Ex-Drug Agent Found Convicted of Perjury [Tulia, TX]

AP ^ | Jan 14 2005

[george wythe]

The lone undercover agent in a sting that sent dozens of black people to prison on bogus drug charges was convicted Friday of one of two perjury counts.

Tom Coleman was acquitted of testifying falsely in a 2003 hearing that as a sheriff's deputy he never stole gas from county pumps, but he was found guilty of saying that he didn't learn about the theft charge against him until August 1998.

Jurors were to begin hearing evidence in the penalty phase of the trial later Friday. The perjury charge carries a maximum 10-year sentence and $10,000 fine.

Coleman arrested 46 people, most of them black, in the small, mostly white farming community of Tulia. He worked alone and used no audio or video surveillance, and no drugs were ever found, but 38 defendants were convicted or reached plea deals

[robertpaulsen]

"And you think it's such a big deal that so many pled guilty?"

27, to be exact. I'm sure they saw the writing on the wall.

After all, Coleman was 11 for 11 with those who took their case to court, which was heard by a jury of their peers, who unanimously voted "Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt".

And I bet, after that, you'd be the first one to advise your Tulia client to plead guilty, wouldn't you? Even if they claimed their innocence. YOU would send them to prison, not Coleman.

[TinkersDam]

Well, if he was responsible for all those trumped-up drug convictions that have garnered the town such bad publicity, then we will get him on a trumped-up perjury charge.

The Truth:
He was doing what has happened in alot of small departments.
He targeted a certain "population" that he considered undesirable and that are considered undesirable by many in the area.
He started casting his net rather widely and indescriminately.
Due to population demographics in the area it was rather easy to call public attention to the issue and to prove the absurdity of many of the charges.
The prosecutors and judges realized when media personnel started showing up that said prosecutors and judges had better suddenly develop ignorance of what was happening and shock at such discoveries as trumped-up charges and perjured testimony directed at minority members of a hard-working, peaceful and prosperous community.
Having brought bad publicity to town, the prosecutors and judges go after a guy who said 'August' instead of 'June' about events that took place five years earlier. Gotta stamp out that perjury you know.

[robertpaulsen]

"minority members of a hard-working, peaceful and prosperous community."

That's right. Now that all this is over, things are back to the way they were.

[TKDietz]

"YOU would send them to prison, not Coleman."

It wouldn't have been my fault. I didn't represent any of these people. It wouldn't have been the fault of their attorneys either. No one has to plead guilty. And the attorneys wouldn't have been wrong to tell them that the jury was liable to believe a white man with a badge over them. Tulia is mostly white, and the juries that were to decide these cases that pled may very well have been all white.

I don't live in Tulia. But I do work in a southern town that is mostly white. I had a jury trial Friday and every single person on the jury pool we had to select from was white. It often works that way, or we'll have a couple of people black people in the pool and because of the luck of the draw when they draw names to see who will sit for voir dire, often none of the black people end up in the group left for us to choose from. Our juries tend to be all white, made up mostly of silver haired white Southern Baptists. That's just how it works out.

And there is prejudice in most parts of the south, more than what you see in most other parts of the country. The Ku Klux Klan is alive and well where I live. The people in the Klan around here are not skin head types, those types are in different white supremacist groups. The Klan around here is made up of people who are pillars of society, deacons in the church, otherwise solid citizens who vote and who are sometimes called for jury duty. Obviously relatively few citizens are actually members of the Klan or other white supremacist groups, but prejudice is common and nothing people really even try to hide around here, unless they are going through something like voir dire. Prospective jurors almost never admit their racial prejudices in open court, even though we all know these people are a cross section of the community and many are going to harbor the same prejudices common throughout the community.

You know just last week I got an official notice in the mail signed by the county Judge saying that the courthouse would be closed Monday for "Robert E. Lee/Martin Luther King day." It was typed just like that and now the same notice is posted on all of the courthouse doors. No one will say a word about it. No one around here even cares. Nobody celebrates Martin Luther Kind day around here. People just chuckle and wish each other a happy Robert E. Lee day. I imagine that in most parts of the country there would be a big stink if the county Judge did up an official notice that the courthouse would be closed for Robert E. Lee day and posted on all the courthouse doors for all to see. Things are different in most parts of the south.

You know we read in the newspaper and see on the TV all the time stories about people who are found not guilty by juries. A lot of times it looks like some of these people were guilty and they got away with it. It makes it look like this sort of thing happens a high percentage of the time. The fact of the matter though is that nationwide only about 2% of all felony cases ever make it to trial. Almost all criminal cases are resolved by plea bargain and in almost every case that doesn't make it to trial people end up pleading guilty or no contest. And of those cases that do make it to trial, very few of the defendants are acquitted of all charges. Most of the time they are going to be found guilty.

Now, most people accused of crimes are guilty of at least some of what they are accused of doing (not all though). That's just the reality of it. And the reality is that jurors know that most people are guilty and even though they are supposed to presume that a defendant is innocent until they deliberate and find otherwise, it's hard for most to really stick to the presumption of innocence. In real life most go into the courtroom expecting that the guy on trial is probably guilty. I know this as a defense attorney and I know that even though technically the defendant doesn't have to prove anything, we're going to somehow have to prove the defendant is innocent or at least poke enough huge holes in the prosecutor's case that we make some of the jurors have some serious doubts about the State's case, serious enough to overcome their expectation that the defendant is guilty. It's an uphill battle for us. The deck is stacked against us because in real life we have to take this jury that believes our client is probably guilty and not only do we have to poke holes in the prosecutor's case but we have to somehow overcome this normal prejudice people have against someone who is accused of committing a crime.

Drug cases are particularly hard to try because the witnesses are often police officers. Jurors are far more likely to believe a guy with a badge than someone accused of committing a crime. They expect the guy accused of committing a drug crime to lie, while at the same time they expect the guy with the badge to tell the truth. Police officers are highly trained witnesses who usually know exactly what to say to win their cases and exactly what not to say that might hurt their cases. It's hard to nail most of these guys down and catch them in a lie when they are lying. And trying to bust out police officers is something that tends to make jurors roll their eyes and shake their heads in disgust. They believe the police and when we try to make them look like liars most of the time we are going to irk the jury even if the guy really is lying unless we can really nail him down and show that there is some substance to what we are saying and not just a lot of mud being slung. But watch their body language when the other side goes after the defendant or his witnesses and you'll see that most of the time jurors eat it up when prosecutors attack these people. The mud sticks and it's hard to impossible to wash off. Juries naturally tend to feel like prosecutors and cops are on their side, criminal defendants and their attorneys are at their mercy.

What's going on behind the scenes is that prosecutors and police are working as a team trying to get convictions in all their cases and hand out the highest level of punishment they can hand out. Defense attorneys are trying to get cases dropped and sometimes get not guilty verdicts, but not guilty verdicts only come in a tiny percentage of all the cases so most of the time what the defense attorney is trying to do is minimize the damage to his clients. The prosecutors are going to make offers with a "plea discount." They have an idea of what will happen to a person at trial and they try to make offers that punish the defendant as much as possible while still being lower than what the person is likely to get if the case goes to trial. They want almost all of them to plead because there would never be nearly enough time, money, or resources to try anywhere close to all of them. So they try to posture and bluff their way into getting a defendant to accept as harsh an offer as possible without forcing his hand and leaving him no choice but to go to trial.

For prosecutors and defense attorney as well often it's not about doing what's right, it's about winning the game. The prosecutors are rarely considering the possibility that the guy might be innocent. They don't even want to entertain notions like that, they have a war to fight. They are trying win, and winning means getting convictions and working it out such that the defendants get punished as much as possible. For the defense attorney winning is working out a deal with lower than usual punishment, or even just beating the offer at trial. We've really done something if we take a case to trial and get a not guilty verdict but that happens so infrequently most of the time we have to be happy with getting our clients good deals or beating the offer at trial.

Unfortunately, justice and fairness are too often way low on the list of things to be considered in this game. It's a competition between the two sides, an all out war. There are certainly cases where defense attorneys lie and use less than savory tactics. There are also instances where police and prosecutors lie, hide exculpatory evidence, threaten and coerce witnesses, and just generally not play fair. And judges often know this is going on but do nothing about it because like everyone else most of them believe that most of these people are guilty anyway and they want to see the prosecutors win their cases and nail people accused of criminal conduct to the wall. There's sort of an "all's fair in love and war" attitude that prevails. And even good people get caught up in it. Even good cops and prosecutors will sometimes twist things, cover up evidence contrary to the case they'll put on, and if not lie than certainly embellish. Bad cops and prosecutors will do a lot worse to ensure that they'll win.

I've gone over this at length because I want you and anyone else who might be reading this to have a better understanding of what goes on in our system. It's easy to lose sight of one of the main purposes of our system and that is to see that justice be done. One thing fundamental in the notion of justice that has developed in the western world is this belief that it is better for guilty people to go unpunished than it is for an innocent person to be wrongfully convicted. Some legal scholars and philosophers have said it is better for a hundred guilty men to go unpunished than one innocent man should suffer, and others have said it's better that ten guilty people go unpunished than one innocent man be wrongfully convicted. Most seem to think that it's far worse for innocent people to be wrongfully convicted than it is for guilty people to go unpunished. I tend to agree with this line of thinking.

Of course there are cases that can really put ones faith in this principle to a test, such as a case where a serial rapist or someone like that gets off, but in most cases we shouldn't have a hard time adhering to this principle. For instance, in drug cases if a guilty guy gets away with it today there will probably be a next time and he'll probably get his in the end. And the fact is that even if he hadn't have lucked out this time it wouldn't have put a dent in the drug supply if he had have gone to prison because there are plenty others out there willing and able to supply the local demand for drugs. In cases like that especially there is no excuse for us not to strive to see that innocent people are not wrongfully convicted even at the expense of occasionally letting a guilty man walk.

The reality is though that this is a competition where the prosecutor and the police who are on his team are fighting to win convictions, sometimes at any cost. And in these cases more than most others the deck is stacked in their favor even more than in other cases because the witnesses are mostly cops, trained witnesses on the prosecutors' team, who are naturally far more credible witnesses in the eyes of the jury, whether they are honest in reality or not. These are some of the easiest cases for prosecutors to get convictions in and in most cases they're going to be able to get the judge or jury to mete out harsh penalties to those convicted. That's just the way it is and the harsh penalties are a fact of life down here in the bible belt, and unfortunately white juries tend to punish black defendants much harder than white defendants down here.

In the Tulia cases there was no other evidence except for Coleman's testimony. There were no drugs presented as evidence. There were no audio or video tapes. There was no corroborating testimony. Juries convicted these people based on nothing more than Coleman's testimony. And it turns out that some of the people he accused had rock solid alibis proving that they were somewhere else when the alleged transactions occurred. Did any of the eleven who went to trial have alibis? Maybe, but they obviously didn't have solid proof of them that they could present at trial. If this guy was wrong about some of these cases and that has been proven, how many others has he been wrong on? How many pled guilty for lesser sentences rather than face him and his badge at trial? I couldn't help but notice that a much higher than average percentage of these cases actually went to trial compared to the 2% or so that generally make it to trial. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that many of those who pled almost took their cases to trial but in the end opted for the safer bet of taking a plea with a lesser penalty rather than face the possibility of spending a huge chunk of their lives behind bars.

You are probably more familiar with this particular case than I am. But I know how things tend to work often times in these cases. I also find it very hard to believe that the 6 million dollars was paid out for nothing. This guy probably lied on the stand about some of these people who were convicted. The only reason he wasn't prosecuted in criminal court is because the statute of limitation barred prosecution. This sort of thing is not just a betrayal of those convicted, who may well have been scumbags, but it is a betrayal of all of this society that values fairness and justice. It's a kind of insidious cheating that cannot be tolerated in this society or more and more innocent people will be wrongfully punished. If he lied and because of it caused anyone to be convicted of something they did not do. He has committed a far worse crime against society than selling drugs to adults who want them. Those with badges who abuse the respect they are given in society by lying and putting innocent people in prison are more of a threat to you and me and everyone else than some druggie who sells drugs to other druggies. And in my mind they should be punished far more harshly for their crimes against society and the individuals they harm by their actions.

[robertpaulsen]

"But I do work in a southern town that is mostly white."

Seems to me that if I choose to commit a crime in your town, I'm going to get a white jury. If I am non-white, commit a crime in your town, get caught, and go to trial, who's fault is it that my jury is not my color?

And I bet that white jury ain't going to be as tolerant of my crime as a jury of my peers in the 'hood would be.

And I bet that my defense is not going to be as thorough as OJ's, in that I can't afford those kinds of attorneys -- but I knew that before I committed the crime, now didn't I?

Just a little too late to be crying about the injustice of it all when I knew full well ahead of time where I stood. Yet I went ahead and did the crime anyways.

Back to Tulia. IIRC, the juries were of mixed race in the 11 trials. Also, the purchased drugs were presented as evidence -- it's just that no drugs were found when the perps were arrested.

The drug dealing was going on in a black neighborhood. Consequently, almost all of those arrested were black. Oops, looks like racism.

Given the fact that 38 were arrested in a sweep, almost all of them black, by a white cop, in Texas, no video, no audio -- and here come the international media along with every black advocate known to man who wouldn't miss the oppotunity.

"The injustice in Tulia, is the legacy of a national pattern of state-supported and sanctioned terrorism against black people."
-- Rev. Jesse Jackson, 10/30/03

They got off cheap with $6 million.

[TKDietz]

"Given the fact that 38 were arrested in a sweep, almost all of them black, by a white cop, in Texas, no video, no audio -- and here come the international media along with every black advocate known to man who wouldn't miss the oppotunity."

You are leaving out the fact that some of the people he accused had solid alibis. At least one was acquitted at trial. Coleman's former boss declared on the stand that he was a liar. A prosecutor even testified that the man was a liar. He was the kind of guy who would run up debts and leave town without paying them. He even had a warrant issued against him for stealing gas which he took care of by paying the money he owed. At a motion for new trials hearing several of his former co-workers testified that he was racist, irresponsible, dishonest and paranoid. The judge at that hearing adjourned the trial before allowing Coleman to finish testifying. Later the judge announced that "Tom Coleman is simply not a credible witness under oath."

Coleman was convicted of perjury by a jury of his peers who had heard all of the evidence. He is a proven liar, and there were instances where the people he accused of making drug transactions with him were nowhere near where he claimed them to be at the time of the transactions. The people who were convicted were convicted on his word alone, the word of a liar. Many of them may have been dealing drugs, but if we allow people to be convicted on nothing but the word of liars, we're going to see alot of innocent people convicted in the end and there aren't many things worse that can happen to someone than to be forced to spend several years of their lives in prison because some man with a badge lied about them.

It is obvious that you don't care if innocent people go to prison as long as some drug dealers go along with them. To you, the ends justify the means.

[Navy Patriot]

Drug warrior that you are, you should be pissed enough to personally fix the wagon of this idiot cop. He was either crimminally corrupt or absolutely incompetent by the proved inaccuracies dropping his credibility to zero.

Assuming all he arrested were actually involved with drugs, he personally provided for their ability to beat the rap and collect a settlement from the taxpayers, in addition to the gift of destroying the public confidence in the law enforcement and court systems.

The only thing he proved is that he and everything connected with him are unreliable.

[robertpaulsen]

"You are leaving out the fact that some of the people he accused had solid alibis."

42 arrests. Charges were dropped on some. 38 convictions.

"The people who were convicted were convicted on his word alone, the word of a liar."

Was he convicted of lying during those trials? Was he even charged with lying at those trials?

Nope and nope.

Plus, 27 people pled guilty without Coleman testifying.

"as long as some drug dealers go along with them"

Hmmmm. Some posters on this thread said none of them were guilty. Now you come along and say "some" were. Which ones?

[robertpaulsen]

"He was either crimminally corrupt or absolutely incompetent"

Nah. The guy was a hero, right? After the drug bust, he was honored as Texas' "Outstanding Lawman of the Year", wasn't he?

My, my. Then what happened? Political correctness took over and he was charged with "racial profiling" by the NAACP and the ACLU which filed a complaint with the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Even the Soros-sponsored, pro-drug, Drug Policy Alliance was involved.

Coleman was railroaded and scapegoated by the politicians.

Hey, what goes around comes around. Tulia is back to the drug-infested cesspool it once was, and this time ain't no one going to help them.

[TKDietz]

"Hmmmm. Some posters on this thread said none of them were guilty."

We'll never know. What we do know is that some were not there when he claimed they sold him drugs.

"Was he convicted of lying during those trials? Was he even charged with lying at those trials?"

The statute of limitations barred his prosecution.

[TKDietz]

"Hmmmm. Some posters on this thread said none of them were guilty. Now you come along and say "some" were. Which ones?"

Would it bother you at all if a few or even just one of these people he accused were innocent? Are you bothered at all by the fact that innocent people sometimes go to prison? I suspect you don't care about things like that.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Of course, by convicting the innocent, another group of guilty gets away with it and isn't even being looked for anymore. (I did try to put more adverbs and prepositions in the.)

[Navy Patriot]

Then what happened? Political correctness took over

Oh, I see, it was political correctness that torpedoed his "the accused were in two different places at the same time" assertions. Funny I thought it was physics that sunk his testimony, not politics. Of course no competent cop would wear a wire or use video surveillance or fingerprints or anything else to corroborate his anecdotal evidence.

You are sinking your own credibility by promoting weasel work in Coleman's defense. This guy could have done a good job and be sitting on half as many solid convictions rather than a six million dollar plus black hole for the Texas taxpayer.

[robertpaulsen]

"Are you bothered at all by the fact that innocent people sometimes go to prison?"

"It is better that ____ guilty men go free than one innocent be imprisoned."

What's your number, TKDietz? Mr. Pontificator. 10? 100? 1000?

Do you even have a number?

So cool it with the condescending remarks.

[robertpaulsen]

"... it was political correctness that torpedoed his "the accused were in two different places at the same time" assertions."

Not at all. Since he was a white law enforcement officer operating undercover, without backup, buying drugs in a black neighborhood, who would have been executed had he been found out, he took notes where he could. Therefore, if that "1" he wrote on his leg looked like a "7" later, the suspect walks.

IIRC, the charges were dropped on those (alleged) scumbag drug dealers, and they never did go to court, much less spend any time in prison. Am I correct?

The system works, don't it? What's your beef?

The effects of "political correctness" were felt by the 11 scumbag drug dealers who were unanimously convicted in a court of law by a jury their peers, and the 27 scumbag drug dealers who confessed to the crime.

[Know your rights]

Since he was a white law enforcement officer operating undercover, without backup, buying drugs in a black neighborhood, who would have been executed had he been found out, he took notes where he could.

Baloney; I have yet to hear his apologists cite any evidence that any other cop ever operated in this slipshod manner.

[robertpaulsen]

"Baloney; I have yet to hear his apologists cite any evidence that any other cop ever operated in this slipshod manner.

So we are to conclude that since you haven't heard it, well then, it just didn't happen, huh?

Also, operating in a slipshod manner may, and did in this case, result in the dropping of charges against some individuals. Too bad. But it is undeniable that, despite this "slipshod manner", the investigation resulted in 11 unanimous court convictions by a jury of peers and 27 confessions of drug dealing.

With results like this, maybe we ought to have more cops operating in such a slipshod fashion. Pretty effective, wouldn't you agree?

[Navy Patriot]

With results like this, maybe we ought to have more cops operating in such a slipshod fashion. Pretty effective, wouldn't you agree?

Only if I was an idiot.

The reason we don't hear about many cops operating in this manner is because competent cops don't, and don't get judgments against the taxpayer, pardons issued, and public confidence in cops destroyed.

[Navy Patriot]

Since he was a white law enforcement officer operating undercover, without backup, buying drugs in a black neighborhood, who would have been executed had he been found out, he took notes where he could.

I looked and I couldn't find this listed in the "excuses for incompetence" section of Texas statutory law.

Perhaps I should have looked under "stupidity".

[robertpaulsen]

You were looking in the wrong place.

Look under, "The reason only 38 scumbag drug dealers were convicted and sent to prison instead of all 42".