Some Texans lose faith in Bush justice

Across America: Freddie Brookins will not be allowed to vote against George W. Bush on November 2nd. Although he received a pardon from the current Texas governor, Rick Perry, and a substantial cash settlement for the four years of a 20-year sentence he served in prison, Brookins's record has not yet been cleared, making him ineligible.

Brookins believes that once Tom Coleman, the undercover narcotics agent who falsely accused him of selling cocaine, stands trial on perjury charges, the slate will be wiped clean.

In the meantime Brookins (27) is studying to be a medical assistant. He coaches two Little League football teams and has settled down with his wife, Terry, whom he married in prison, and their two daughters. His share of the $6 million paid out this summer to the 45 surviving victims of Coleman's sting bought the family a cottage two blocks from the sheriff's office, and a shiny new SUV.

At the Terrel Unit in Livingstone, Texas, Brookins was assigned to be a janitor on death row. "I talked to the guys through the bars," he says. "They might not be executed for 15 or 20 years. That's just our system here in Texas."

Brookins blames President Bush for what happened to the men and women arrested in Tulia. "He had a chance to clear everything up, but he just didn't want to do it," says the former prisoner. Bush was governor of Texas when the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force (now dissolved) hired Coleman, an itinerant lawman who was charged with theft in neighbouring Cochran County. In July 1999 police arrested 46 people, of whom 39 were black, and charged them with selling cocaine to Coleman.

Three were released. Eight were tried and found guilty in 2000. The rest got lesser sentences because they plea-bargained.

Alan Bean and his father-in-law, Charles Kiker, white Tulia residents with strong Christian beliefs, were appalled by the sting and what Bean calls "a pattern of racial profiling in the local justice system." Forty-six cocaine dealers seemed like a lot for a town of 5,117. The seven non-black detainees had strong ties to the black community.

Bean and Kiker founded Friends of Justice and brought in journalist Nate Blakeslee, then of the Texas Observer.

Blakeslee is now writing a book about Tulia with a grant from the Soros Foundation. In June 2000 he published the first of a series of articles about the Tulia sting. The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People filed lawsuits.

In the midst of Bush's first presidential campaign, national media seized on Tulia as an example of justice Texas-style under Governor Bush. It followed the 1998 killing of James Byrd, a black man in east Texas who was lynched by three young whites and dragged behind a car for four kilometres.

During the 1990s Texas built 57 new prisons and nearly quadrupled its prison population, from 40,000 to 151,000. Alan Bean says this is largely the result of the War on Drugs, which targets small-time users and dealers.

Because the War on Drugs is sacred to Democrats as well as Republicans, Bean despairs of the government developing a more rational strategy than the mass incarceration of underclass black males. With Coleman's coming perjury trial, Bean says: "They're trying to hermetically seal Tulia, to make it look like an exception, whereas it's an egregious example of business as usual."

Every time Bush was asked about Tulia, he replied that he didn't know the facts of the case. He answered written inquiries saying he had full confidence in the justice system and law enforcement agencies.

Except that the justice system didn't work. Tulia defendants rotted in prison for nearly four years before the case unravelled in evidentiary hearings in March 2003. Judge Ron Chapman concluded that "Coleman's repeated instances of verifiably perjurous testimony render him entirely unbelievable under oath."

Chapman recommended that the Tulia convictions - obtained solely on the basis of Coleman's allegations - be overturned. The Tulia prisoners were freed in June 2003. Two months later Governor Richard Perry pardoned 35 of the 45 surviving accused, including Freddie Brookins.

But the aftershocks of the drug sting still shake this hot, flat little town in the Panhandle. Much of Tulia's white community, including Sheriff Larry Stewart, continue to believe the 46 were guilty, that Coleman is a scapegoat.

The cash settlement by the Amarillo municipality and surrounding counties, awarded this summer, is deeply resented by many. They quote Coleman's high-powered lawyer from Dallas: "If we pay people for dealing drugs, we're going to have a lot of drug-dealers."

As revealed in an FBI report leaked last month, 11 of the defendants admitted selling drugs to Coleman. That is not at issue, replies Alan Bean of Friends of Justice. Coleman jumbled the dates and times of drug purchases, confused the identities of the defendants and turned in large amounts of expensive powder cocaine when they sold him small amounts of cheap crack. Multiple life sentences were handed down on the basis of Coleman's flawed testimony.

Sheriff Stewart was accompanied by Coleman when they came to arrest Freddie Brookins five years ago. "I said to him, 'Sheriff Stewart, you've known me my whole life. You know I don't deal drugs'," Brookins recalls. "Coleman lifted his ski mask and said, 'Don't you remember me?' I'd never seen him before. I saw Coleman only twice; when they arrested me and at my trial."

Stewart seethes with rage at the "east coast liberals" and media who meddled in little Swisher county. "We had eight juries," he notes. "Each one had 12 individuals from this community and each determined they were guilty. The rest of the world apparently doesn't believe these 96 people had a clue. Is it appropriate that attorneys from Washington and New York overturn the decisions of local juries?"

Coleman's change-of-venue hearing is scheduled for September 29th ; his lawyer says he can't get a fair trial in Tulia. The US presidential election campaign draws little attention here; it's a foregone conclusion that Bush will win Texas.

The most eloquent commentator on the Tulia drug sting is Freddie Brookins's father, Fred (50). After 31 years of gruelling labour in a meat-packing plant, Brookins snr still works 11-hour shifts. He is annoyed by those who suggest his son's exoneration proves that justice eventually triumphs in the US.

"When I was growing up, you could understand [such abuses\] because we were going through changes," Brookins says.

"But this happened at the turn of the century."

Brookins's second son, John, was in the US army for eight years, but decided not to re-enlist. "I'm so glad my son is out of the military," he continues. "I had one son in the military and one son in prison. John wrote to me from Kuwait and said: 'Dad, I just don't believe in this any more.' What I taught them all their lives, it took only a moment for people to erase."