For the first year or so I knew Jeff Blackburn he was mad at me. I was part of a group of people who revived the ACLU in Texas after it had been dormant a number of years, and in 2000 we began organizing family members of the Tulia defendants to bring them to the capitol in Austin to push for drug-law reform.<\/p>\n
Along with Vanita Gupta, who at the time was a 26-year-old rookie and is now the #3 at the US Department of Justice, Jeff had taken on a civil suit on behalf of the Tulia defendants, and he was sure their family members were going to say something at the capitol to screw up his case. We defied Jeff and did it anyway, which made him more or less apoplectic. He and I had some epic rows. But we also kept him in the loop, bringing him down to Austin whenever the families came so he could see first-hand what we were doing.<\/p>\n
One of the \u201cTulia bills\u201d we passed that session created a new requirement that prosecutors corroborate testimony by confidential informants to secure a drug conviction. In September 2001, when the law took effect, a reporter called around to the largest DA\u2019s offices to ask how many cases they\u2019d dropped as a result: The number was around 800, and that was just for the 5 or 6 largest counties. To be clear, for the non-attorneys in the audience, that\u2019s 800 people who would otherwise have been convicted based solely on the testimony of drug dealers getting their own cases dismissed in exchange for cooperation.<\/p>\n
One of my fondest memories was calling Jeff to tell him this news. I\u2019ll never forget the long pause on the other end of the phone line, then he said quietly — as quietly as I’ve ever heard Jeff Blackburn say anything — \u201cHenson, I couldn\u2019t get that many cases dismissed in 10 lifetimes!\u201d<\/p>\n
From that moment, Jeff was hooked. We became collaborators, coordinating legal and organizing work to craft a narrative and build a movement beyond the confines of the courtroom. It worked. Eventually, 38 defendants were exonerated and Tom Coleman, the crooked cop who\u2019d framed them, was convicted of perjury.<\/p>\n
Not only were several significant pieces of legislation passed as a result, in 2006 we achieved the Holy Grail. Governor Rick Perry eliminated all funding for the task forces. When the Tulia drug stings happened, there were 51 of these things around the state employing more than 700 narcotics officers and making between 12-14,000 arrests per year. Fifteen years before anyone coined the phrase \u201cdefund the police,\u201d we wiped them off the face of the earth.<\/p>\n
Soon after that, Jeff founded the Innocence Project of Texas and I became their policy director. Once again, organizing exonerees to advocate for themselves was a central strategy, only this time Jeff was an enthusiastic supporter. I\u2019m incredibly proud of that work, and I know Jeff was, too, but since Cory Session is going to talk more about that era in a moment, I\u2019d like to pivot to another subject.<\/p>\n
Since Jeff passed, a line from a pop tune by Lizzo has been ringing in my head. In one of her early songs, she asked: \u201cWhy men great till they gotta be great?\u201d That applies to most men, but to me, Jeff was the opposite. Day to day, if we\u2019re honest, Jeff wasn\u2019t always that great. He was a curmudgeon; obstinate, profane, prickly, blunt. He was challenging to work with and five failed marriages tells you he could be a challenging person to live with. By saying that, I\u2019m not telling you anything Jeff hasn\u2019t said himself many, many times.<\/p>\n
But when the time came that someone\u2019s \u201cgotta be great,\u201d Jeff always stepped up. Every time. He thrived and excelled in those big, high-pressure moments and at crunch time was always his best self. That\u2019s rare and part of what made him special. It\u2019s certainly why he merited a massive, front-page obituary in the Houston Chronicle<\/a><\/b>: Jeff\u2019s work benefited many, many thousands of people all over the state. No other lawyer has had as big an impact on the Texas criminal-justice system in my adult lifetime.<\/p>\nNow that he\u2019s gone, those of us who knew and loved Jeff and believed in his work incur an obligation. Leaving here today, all of us going forward will find ourselves in situations where we think, \u201cIf Jeff Blackburn were here, he would do X.\u201d This knowledge creates a moral obligation. With Jeff no longer here, when you recognize a situation where you know he would have stepped up, that means you need to do it. That\u2019s the best way we can honor his memory. The people in this room are a powerful force, and Jeff has given us a powerful example. My prayer is that everyone here today can find the courage and the will to follow it.<\/p>\n
More of Jeff Blackburn on Grits<\/b>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Saturday, per his request, I spoke at Jeff Blackburn’s memorial service about our work together in the aftermath of the Tulia drug stings and at the Innocence Project of Texas; here’s what I said. Below my comments, I’ve compiled links to a guest post by Jeff and various interviews with him on this blog […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[74554,623,26867,20819,2761,10199],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-191111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal","tag-blackburn","tag-breakfast","tag-comments","tag-grits","tag-jeff","tag-memorial"],"yoast_head":"\n
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