cool down, an off-duty Border Patrol agent
stopped to lend a hand. During casual conversation as they tinkered with
the engine, the Good Samaritan asked what the driver was hauling.

When the man openly boasted that he had a 1,400-pound load of marijuana he
was taking to Dallas, he was arrested. Which is to say there are a lot of
cases Barclay doesn't have much chance of winning. "But what impresses me
about him," Judge Furgeson says, "is the fact that once he's in the
courtroom there is no way to tell if his client is court-appointed or one
who's able to pay for counsel.

Mike works equally hard for them all." When the compliment is passed along,
Barclay only shrugs. "My role is that of any other defense attorney.

If my client is innocent, I've got to do everything I can to prove it. If
his arrest or the investigation wasn't conducted properly, I'm going to
raise hell about it." His actions suggest it is those young, ignorant,
out-of-work men caught in their first, desperate smuggling attempts that
Barclay wishes most to help. After 45 years of practice, he holds to a
belief that one illegal act does not make a person forever evil. "These
people's lives," he says, "are bad enough already."