Pubdate: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) Copyright: 2002 The Dallas Morning News Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117 Author: Holly Becka, The Dallas Morning News Bookmarks: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption - United States) http://www.mapinc.org/states/tx/ (Texas) FAKE-DRUG SCANDAL HAS LINGERING EFFECTS As Grand Jury Works to Assign Blame, DA Enacts Safeguards A scheme involving at least three Dallas police informants to plant bogus drugs on innocent immigrants in exchange for snitch pay started to unravel about this time last year. Lab tests showed that several big drug busts made by the Dallas Police Department involved nothing but chalk or only traces of illicit substances. Prosecutors and defense attorneys were asking questions. Reporters were nosing around. The problem was about to go public. Twelve months later, a federal grand jury is hearing witnesses' testimony. Two undercover Dallas narcotics officers remain on paid leave. Three of their former informants have pleaded guilty to civil rights charges in the cases. But the biggest question - who's to blame - remains unanswered. "I place the full blame on the Dallas Police Department, the narcotics department, because they were not supervising these rogue informants," says Richard Carrizales, a longtime Dallas defense lawyer. "There was no double-checking of what ... [the officers] were doing, and you had these informants just out of control. And, so, the more busts they brought, the more arrests they brought. The narcotics officers were just fat and happy." Dallas police spokeswoman Janice Houston declined to comment, citing the ongoing FBI investigation. Until the federal probe wraps up, she says, any comments about what might have happened amount to "speculation." Members of the narcotics unit have signed letters agreeing not to talk about the cases. At Dallas County's criminal courthouse, where prosecutors threw out more than 80 drug cases, the district attorney says he has implemented new safeguards to rapidly identify bad cases and to prevent anything like the fake-drug scandal from recurring. District Attorney Bill Hill also says he's planning a review in 2003 of all policies - in every area of his office - to ensure that there are no shortcomings that could be exploited. As the fake-drug scandal unfolded, authorities said that as many as 10 cases involved phony drugs; about 14 others contained a sprinkling of real narcotics among larger amounts of bogus drugs. Many of the targets were undocumented Mexican immigrants who spoke little English. Hispanic community leaders say they believe that the scheme would have been discovered sooner if it weren't for the racial and socioeconomic factors the victims shared. "The people who were getting charged were not voters; they're not citizens, so if they complained, they didn't have a great voice," says Dallas defense lawyer Juan Sanchez. "When they complained, people didn't listen." Prosecutors tossed the remaining cases in the interest of justice, deeming them tainted by the involvement of two suspended Dallas police officers or their discredited informants. The taint bled into Mr. Hill's re-election campaign, where he won a second term despite his opponents' focus on the scandal. Critics complained that Mr. Hill did not act quickly enough to identify and stop prosecution of the sullied cases. At the Police Department, where officials have refused to talk about the cases, Chief Terrell Bolton and other supervisors have faced less public scrutiny. Meanwhile, in Dallas County's drug courts, prosecutors' conviction rates remained unchanged this year compared to the previous year. Last year, prosecutors in the organized crime division - which handles cases involving 4 grams or more of drugs - had an 82 percent trial conviction rate and a 98.6 percent overall conviction rate, including guilty pleas. This year, prosecutors had an 82.3 percent trial conviction rate and a 98.5 percent overall conviction rate. Lessons learned Mr. Hill says he and his prosecutors have learned much. "We've certainly learned that just because systems worked in the past, that doesn't mean they'll hold up in the future," he says, referring to the office's previous policy of not testing drugs before suspects were indicted. Drugs had been tested only when a case went to trial or a defendant requested it. "Quite frankly, we never really thought there was a potential problem because it had been working so well for many, many years." He acknowledges that his office should have found the problem cases sooner: "It took too long, and I'll admit that," he says. Among the changes Mr. Hill made was to require every police agency to provide the district attorney's office with each confidential informant's identification number. A prosecutor now monitors every drug case involving a confidential informant to watch for patterns and problems. A different prosecutor monitors all drug lab reports. The prosecutor compares the lab reports to the field tests to ensure that the type of drugs cited by arresting officers matches the substance found in lab tests. Mr. Hill says his office reviewed every case filed by Senior Cpl. Mark Delapaz and Officer Eddie Herrera, who remain on paid leave from the Police Department. The previous cases of Senior Cpl. David Larsen were reviewed because he accompanied Cpl. Delapaz and Officer Herrera on drug busts made with the discredited informants, Mr. Hill says. The three officers' past cases, which Mr. Hill estimates to be in the hundreds, were then turned over to the FBI, he says. Mr. Hill says he's confident that all the bad cases have been discovered and rectified. However, at least four men convicted with the help of Enrique Alonso, the central discredited informant, remain in prison. Two others - a man and a woman - were allowed out of prison while an appeals court reviews their cases. Mr. Alonso signed an affidavit saying he perjured himself to help convict one man. He has not publicly admitted lying in other cases. Mr. Hill says the scandal saddened him and further strengthened his resolve to improve his office. He bristles at criticism that he has acted indifferently or been unapologetic about defendants who were unjustly prosecuted. "I'm sorry if people had drugs planted on them and they came down here and pled guilty, unbeknownst to us it was fake drugs," Mr. Hill says. "I feel sorry for those people who went to jail, and I wish they hadn't gone. ... A lot of people don't think it's enough for me to truly feel sorry for those people. I think they expect me to admit to something that's not true. "I'm very sorry for these people who had their lives turned upside down because of these unscrupulous, corrupt informants." After the scandal erupted, Mr. Hill's office began requiring that all drug evidence be submitted for lab tests before a suspect was indicted - - something standard in many district attorneys' offices, including in neighboring Tarrant County. Jails, labs clogged As a result, many defense lawyers say, the Dallas County Jail and lab-testing system quickly became clogged. Some of the problem, they say, was because suspects with minor cases - those who would have received probation because they were caught with small amounts of drugs for personal use - could not raise bail. Mr. Carrizales was among a group of Mexican-American community leaders who spoke with Mr. Hill about six months ago about the problem, encouraging the district attorney to find a way to speed the process. Mr. Hill says his office is working out the legal kinks for a process in which drug defendants could waive their lab tests and plead guilty. The district attorney's office would still test the drugs as a fail-safe measure. Ryan Brown, Dallas County budget director, says that after the drug-testing policy change, his office saw an increase in the jail population whose cases were pending before the grand jury. But, he says, his office had no way to specify how much extra money was spent. "The aggregate cost per inmate is minimal," Mr. Brown says. "What we saw was a population growing; by virtue of it growing, we knew additional dollars were being spent, so we said, 'Is there a way to mitigate this?' " The answer, officials determined, was to add another laboratory analyst position at the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences so more drug tests could be performed and to add a post at the district attorney's office to monitor and expedite lab testing. "If somebody's in jail, we put them to the front of the list," Mr. Brown says. The changes were made as part of the 2003 budget, which took effect in October, and a benefit already has been seen, officials say. The jail population has started to decrease to more "historic" numbers, Mr. Brown says. Meanwhile, some defense lawyers say they've seen improvements. Mr. Sanchez says that while he's seen an improvement with Dallas police better corroborating their drug cases with video and audio evidence, he's still concerned that the Police Department is using questionable informants. Mr. Alonso, the informant at the heart of the scandal, was an undocumented immigrant who investigators say was using a false Social Security number. Prosecutors "are very careful in analyzing their cases," says Mr. Sanchez, the Dallas defense lawyer. "If they see something odd, they're going to let you know about it. They're very forthcoming with discovery. They don't want to be accused of hiding the ball. The public outcry is at least making them more skeptical. I will give them credit for that." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake