American Violet, a Hollywood blockbuster that opens in theaters next week, tells the story of Regina Kelly, one of the people rounded up in a Tulia-style drug bust in Hearne, Texas almost ten years ago.
The Hearne tragedy would never have come to light without Tulia. Friends of Justice made seven trips to Hearne while the fight for justice was in full swing. Hearne residents took note of our stand in Tulia and, after several innocent people had accepted plea bargains, one brave defendant decided to fight his case in court.
The Hearne bust featured Derrick Megress, a hapless crack addict who was threatened with jail time and prison rape if he refused to implicate twenty residents of a Hearne housing project. Although Megress allegedly taped the drug deals he claimed to be making out of his living room, the tape quality was indecipherable. And that for a very good reason: Megress later confessed that he had faked every single case in order to get the authorities off his back.
Resident of Hearne project poses
The Hearne victims reached out to the Texas ACLU just as the then-struggling organization was regaining its vigor. Will Harrell (now Ombudsman for the Texas Youth Commission) had just signed on as Executive Director and, at Harrell’s behest, a guitar-playing lawyer named Jeff Frazier was scouring the state for drug war horror stories. The New York Times had just run a successful story on Tulia and when Frazier tipped them off to the Hearne debacle the Gray Lady decided to take a chance.
Eventually, the ACLU’s Drug Policy Reform Project filed a civil suit on behalf of Regina Kelly. A series of townhall meetings were held in a local church and, if the clip below is anything to go by, these meetings figure prominently in American Violet. I was on hand for most of these gatherings, sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of one of the Tulia defendants.
During the 2001 legislative session, the ACLU (led by Kathy Mitchell and Scott “Grits” Henson) cobbled together a series of Hearne-Tulia bills designed to discourage a repeat of Heare-Tulia drug war overreach. Eventually, thanks to some last-minute heroics from Will Herrell, a bill was passed calling for the corroboration of uncorroborated confidential informant testimony.
That bill, incidentally, allowed Cynthia Barbare, a hardworking Dallas attorney, to prove that the drugs the Dallas DA’s office was using to prosecute her client were nothing but powdered sheetrock.
Tulia, Hearne and the Dallas Sheetroock scandal became the left-right-left combination that changed the rules of the drug war in the great state of Texas.
How much of this story will emerge from American Violet it is hard to say. But the clip included as part of Radley Balko’s review (pasted below) suggests that American Violet gives the war on drugs the hardest Hollytwood celluloid hit it has sustained since Traffic.
American Violet
Even after his case fell apart and Paschall had no choice to drop the charges against those who hadn’t alread plead guilty, he refused to exonerate anyone, telling the New York Times that of those charged, “I don’t doubt one minute their guilt in dealing drugs.” Paschall is still district attorney, and he’s not particularly happy about the movie. He told the Dallas Morning News, “The only way I’d watch it, I’d have to be handcuffed, tied to a chair and you’d have to tape my eyes open.”
Like the series of wrongful drug arrests in Tulia, Texas, the Hearne scandal was largely attributableto the federal Byrne Grant program, which not only creates the unaccountable, multi-jurisdictional drug task forces like those responsible for Hearne and Tulia, but then also sets artificial, improper incentives by tying future funding to the number of arrests and drug seizures a task force makes. Oddly enough, the Bush administration actually phased out Byrne Grants. Obama and the Democrats in Congress are bringing them back.
I interviewed Regina Kelly a couple of years ago at an ACLU conference:
Friends of Justice 
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A “Hollywood blockbuster”? This single phrase makes it unlikely that I would ever take anything on this blog seriously.
American Violet is a tiny, TINY independent film opening in a few art houses across the country. It will never play at the same multiplex where you can see Monsters vs. Aliens or 17 Again, which is what it would have to do to be a “blockbuster.” And even then, it wouldn’t be a blockbuster unless it made 100 million dollars. This movie will likely make less than 1 millon.
I look forward to the movie (I grew up just south of Hearne) but please understand that “movie” is not synonymous with “blockbuster.” That’s like referring to a little-known book as a “bestseller.”
I have it on good authority that District Attorney John Paschall is nothing less than a liar, thief and his day in court will come soon enough and then he’ll have to face all of his mistakes. That may take years in court. I’ve heard him speak on take recording to an officer there in Hearne. He is totally out of control.
Unfortunately, Hearne TX is NOT the only place this happens. But exposing those involved and bringing their deeds to light in this manner is a great way to combat injustice in our courts.
Hearne Tx is nothing but a drug town and so is Frankin Tx and probably all of robertson co soon enough these will all be crack towns because no one is doing there job and because the ones who should be doing there jobs are involved and so are there family members what a bunch of hipocrites
“American Violet” was such an amazing movie!!! I’m glad that somebody had the courage to stand up for what’s right..If ur going to convict anyone for anything u should have reasonable evidence not just an “informant” who is only tryna save his own ass….I absolutely love that movie 🙂