Pubdate: Tue, 17 Jun 2003
Source: Daily Iowan, The (IA Edu)
Copyright: 2003 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.dailyiowan.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/937
Author: Lee Hockstader, Washington Post

JUDGE FREES 12 AFTER TULIA TRAVESTY

TULIA, Texas - For the first time in four years, Kizzie White's two small 
children got to hug and cling to her Monday, without anyone interrupting to 
say time's up.

For the first time in four years, Joe Moore had precisely what he wanted, 
in the order he wanted it: barbecued ribs and a long, soapy hot bath.

And for the first time in four years, Freddie Brookins Jr. started planning 
his future again, one he hopes will include the college scholarship that 
slipped from his grasp in 1999.

The three were among 12 people - 11 of them black - who walked free on bail 
Monday in this tiny Texas panhandle town after four years in prison on drug 
convictions that a Texas judge and prosecutors now agree were a travesty of 
justice based on the uncorroborated testimony of a racist white police 
officer. Two weeks ago, Texas's governor signed a bill allowing them to be 
released pending an appeals court's review, cutting short sentences ranging 
from 20 to 90 years.

"It feels so good," said White, 26, who beamed as her 9-year-old daughter, 
Roneisha, and 6-year-old son, Cashawn, nuzzled her, staying close as 
magnets to the mother they had seen briefly just eight times in four years. 
"I'm going to be the best mother I can to them."

A few feet away stood Moore, a 60-year-old hog farmer and gigantic man 
surrounded by television cameras and supported by his lawyer. Illiterate, 
diabetic, and barely able to walk without his lawyer's aid, Moore, who was 
serving a 90-year sentence, clutched a grocery bag full of shampoo, 
conditioner, and soap, and declared, "Everything's all right now."

The case began before dawn July 23, 1999, when masked police officers began 
rounding up 46 people in Tulia, all but six of them black. In a town of 
fewer than 5,000 people, the arrests represented nearly 10 percent of the 
black population.

In eight lightning-quick trials, juries with virtually no black members 
handed down blisteringly tough sentences - even though the sweeps turned up 
no drugs, weapons, paraphernalia, or other signs of drug dealing.
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