Texas: Civil rights, judicial bias surround a drug case.

A legal drama has been playing out for almost three years in the Texas town of Clarksville of Red River County.

During that time, two black brothers have seen their lives turned upside down, and a white judge was recused from the case after allegations of judicial bias and criticism for pushing a drug case that just about everyone urged him to drop.

The state prosecutors quickly became wary of the Clarksville case. One problem was that it appeared the search warrant had been issued after the raid — after Vergil Richardson had repeatedly asked the sheriff if he could see it.

"In three different sections in the discovery, it stated that the search started at approximately 10:30 p.m.. And the search warrant was signed at 10:49 p.m.. And the search was conducted before the search warrant was signed. It's just illegal, period," Lesher says.

The search warrant issue potentially compromised the drug evidence found in the shed.

Lesher, the trail lawyer, sent a shock wave through the small Red River County courthouse when, on behalf of the Richardson brothers, he filed a $2 million civil rights lawsuit against the district attorney, the sheriff and the Clarksville police chief, all of whom participated in the raid.

Then the news got even worse for Red River County. The attorney general's office told Miller that the prosecutors were going to dismiss the charges against the Richardson family, with the exception of Kevin Calloway, who had already confessed. Prosecutors wrote the judge that they were dismissing the charges "in the interest of justice."

But the judge in the case made it clear to both the prosecutors and the defense lawyers that he had no intention of backing off.

"A judge can sit a case, but the judge can't force that case to trial. I've never seen a motion to dismiss signed and executed by the district attorney that's never been signed by the judge. It's always just pro forma," Lesher says.

State Judge John Miller refused to accept the attorney general's decision to drop the case. The ruling was so unusual that it lifted legal heads around the state.


Link:
http://www.npr.org/2010/09/24/130099092/civil-rights-judicial-bias-surround-texas-drug-case