Critical Analysis

Critical Analysis

Introduction

This book is a story of early summer of 1999, in a petite west Texas town of Tulia, where 39 black people were arrested for the charge of dealing with powered cocaine. The whole operation was conducted under the most disreputable and an unreliable undercover officer, Tom Coleman, who performed this federally funded investigation in collaboratively with the local authorities. The operation was conducted under a hard evidence of illegal cocaine dealing because of which they were taken for a trial. The prosecution also supported the testimony of the Tom Coleman, who couldn't put any hard evidence against him as the fragility of the cocaine clearly proves the illegal dealing of the drugs and the court charged the defendants with an imprisonment of 99 years. This book does portray the discrimination of race and corruption of illegal drug dealing in the city of Tulia.

Discussion

“Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town” by Nate Blakeslee is a story of how thirty-nine people from Tulia, tiny Texas town, were taken under arrest being prosecuted for trafficking powdered cocaine. This event was taken place in the summer of 1999. The victims who were caught in the illegal dealing of cocaine were almost black. The federally-funded investigation was based on cooperation with local authorities. The operation was performed by undercover officer Tom Coleman. Consequently all the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to ninety-nine-year imprisonment. Author goes through the whole of the events, including the story of the town, description of trials and the legal battle that has eventually resulted into the reversal of the convictions in the year of 2003. Tom Coleman was named a Texas Lawman of the Year for his work (Blakeslee, 2006).

Nate Blakeslee raises the subject that is topical for years now. The drug war, infuriating numerous arrests based on fictitious evidences and fake judgments, is portrayed here with an amazing interpretation and evaluation. The defendants, their families and their attorneys are the three main characters of the story that is involving the readers into the core of the appellate process. The readers of this book turns out to be in the very broad view of stuff, dealing with appallingly unreliable narcotics officer involved in surreptitious illegal activities and having his ethnic enmity demonstrated openly, with law enforcement, district attorneys and local trial judge who is well aware of all the illegal activities and gives a fair judgment for the incompetence and performing their job without captivating uncertain evidences and lack of evidences into their consideration.

The story is undeniably enthralling and fascinating because it has a very quick switching act of moving promptly from one character to the other. Then further it moves on to the incident and its striking events that took place in the courtroom and clear amplification of the esoteric language of the law. Blakeslee discusses upon one of the characters who was known as Gary Gardner, the discussion focused more over his previous experiences that were involved in dealing with Tulia local ...