Mandis Barrow is getting a new probation revocation hearing.  His twin brother, Landis, received similar relief from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in November of last year. 

Potter County District Attorney Randall Sims (pictured to the left) is unlikely to press for a second revocation. 

The case of the Barrow twins is complicated.  As teenagers, they were accused of aggravated robbery in Amarillo.  Their attorney felt the charges were weak enough to fight, but the DA was offering deferred adjudication in exchange for guilty pleas and that meant a one way ticket back to the streets. 

This kind of short-term thinking often leads to a world of hurt.  Probation can be revoked for technical reasons (missing a meeting with a probation officer, for instance), but any new charges mean a virtually certain revocation.

That’s where Tom Coleman, the hero of Tulia’s once-fabulous drug bust, comes in.  An Amarillo judge heard Tom Coleman say he bought drugs from the Barrow twins and sentenced them each to twenty years in prison. 

While incarcerated, Landis and Mandis received money from a 6 million dollar settlement; but they remained in prison.

Randall Sims could have granted relief to the Barrow twins a long time ago.  Ably represented by the indefatigable Vanita Gupta (then with the Legal Defense Fund), the twins argued that, since their probation had been revoked on the uncorroborated word of a notorious liar, they should receive a new hearing.

Their plea fell on deaf ears. 

So now, with both brothers are back in the free world,  joint revocation hearing will be held in the near future.  If you want to read more about this story there is an article in the Amarillo Globe-News and Scott Henson has a good post at Grits for Breakfast that talks about the wide repercussions of the Coleman fiasco.

This case is personal to me. 

I corresponded with the twins for years and they helped me understand the social background of the Tulia drug sting. 

Secondly, I bumped into Mr. Sims at an event in Amarillo several years ago.  When I mentioned that I was from Tulia, he automatically assumed that I was one of the law abiding folks who backed the Coleman operation 110%.  The DA told me that Tulia was getting a really bum deal and everybody in Amarillo knew it.

In reality, Tulia had sown the wind and was reaping the whirlwind.  If prosecutors like Mr. Sims understood the seriousness of what was happening in Tulia they would have granted relief to the Barrow twins years ago.

Alan Bean