A bad cop, with the likely connivance of a bad D.A. arrested 45 poor black defendants on trumped-up drug charges in Tulia, TX. They sued and ultimately got justice.
Now, the wheel turns.
The district attorney who prosecuted a succession of defendants arrested in a since-discredited drug bust in the west Texas town of Tulia now faces possible disbarment for his conduct during the trials.
In a disciplinary petition filed by the State Bar of Texas on Wednesday, Swisher County Dist. Atty. Terry D. McEachern is accused of failing to tell defense lawyers about the criminal history of his star witness, undercover agent Tom Coleman.
Note that they’re not talking about firing him from his post as D.A.; they’re taking about disbarring him, which would (rightly, it appears) end his career as an officer of the court.
I’ve commented in the past that righting these wrongs – that we live in a society where these wrongs can get righted – makes me happy.
I’m interested in why it is, when we correct the injustices of the past, and devise tools to ensure that it will be difficult to make the same mistakes again, we are dwelling on the “Oh, no, we were so bad” rather than the “we’re getting better”. See, I think that real liberalism…the kind that builds schools and water systems and improves people’s lives…comes from a belief in progress.
We aren’t perfect. No one is or ever will be…to quote William Goldman, “Life is pain, Highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something.” But we can either keep trying to get there or sit on the floor dwelling on our shortcomings. Which one would you rather do, and why?
Good for them. Nothing damages civil society like bad civil officers.
I had so much despair for our society when I first read about this case years ago in Reason. I’m so happy to have my faith restored like this.
What you fail to mention is that racially oriented policing is the basis of drug prohibition.
Google Charles Whitebread and read his speech before a group of Judges in California.
Prohibition laws are almost always a means of targeting a disfavored group without mentioning the group by name.
Tulia is only the most blatant example.
Our prisons are full of people (not a majority but a very significant minority) who have been imprisoned on drug conspiracy charges where there was zero dope in evidence. Zero. Zip. Nada. These “transactions” take place when some one wants to evade a long prison sentence by implicating some one else.
The drug war has totally destroyed the justice in the criminal justice system. Tulia is just the tip of the iceberg. The only reason it got righted because it was so blatant and so large.
Tulia is no reason for pride. Tulia is good reason to look deeper. The system is corrupt. Top to bottom. Beginning to end. When the rock hiding this gets lifted some very ugly stuff is going to come out. Very ugly.
America is running a racial gulag and hardly any one cares.
evariste,
Nice to see you here. WoC is still small enough that you can have reasoned discussion. Still large enough that the best minds often attend.