Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Those familiar with the travesty of justice that led to multiple bogus drug arrests in the small Texas town of Tulia only from newspaper accounts will be outraged anew at this eye-opening narrative that bears comparison to such courtroom and litigation classics as A Civil Action. This devastating indictment of the toll taken by the war on drugs, viewed through the prism of one small community, is a masterpiece of true crime writing. Award-winning reporter Blakeslee broke the story for the Texas Observer in 2000 and has produced a definitive account, deftly weaving the history of the growth and decline of Tulia with the stories of those caught up in the racist frame by narcotics officer Tom Coleman.
The defendants, their families and their attorneys come across as three-dimensional individuals, consistently engaging the reader despite the wealth of details and the intricacies of the appellate process. Vanita Gupta, the young defense lawyer fresh from law school who made the NAACP Legal Defense Fund take notice with her dedication, is especially memorable. As with Errol Morris's film exposing corrupt Texas law-enforcement, The Thin Blue Line, this haunting work will leave many wondering how many other Tulias there are out there.
From The Washington Post
Iconoclastic lawyers who challenge the deeply entrenched, local powers-that-be relish the rare occasions when they prevail. For Jeff Blackburn, an Amarillo, Tex., attorney who is one of the heroes of Nate Blakeslee's thoroughly reported and superbly written new book, such an opportunity came late one night in 2003. Recalcitrant prosecutors had finally agreed to drop fraudulent drug charges brought against some three dozen defendants, most of whom were black. As Blackburn exultantly left the county courthouse, he headed for a nearby centennial monument whose self-congratulatory inscription (lauding the county's principles) he loathed. As Blakeslee recounts, Blackburn "unzipped his pants and began urinating on it" until the headlights of an approaching car brought an abrupt end to his private victory celebration.
Those false drug prosecutions were the handiwork of Tom Coleman, an undercover white narcotics officer who claimed to have made more than 100 purchases of powdered cocaine during an 18-month period in 1998-99 from about 40 different residents of Tulia, a small and relatively poor town in the north Texas panhandle. Blakeslee describes Coleman as "a scruffy, long-haired, unsavory-looking character . . . in a black leather jacket who called himself T.J. Dawson and claimed to be a construction contractor living ten miles up the interstate." Coleman worked for a regional anti-drug task force based in Amarillo, which had hired him largely because of his late father's stellar law-enforcement record.
Coleman's undercover work in Tulia went almost wholly unsupervised by Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart and local District Attorney Terry McEachern, as well as by the task force. Early one morning in July 1999, though, local law enforcement mobilized all its troops to execute the surprise arrests of Coleman's dozens of suspects. None of the defendants was found in possession of any drugs, but many of them had briefly shared drugs -- or used drugs -- with Coleman. "I smoked rock with that man," former high school sports star Donnie Smith exclaimed to the men in his holding pen. Four or five others admitted they had too.
"You niggers quit sellin' them drugs," Coleman yelled at the incarcerated suspects that day, as they later recounted the episode to Blakeslee. Racial animus was not the only serious problem marring the prosecutions. Local attorneys were appointed to represent defendants who could not afford private counsel, but Texas's slapdash system of indigent defense often resulted in "completely ineffective" lawyers offering only pro forma representation. Several of the Tulia defendants were quickly convicted and imprisoned in just such a fashion before Donnie Smith's highly experienced attorney, Tom Hamilton (himself a former district attorney), bluntly challenged McEachern. See All Editorial Reviews
The defendants, their families and their attorneys come across as three-dimensional individuals, consistently engaging the reader despite the wealth of details and the intricacies of the appellate process. Vanita Gupta, the young defense lawyer fresh from law school who made the NAACP Legal Defense Fund take notice with her dedication, is especially memorable. As with Errol Morris's film exposing corrupt Texas law-enforcement, The Thin Blue Line, this haunting work will leave many wondering how many other Tulias there are out there.
From The Washington Post
Iconoclastic lawyers who challenge the deeply entrenched, local powers-that-be relish the rare occasions when they prevail. For Jeff Blackburn, an Amarillo, Tex., attorney who is one of the heroes of Nate Blakeslee's thoroughly reported and superbly written new book, such an opportunity came late one night in 2003. Recalcitrant prosecutors had finally agreed to drop fraudulent drug charges brought against some three dozen defendants, most of whom were black. As Blackburn exultantly left the county courthouse, he headed for a nearby centennial monument whose self-congratulatory inscription (lauding the county's principles) he loathed. As Blakeslee recounts, Blackburn "unzipped his pants and began urinating on it" until the headlights of an approaching car brought an abrupt end to his private victory celebration.
Those false drug prosecutions were the handiwork of Tom Coleman, an undercover white narcotics officer who claimed to have made more than 100 purchases of powdered cocaine during an 18-month period in 1998-99 from about 40 different residents of Tulia, a small and relatively poor town in the north Texas panhandle. Blakeslee describes Coleman as "a scruffy, long-haired, unsavory-looking character . . . in a black leather jacket who called himself T.J. Dawson and claimed to be a construction contractor living ten miles up the interstate." Coleman worked for a regional anti-drug task force based in Amarillo, which had hired him largely because of his late father's stellar law-enforcement record.
Coleman's undercover work in Tulia went almost wholly unsupervised by Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart and local District Attorney Terry McEachern, as well as by the task force. Early one morning in July 1999, though, local law enforcement mobilized all its troops to execute the surprise arrests of Coleman's dozens of suspects. None of the defendants was found in possession of any drugs, but many of them had briefly shared drugs -- or used drugs -- with Coleman. "I smoked rock with that man," former high school sports star Donnie Smith exclaimed to the men in his holding pen. Four or five others admitted they had too.
"You niggers quit sellin' them drugs," Coleman yelled at the incarcerated suspects that day, as they later recounted the episode to Blakeslee. Racial animus was not the only serious problem marring the prosecutions. Local attorneys were appointed to represent defendants who could not afford private counsel, but Texas's slapdash system of indigent defense often resulted in "completely ineffective" lawyers offering only pro forma representation. Several of the Tulia defendants were quickly convicted and imprisoned in just such a fashion before Donnie Smith's highly experienced attorney, Tom Hamilton (himself a former district attorney), bluntly challenged McEachern. See All Editorial Reviews
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