Pubdate: Fri, 19 Jan 2001
Source: Texas Observer (TX)
Copyright: 2001 The Texas Observer
Contact:  307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701
Website: http://www.texasobserver.org/
Section: Political Intelligence

ONE DOWN

Billy Wafer, one of the defendants in the now notorious Tulia cocaine bust 
of 1999, is a free man. Wafer had been accused, along with three dozen 
other black defendants, of selling cocaine to undercover agent Tom Coleman 
(see "Color of Justice," by Nate Blakeslee, June 23) in the tiny Panhandle 
ranching town of Tulia, near Lubbock. Because Wafer was already on 
probation at the time, his first stop was a revocation hearing held last 
February, where he could have gotten twenty years.

But a judge declined to revoke his probation, because Wafer had a 
rock-solid alibi.

He has been out of jail since that time, but not quite out of the woods. 
Determined to stick to his guns (and his narc, despite mounting evidence 
that Coleman may have been an unreliable witness), Swisher County D.A. 
Terry McEachern declined to drop the charges against Wafer, forcing Wafer 
to take his case to the Seventh Court of Appeals in Amarillo last month.

When Wafer finally got his hearing, McEachern didn't even show up, and the 
charges were thrown out, once and for all. Wafer is now co-chair of Friends 
of Justice, an organization formed in the wake of the bust to support the 
defendants and raise awareness about their cases.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department's investigation of Tulia law 
enforcement continues.

According to sources in Tulia, FBI investigators have visited several 
inmates already in prison as a result of the bust. According to at least 
one inmate, the meetings went well, and investigators strongly suggested 
that defendants would at least receive retrials.

In other Tulia drug war news, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported 
December 3 that a U.S. district judge in Amarillo has finally ruled against 
the Tulia school district in a three-year-old suit over random drug testing 
at the school.

Judge Mary Lou Robinson (of Oprah WinfreyVeggie Libel law fame) found that 
the policy violated the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unlawful search 
and seizure.

The suit was filed by the son of Friends  of Justice member Gary Gardner. 
The elder Gardner (who argued the case himself) was the only member of the 
school board to object to the policy, which covered  all students in grades 
7-12 involved in extracurricular activities, or about 80 percent of the 
student body. (A similar suit in nearby Lockney, previously reported on in 
these pages, is still pending.) The school board is expected to appeal the 
decision. Similar policies, which single out kids involved  in 
extra-curricular  activities as opposed to all students, have been held to 
be constitutional by higher U.S. courts.
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