Tulia:
1999
Bust's
Legacy
Lingers
in
Legal
Battles
11/23/01
It has been more than two years since Swisher County, Texas, lawmen swooped down and indicted 46 people -- 39 of them black -- based on the word of a shady undercover cop named Tom Coleman, but the county's legal battles are far from over. The citizens of the Texas Panhandle town of 5,000 have weathered loud criticism, intense media scrutiny, and internal division because of the busts, which took down more than one-tenth of the town's black population, many of whom are still doing long prison sentences as drug dealers. Now, with county officials having paid to settle one civil rights lawsuit and facing the prospect of more, as well as the costs of fending off a talented team of justice-seeking defense attorneys, the bust is looking to cost the community more than its reputation. The local school board wants to help. Having had its policy of "random, suspicionless" school drug testing policy slapped down once by a federal judge, the Tulia Independent School District tried again this year, only to once again face a civil lawsuit from angry parents charging the tests violate their childrens' constitutional rights. This time the plaintiff is hoping to get the incorrigible school board's attention by asking for monetary damages. In the civil rights lawsuit, black Tulia resident Billy Wafer accused undercover cop Coleman, Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart and Swisher County of racially-biased wrongful arrest and imprisonment. Wafer was among those arrested during the bust, but prosecutors failed to convince circuit and appeals court judges of Wafer's guilt, and the charges were dropped in January. In February, Wafer and attorneys including Jeff Blackburn sued. Swisher County settled in October. The county admitted no wrongdoing, but paid Wafer $5,000 and shelled out an additional $25,000 in attorneys' fees. Neither Blackburn nor Wafer have commented on the settlement, which includes a no-comment clause. Meanwhile, Swisher County prosecutors are having to prepare for a real battle as they prepare for the February trials of the last of the 46 defendants, Zuri Bossett and Tanya White. While those whose cases were resolved early on suffered the consequences of limited legal help -- 17 accepted plea bargains and 11 were found guilty based on the uncorroborated word of Coleman -- Bossett and White will be represented by a committee of area defense attorneys led by Blackburn, an experienced trial lawyer. The legal defense committee is itself part of a broader assemblage of legal talent pursuing redress on both the civil and the criminal fronts. According to Randy Credico of the Kunstler Fund (http://www.kunstler.org), which has been deeply involved in the Tulia effort, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the ACLU and the American Bar Association's Civil Rights division have all signed on to an overall legal strategy. Despite the ease with which Swisher County juries convicted previous bust defendants, Blackburn told the Amarillo Globe-News he is confident his team will be able to clear White and Bossett. Those acquittals will provide momentum for freeing the more than 20 Tulia defendants still behind bars, even those who had accepted plea bargains, said Blackburn. "I think everybody is going to see just how different these cases are from the previous cases," Blackburn said. "I am extremely confident in the outcome and what the facts will show in court." Blackburn client Tonya White agreed, adding that she hoped being found innocent would help lead to freedom for her three siblings, imprisoned after the bust. "I don't even know who Tom Coleman is," Tonya White said. "If I was to see him today, I wouldn't recognize him. There's no justice in this charge. It's time for all of this to be set straight." White's mother, Mattie White, was driven to organize the Texas Mothers of the Disappeared after seeing what happened to her children and the other black residents of Tulia. But she is ready for it all to end. "I'm just sick and tired of all this," she told the newspaper. "I've been through three of these already, and, god willing, this is the last one I'll ever have to go through. I've been hurt so much. I just take the pain and keep on going with god's help." While watching the progress of appeals and awaiting the latest trials, the citizens of Swisher County can amuse themselves weighing how much the school board's intense desire to drug test their charges could end up costing them. A year ago this month, US District Judge Mary Lou Robinson ruled against the district's drug-testing policy, stating "the mandatory random suspicionless drug testing program for all students participating in extracurricular activities is violative of the Fourth Amendment" (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/158.html#investigatingtulia). But Robinson's ruling applied directly only to the plaintiffs, brother and sister Colby and Molly Gardner, and as the county sent Robinson's ruling to the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, it also reinstated the program. It avoided directly confronting Robinson's ruling by limiting drug-testing to athletes. That wasn't good enough for Alan Bean, who on October 26 filed suit against the school district, school board president Sam Sadler and board member Darrell Nelson, on behalf of his son, Amos Bean, an active high-school athlete. "A federal judge declared Tulia's drug testing program unconstitutional," Bean told DRCNet. "The school board seems to think it can get around that ruling simply by substituting 'athletics' for 'extracurricular activities.' They're playing word games, and they're contemptuous of the judge's ruling," he said. Bean is seeking to have the current policy declared unconstitutional and to enjoin the school district from testing students. He is also seeking punitive damages from Sadler and Nelson. Sadler was a prime proponent of the testing, said Bean, and Nelson had drug-tested his son without his permission. "The money damages are so these guys take this seriously," said Bean. "You don't expect a lot of money in these cases, but it's just that our society values money above all else. This is intended to get their attention." The school board has since agreed to exempt his son from drug testing, he told DRCNet, but other students are still being tested and the lawsuit stands, he said. Bean is a member of Friends of Justice (http://www.drugsense.org/foj/), a faith-based group that emerged in the wake of the 1999 busts, and he worries that his stand could hurt the group. "There have been some nasty letters to the editor," he said. "Whatever goodwill we may have engendered has pretty much gone down the tubes after I filed this suit. The common perception is that I'm trying to make money off the deal or I'm a troublemaker." So it goes as Tulia struggles with its drug war demons. The legal defense committee for the Bossett and White trials is working pro bono, but could use help with some associated expenses. Donations may be sent to attorney Jeff Blackburn, who can be contacted at [email protected]. The Tulia 46 Relief Fund, which provides direct relief to families affected by the bust, is also looking for donations. To help, contact Peter Greer at [email protected]. "Those who would like to get involved here should do so now," said the Kunstler Fund's Credico. "Time is of the essence. Many of the families are in desperate need, and the trials are coming up."
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