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Newsbrief:
Texas
Governor
Signs
Bill
Freeing
Tulia
14
6/6/03
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R)
this week signed legislation that will lead to freedom in a matter of days
for the 14 remaining prisoners from the notorious Tulia, TX, drug bust
of July 1999. Senate Bill 1948, which passed the Texas Senate last
week, will allow the 14 to get out on bail pending a decision by the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals on whether they should be retried on the tainted
Tulia charges. Thirty-eight people pled guilty or were convicted of small-scale
drug sales on the uncorroborated testimony of Swisher County lawman Tom
Coleman, whose damning testimony was later found by a specially-appointed
judge to "be riddled with perjury and purposely evasive answers" and who
has now been charged with perjury.
The arrests, literally decimating
the town's African-American population, blew up into a national scandal
as local groups such as the Friends of Justice and the Amarillo NAACP were
joined by the Texas ACLU, the NAACP, the New York City-based William Moses
Kunstler Fund for Social Justice, and a handful of dedicated lawyers systematically
unraveled Coleman's cases. The bill was championed in the legislature
by state Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston) and Rep. Terry Keel (R-Austin).
Whitmire told the Houston
Chronicle he will now press for an investigation of the scandal- and abuse-plagued
regional drug task forces that have rampaged across the state since the
mid-1980s. Alleged perjurer Coleman was working on behalf of the
Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force when he did his dirty work in Tulia.
The 14 remaining Tulia prisoners
should be home within two weeks, but the light shown on police practices
and the legal system in Texas has revealed serious and systematic abuses
and opened up the Lone Star state's criminal justice system to well-deserved
and too long-delayed scrutiny. The reverberations from Tulia will
echo across Texas for years to come.
-- END --
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Issue #290, 6/6/03
Editorial: Courage and Perseverance | Thousands Rally in NYC to Demand Repeal of Rockefeller Drug Laws | Medical Marijuana Cultivator Rosenthal Sentenced to One Day, Plus Probation | DEA Uses RAVE Act Threats to Block Montana NORML/SSDP Benefit | Dems on Drugs: The Presidential Contenders and Their Drug Policies | In a Strong Reversal, Congress Prohibits Drug Czar from Running Ads Against Ballot Measures and Candidates | Newsbrief: Texas Governor Signs Bill Freeing Tulia 14 | Newsbrief: Sentencing Reform -- No in Oklahoma | Newsbrief: Sentencing Reform -- Yes in Missouri | Newsbrief: Feds Reject MPP Complaint Against Drug Czar | Newsbrief: The Next Prohibition? Surgeon General Supports Banning Tobacco | Newsbrief: Belgian Marijuana Decriminalization Now in Effect | Newsbrief: DEA Can't Kidnap People in Other Countries, Federal Court Rules | The Reformer's Calendar
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