PERRY PARDONS 35 DEFENDANTS IN TULIA BUSTS

Gov. Rick Perry pardoned 35 people on Friday who were arrested in Tulia in
1999 on the word of a white undercover agent who has since been indicted on
perjury charges.

Thirty-one of those pardoned are black.

"Questions surrounding testimony from the key witness in these cases
weighed heavily on my final decision," Perry said, referring to the agent,
Tom Coleman. The arrests in Tulia, the Swisher County seat of 5,000
residents between Amarillo and Lubbock, attracted national attention, in
part because the Swisher County sheriff invited the media to photograph
disheveled suspects being rounded up early on the morning of July 23, 1999.
Of the 46 people initially charged, 40 are black. They were accused of
dealing cocaine in the small Panhandle farming community. Drug trafficking
is often lucrative, but none of the suspects appeared to be living beyond
his or her means. Eventually, 38 people went to prison, meaning that one of
every 11 African-Americans in Tulia was behind bars based on one man's
uncorroborated word. Freddie Brookins Jr., 26, served 3 1/2 years of a
20-year sentence.

He has been free since June, when Perry signed legislation allowing 14
people who were still in prison to be released on bail while he and the
courts considered their cases. "It really takes a lot off your mind,"
Brookins said of the pardon. But bitterness mixed in with his relief. "What
hurt the most was that the people in the courtroom and on the jury knew me
and knew I hadn't done it," he said. "All of it had to do with race. It's a
stupid way to try to get people out of town." Jeff Blackburn, an Amarillo
lawyer who represents many of those pardoned Friday, said indiscriminate
spending in the so-called "war on drugs" was the reason for the false arrests.

He was especially critical of the Texas Panhandle Regional Narcotics
Trafficking Task Force, a federally financed consortium of 26 Texas
counties, based in Amarillo. "The government agency that caused the Tulia
fiasco was the task force," he said. "They were the group that hired
Coleman. They were that group that allegedly supervised Coleman. We believe
it was this group that encouraged him to make the largest number of cases
using whatever methods he chose.

The more productive he appeared to be, the more funding money they could
get." Task force officials did not respond to messages seeking comments. At
a Tulia hearing in March, Coleman and other witnesses testified about his
troubled law enforcement career, unorthodox methods, pervasive errors,
combustible temperament and apparent racism.

Coleman blithely conceded that he made routine use of an offensive racial
epithet. Coleman also testified that although most of the drug transactions
that he swore to took place in public places, he did not wear a recording
device, arrange for video surveillance, ask anyone to accompany him, ask
anyone to observe the deals or fingerprint the plastic bags containing the
drugs. He worked alone and did not tape record his drug buys. Instead, he
said, he would jot down information on his leg. No drugs, weapons or large
sums of cash were found during the arrests. Among the people arrested but
not pardoned on Friday were seven whose cases had been dismissed before
trial; two who were on probation at the time of their arrests and so
ineligible for pardons; one whose conviction is not final; and one who has
died. Coleman pleaded not guilty to perjury charges in April. His phone is
disconnected, and his lawyer did not return a call seeking comment. The
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is considering a recommendation from the
judge who supervised the March hearing that all of the Tulia convictions be
overturned. It is not clear what effect the pardons will have on those
proceedings. The pardons will, however, open the way for civil lawsuits by
those charged in the cases. "We're planning on exhausting every single
remedy available to our clients," said Vanita Gupta, a lawyer with the
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which represents many of the
Tulia defendants. The first civil suit arising from the Tulia arrests was,
apparently coincidentally, filed on Friday in federal court in Amarillo. It
was brought by two women against whom charges were brought and then dropped
before trial, as Coleman's evidence started to unravel. The suit says that
the people and agencies responsible for Coleman's supervision violated the
plaintiffs' civil rights by sending him into the field and trusting his
information when there was plenty of evidence that he was unreliable. The
suit seeks unspecified damages and a court order prohibiting more drug
stings targeting African-Americans in Tulia. One of the plaintiffs, Tonya
White, was lucky.

She had, according to court records, an unbeatable alibi.

On the day that Coleman said she sold him cocaine in Tulia, she was more
than 300 miles away, in Oklahoma City. She had visited an Oklahoma City
bank at almost the precise time of the supposed drug deal, and she had a
time-stamped check to prove it. The task force's background check on
Coleman in 1997 revealed, the suit says, that his boss in a previous law
enforcement job said Coleman had disciplinary and "possible mental
problems;" and that one of his references said he "needed constant
supervision, had a bad temper and would tend to run to his mother for
help." The suit adds that a more diligent check would have revealed Coleman
had stolen gas and run up bad debts in another law enforcement job before
leaving town abruptly in the middle of a shift.

His boss there had told the Texas agency that licenses peace officers that
Coleman "should not be in law enforcement." Eight months into the
undercover investigation, Coleman's supervisors received a warrant calling
for his arrest for stealing gasoline.

They arrested him, let him out on bail and allowed him to make restitution
for the gas and other debts of $7,000. The undercover investigation then
continued. Many of the Tulia defendants have agreed to a settlement of
$250,000 in exchange for an agreement not to sue local officials.

But they remain free to sue the task force and are expected to do so. White
and the other plaintiff in the suit filed Friday, Zuri Bossett, were not
part of that deal, and they have sued several officials including Coleman
and the Swisher County district attorney and sheriff. The district
attorney, Terry McEachern, said Friday that he had not seen the suit. "I
don't think there is any merit to it whatsoever," he said. Kizzie White,
who served four years of a 25-year sentence before being released in June,
described her reaction to being pardoned. "Today is just a wonderful day,"
she said. "It's wonderful to be free. I just feel like screaming my guts
out." She expressed hope for Tulia's future. "I'm just glad that justice
was done," she said, "and I pray that everyone can come together and put
this behind us."