RAILROADED IN TEXAS

The malicious intent of the law enforcement authorities in Tulia, Texas,
was almost immediately evident as police officers fanned out early on the
morning of July 23, 1999. They weren't just going to arrest dozens of the
town's black residents for alleged drug trafficking, they were going to
publicly humiliate them.

Some suspects rousted from their beds were refused permission to dress
before being paraded in front of television crews, which had been alerted
in advance. At least one man was clad only in his underpants.

Kizzie White, a young woman who was arrested that morning, said in a
videotaped prison interview that the officers had come into her house with
their guns drawn and that some wore masks. "They wouldn't let me put on my
clothes," she said. "I had on boxers and a T-shirt with no underclothes on.
With no shoes on. Basically, they took me out half- naked."

White was among those convicted of drug trafficking in the subsequent
assembly-line trials in which guilty verdicts were a foregone conclusion.
She is serving a sentence of 25 years in state prison.

White was accused, as was everyone else, by Tom Coleman, a narcotics agent
with an atrocious employment history and a penchant for making criminal
allegations against innocent people. (He claimed, among other things, that
Kizzie White's sister Tonya had sold him drugs in Tulia when it turned out
that Tonya had not even been living in Texas.)

His methods of identifying people who allegedly sold him drugs were
notoriously unreliable and sometimes bizarre. But in Tulia they resulted in
convictions nevertheless.

Consider, for example, the case of Freddie Brookins Jr., who was sent to
prison for allegedly selling cocaine to Coleman. When asked how he had
identified Brookins, Coleman said, according to a habeas corpus petition
now pending before the Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin:

"I believe I talked to the sheriff on this occasion. I gave him the
description of the subject. And I believe the sheriff asked city police
officers or somebody, and told me -- says, 'Well, we got a Freddie
Brookins.' And I said, 'OK. I need a picture of him.' And then I called
Linda (Deputy Sheriff Linda Swanson) and got a picture of him. When she
showed it to me, I came back, I think -- I don't remember -- when I came
back on Wednesday or so, she showed me the picture. 'That's him.' So, there
you go."

There you go. People were sent to prison for decades on these kinds of
flimsy and unsubstantiated identifications and recollections.

According to an appeal filed on Brookins' behalf by the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund, Swanson testified at Brookins' trial but "provided no
photograph and could not answer a single question about when she was asked
to make a copy of the alleged photograph which Coleman allegedly used to
identify Mr. Brookins."

That didn't matter to the jury. Freddie Brookins was convicted and
sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Swanson answers the phone for the Swisher County sheriff, Larry Stewart.
When I called and asked to speak to the sheriff, she began asking me
questions, including what my "religious preference" was.

I called another time to ask Swanson specifically about her role in the
identification of Brookins. "I'm not going to answer any questions," she said.

When I asked why, she said the sheriff had told her not to.

A few days ago I visited Brookins' father, Freddie Brookins Sr., at his
home in Tulia. He's a slender, athletic-looking man of 48, who is filled
with grief over his son's fate.

He told me his son had been offered a plea bargain that would have required
him to serve five years. "He had already told me he was innocent," said
Brookins, "but I asked him again. I said to him, 'Did you do it?' He said,
'No, I didn't.' "

Brookins said he couldn't bear to advise his son to take a plea to
something he hadn't done. So Freddie Jr., 25 years old, went to trial.

The entire Brookins family knew what the outcome would be. When it came
time for sentencing, Brookins told each relative who was in the courtroom
not to cry.

"I said, 'Don't give them the benefit of seeing your tears. Don't give them
the satisfaction of knowing how much they've hurt you.'"