Pubdate: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 Source: Houston Chronicle (TX) Copyright: 2002 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper Contact: http://www.chron.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198 Author: James Kimberly ACLU FILES FEDERAL SUIT OVER HEARNE DRUG BUST In a federal lawsuit filed Friday in Austin, the American Civil Liberties Union accused Robertson County authorities of violating the civil rights of 28 people from Hearne arrested in a drug sting. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court and accuses Robertson County District Attorney John Paschall and members of the South Central Texas Narcotics Task Force of targeting people for drug investigations based on their race. The lawsuit also alleges authorities charged innocent people with drug offenses and locked them up. Paschall and Joe Davis, drug task force commander, denied the accusations. "We don't target any race or any specific drug," Davis said. The lawsuit accuses the county and the task force of a pattern of discriminatory practices. It cites the Hearne drug busts as an example of the behavior. In November 2000, 28 people from Hearne were arrested on charges of possessing or distributing crack cocaine. The arrests followed a six-month undercover investigation involving a confidential informant. Eleven of the defendants pleaded guilty. Ten received probation, and one went to prison. Charges against the remaining 17 defendants were dropped after Robertson County authorities discovered the confidential informant had stolen some of the drugs and money. Graham Boyd, director of the ACLU Drug Litigation Policy Project, said the Hearne arrests should never have happened. "If you just scratch the surface at all, any reasonable person would have some serious doubts about believing the word of . . . the informant in this case. And yet . . . they were willing to arrest people and take away their freedom based on just the word of one person," Boyd said. Hearne is a community of 5,000 people just north of College Station. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom