I 
112TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 231 
To increase the evidentiary standard required to convict a person for a 
drug offense, to require screening of law enforcement officers or others 
acting under color of law participating in drug task forces, and for 
other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 7, 2011 
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas introduced the following bill; which was referred 
to the Committee on the Judiciary 
A BILL 
To increase the evidentiary standard required to convict a 
person for a drug offense, to require screening of law 
enforcement officers or others acting under color of law 
participating in drug task forces, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘No More Tulias: Drug 
Law Enforcement Evidentiary Standards Improvement 
Act of 2011’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS; SENSE OF CONGRESS. 
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
23:02 Jan 12, 2011
Jkt 099200
PO 00000
Frm 00001
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H231.IH
H231
emcdonald on DSK2BSOYB1PROD with BILLS
(1) In recent years it has become clear that 
programs funded by the Edward Byrne Memorial 
Justice Assistance Grant program (referred to in 
this Act as the ‘‘Byrne grants program’’) have per-
petuated racial disparities, corruption in law enforce-
ment, and the commission of civil rights abuses 
across the country. This is especially the case when 
it comes to the program’s funding of hundreds of re-
gional antidrug task forces because the grants for 
these antidrug task forces have been dispensed to 
State governments with very little Federal oversight 
and have been prone to misuse and corruption. 
(2) Numerous Government Accountability Of-
fice reports have found that the Department of Jus-
tice has inadequately monitored grants provided 
under the Byrne grants program. A 2001 General 
Accounting Office report found that one-third of the 
grants did not contain required monitoring plans. 
Seventy percent of files on such grants did not con-
tain required progress reports. Forty-one percent of 
such files did not contain financial reports covering 
the full grant period. A 2002 report by the Heritage 
Foundation reported that ‘‘there is virtually no evi-
dence’’ that the Byrne grants program has been suc-
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
23:02 Jan 12, 2011
Jkt 099200
PO 00000
Frm 00002
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H231.IH
H231
emcdonald on DSK2BSOYB1PROD with BILLS
cessful in reducing crime and that the program lacks 
‘‘adequate measures of performance’’. 
(3) A 2002 report by the American Civil Lib-
erties Union of Texas identified 17 recent scandals 
involving antidrug task forces in Texas that receive 
funds under the Byrne grants program. Such scan-
dals include cases of the falsification of government 
records, witness tampering, fabricating evidence, 
false imprisonment, stealing drugs from evidence 
lockers, selling drugs to children, large-scale racial 
profiling, sexual harassment, and other abuses of of-
ficial capacity. Recent scandals in other States in-
clude the misuse of millions of dollars in Byrne 
grants program money in Kentucky and Massachu-
setts, wrongful convictions based on police perjury in 
Missouri, and negotiations with drug offenders to 
drop or lower their charges in exchange for money 
or vehicles in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massa-
chusetts, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin. 
(4) The most well-known Byrne-funded task 
force scandal occurred in Tulia, Texas, where dozens 
of African-American residents (totaling over 16 per-
cent of the town’s African-American population) 
were arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to decades 
in prison, based solely on the uncorroborated testi-
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
23:02 Jan 12, 2011
Jkt 099200
PO 00000
Frm 00003
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H231.IH
H231
emcdonald on DSK2BSOYB1PROD with BILLS
mony of one undercover officer whose background 
included past allegations of misconduct, sexual har-
assment, unpaid debts, and habitual use of a racial 
epithet. The undercover officer was allowed to work 
alone, and not required to provide audiotapes, video 
surveillance, or eyewitnesses to corroborate his alle-
gations. Despite the lack of physical evidence or cor-
roboration, the charges were vigorously prosecuted. 
After the first few trials resulted in convictions and 
lengthy sentences, many defendants accepted plea 
bargains. Suspicions regarding the legitimacy of the 
charges eventually arose after two of the accused de-
fendants were able to produce convincing alibi evi-
dence to prove that they were out of State or at 
work at the time of the alleged drug purchases. 
Texas Governor Rick Perry eventually pardoned the 
Tulia defendants (after four years of imprisonment), 
but these kinds of scandals continue to plague Byrne 
grant program spending. 
(5) A case arose in a Federal court in Waco, 
Texas, concerning the wrongful arrests of 28 Afri-
can-Americans out of 4,500 other residents of 
Hearne, Texas. In November 2000, these individuals 
were arrested on charges of possession or distribu-
tion of crack cocaine, and they subsequently filed a 
VerDate Mar 15 2010 
23:02 Jan 12, 2011
Jkt 099200
PO 00000
Frm 00004
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H231.IH
H231
emcdonald on DSK2BSOYB1PROD with BILLS