Left Return

"Because if you look at this thing, it's a war that has about 132 separate battles in it. That's a big damn war. And it's going to take a long time to fight. And there's got to be a lot of strategic thinking involved. You can't just approach it like a headless samurai and just attack without thinking. So the ACLU has wound up becoming both the brains and the muscle on the legal end of this thing. We couldn't be doing it without them."

In addition to appealing the convictions in Tulia, Blackburn and the ACLU, in coordination with the NAACP, have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of one of the defendants. Blackburn says more are on the way. The ACLU also has filed an administrative complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, urging federal prosecutors to investigate the Tulia arrests for possible criminal violations by law officers. Additionally, two Tulia defendants have yet to go to trial, and Blackburn says major defenses will be mounted on their behalf -- the first time, he says, that any of the alleged drug-dealing cases will have been seriously tested in court.

"And that's pretty cool," says Blackburn, "because the ACLU usually doesn't do criminal cases."

Blackburn is a criminal-defense and civil rights attorney by trade. In 1997 he won a $36 million judgment for his client against Texas State Technical College, the largest award in the history of the Texas Whistleblower Act. For a time, Blackburn ran the High Plains Center for Constitutional Rights in Amarillo and claims that Texas Lawyer once described him as "the trouble-makingist lawyer in West Texas." He credits Harrell with convincing him, and other attorneys like him, to return to the ACLU family.

"This sounds like enthusiastic booster bullshit," says Blackburn, "but it's not. But we are going to build a model of how you resist something like this. You get the community organized and mobilized. You keep the story in the news. You keep it moving, and you sue the shit out of everybody."

It is an attitude shared by many in the new Texas ACLU. Together, they are behind several aggressive legal initiatives around the state, including:

" The Police Accountability Project: Civil liberties activists in Austin are hopeful that the Austin City Council will approve the creation a Civilian Monitor's Office, which will field and investigate allegations of police brutality and wrongdoing. The office would have full access to the Austin Police Department's internal affairs files and have the right to interview volunteer witnesses. The head of the office would earn a salary of $111,000 and oversee an annual budget of up to $500,000. However, the office would not have subpoena and enforcement power, and all disciplinary decisions would still be made by the chief of police.

State ACLU board member Ann del Llano has been instrumental in the negotiations with the city and the Austin police union over the creation of a civilian monitor. The push, says del Llano, came about after several controversial deaths of civilians at the hands of Austin police officers. As she told the Austin American-Statesman in October, "We think most cops are great, but we need to get rid of those stinkers."

In addition to the monitor's office in Austin, as well as others in Texas cities, the Police Accountability Project is pushing for state legislation to make police disciplinary files open to public records requests, and for a bill requiring all Texas police departments to keep racial profiling statistics, something that is already being done in Houston and Arlington. (Representatives of the Austin Police Association did not return calls from the Houston Press.)

" Prison guard brutality lawsuits: Through volunteer attorneys such as Yolanda Torres of Dallas (see "Unnecessary Roughness," by Steve McVicker, October 12, 2000) and Robert Rosenberg of Houston (see "What Really Happened to Rodney Hulin?" by Michael Berryhill, August 7, 1997), the ACLU is aggressively investigating the alleged abuse of inmates by Texas Department of Criminal Justice guards. Both trials got under way this month.

" School prayer in the Santa Fe Independent School District: Last June, in a 6-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court widened the separation of church and state by deciding not to allow school-sponsored prayers before football games in Santa Fe. The winning argument was presented to the high court by Galveston attorney Anthony Griffin on behalf of the ACLU, which had agreed to represent four families opposed to school-sponsored prayer. Despite the high court's ruling, however, this fall's gridiron battles in Santa Fe were marked by so-called spontaneous group prayers. Obviously, say ACLU officials, the school prayer battle is far from over in Santa Fe and other cities around the state.