BOARD BACKS PARDONS IN TULIA DRUG STING

Recommendation Sent To Governor's Office

A united Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday took an apparently
unprecedented step of recommending the mass pardoning of nearly all the
defendants from the controversial 1999 Tulia drug sting.

BPP Chairman Gerald Garrett said Tuesday's action, in which the 18-member
panel unanimously recommended that the governor pardon 35 people, is
unprecedented in his experience.

"I've been in the parole system for over 25 years and have been on the
board since 1995," Garrett said. "I can say without hesitation, I haven't
seen anything compatible to the efforts that have just been undertaken by
this board in these cases.

"For an 18-member board to reach a unanimous decision, I think, is a fairly
unique occurrence."

The recommendations are now in Gov. Rick Perry's office, where his staff
will review the cases before the governor decides whether to sign pardons.
Gene Acuna, spokesman for Perry, said the governor's office will expedite
the review process, but it still may take a month before Perry reaches a
decision.

Defense attorneys said they were thrilled with the board's action, despite
the time it could take the governor to make it official.

"We've been working toward this for a few years now," said New York
attorney Vanita Gupta, who helped organize defense attorneys in her role
with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. "We're hoping the governor will sign
these pardons and correct this miscarriage of justice."

The 35 recommendations were three short of the number defense attorneys had
sought. One of the defendants was not included because she was given
deferred adjudication. Two others were excluded because they were jailed on
probation violations, not directly on the charges from the bust.

The 35 are among 46 people, 39 of whom are black, arrested in 1999 after an
18-month undercover investigation by Tom Coleman, an on-again-off-again
lawman who was working in a welding shop when he was hired for the job.

The racial makeup of the arrests led to accusations of bias, while evidence
of misconduct in Coleman's background led to questions about the legitimacy
of the investigation.

By this summer, most of the defendants had been released from prison after
serving prison time or getting probation. They were joined last month by a
dozen inmates who were released by Judge Ron Chapman under the auspices of
a legislative bill that authorized the judge to grant bail.

Chapman stopped evidentiary hearings in March, finding that Coleman was
perjuring himself on the stand. Coleman was subsequently indicted on three
counts of aggravated perjury related to his testimony.

Chapman recommended to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that all 38
cases be overturned, an action that would be moot if Perry signs pardons.

The evidence of Coleman's alleged perjury proved compelling for the board
in its deliberation.

Garrett said each member reviewed every case and came to individual
decisions, but Coleman was a clear factor in the decisions.

"The issue as to the conduct of the primary law enforcement officer and the
impact that conduct had on trials and plea bargains was apparent to us,"
Garrett said. "We're a deliberative body. We don't jump to conclusions. All
of this was carefully considered in each case."

Amarillo lawyer Jeff Blackburn said he is confident the governor will sign
the pardons, which will open the way to the next phase of the legal fight -
the civil battles.

Blackburn said he and the other attorneys are determined to use civil suits
to make changes in the organizations responsible for the drug bust.

"The Texas criminal justice system has made great progress in correcting
what happened in Tulia, but there are limits to what it can do," Blackburn
said. "That's why we have a civil justice system. It's in civil court we
expect to finally be able to end the nightmare permanently."