Sadness isn't enough for Enron, Dallas DA
Ruben Navarrette Jr.
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DALLAS--From the Bart Simpson "I didn't do it" school of how to avoid taking personal responsibility, we have what could be the start of a trend.
Real men, enveloped in scandal and accused of wrongdoing, don't admit mistakes. They don't apologize. They simply express sadness.
Ken Lay, former chairman of the Houston-based Enron Corp., is sad.
At least that is what Lay told members of a U.S. Senate committee, which had summoned him by subpoena to offer some insight into the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history. Instead, Lay only offered lament.
"I have come here with a profound sadness about what has happened to Enron, its current and former employees, retirees, shareholders, and other stakeholders," Mr. Lay told committee members before invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to testify.
Here in Dallas, there's also a sadness in the air--only not about a corporate bankruptcy but what looks like a law-and-order breakdown over bogus drugs. Six hundred pounds of them confiscated by police were used by the district attorney's office to chalk up dozens of criminal convictions. Now that it has been learned that a powdery substance believed to be cocaine was really plaster of Paris, the DA's office has dismissed--or is working to dismiss--more than 70 pending and adjudicated drug cases against dozens of individuals. Prosecutors are still trying to determine if they got suckered by a deceptive informant, dirty cops, or both.
Lives were turned upside down, jobs lost, families tested and good names ruined. Worse, since many of the victims of phony drugs busts were Mexican immigrants--some legal, some not--the word is out to predators here and in cities throughout the United States that immigrants are easy prey for all manner of crimes, including the planting of false evidence.
About this, Dallas County District Attorney Bill Hill is, well, sad.
At least that is what Hill told ABC News' Chris Bury during an interview on "Nightline" this week. When Bury asked Hill if he felt that he owed those who were falsely imprisoned a personal and public apology, the DA first expressed doubt that all the individuals involved in the cases were, in fact, innocent.
Bury pressed on. He asked Hill that if it turned out that just one person was wrongly imprisoned, would he apologize then? And again Hill ducked the question. He did, however, lay claim to some sorrow.
"I certainly feel very saddened by the fact that anyone was placed in jail and they were innocent of the charges," he said.
Hill then offered assurances that he had improved the procedure so something like this would not happen again.
There you have it. The Dallas DA is sad as hell, and he's not going to let it happen anymore.
One can't blame this public servant for not being eager to throw himself on the grenade.
After all, the DA's office is just one part of the puzzle. Prosecutors took it on faith that the drug tests administered by police were legitimate. But prosecutors are in a 50-50 partnership with police, and so they deserve not only half the credit when things go right, but also half the blame when they go wrong.
In Dallas, it was the DA's office that pursued convictions--and did so for four months after learning that the drugs were fake. In fact, they pursued them so aggressively, say defense attorneys, that few prosecutors stopped to raise questions when flags did surface. And it was the DA's office that drew the clearest political benefit from those convictions--at least to the degree that they fed voters' confidence that tough-on-crime prosecutors, and those who supervised them, were doing their jobs by keeping drugs off the streets.
That confidence is measured at the ballot box where--in most counties--it is the voters who decide whether a DA stays on the job. Bill Hill is up for re-election.
If the Dallas DA really wants to ensure that things are done right from here, a personal and public apology to the victims is exactly the right thing to do. But he'd better hurry.
In a new wrinkle, the Mexican Consulate in Dallas is quietly identifying the scam victims and introducing them to local lawyers, setting the stage for what will surely be a multimillion-dollar civil suit against both the Dallas Police Department and the DA's office.
It is a lesson that Ken Lay should also heed: When confronted with a sad state of affairs, those who resist taking their fair share of responsibility sometimes end up having it assigned to them.
Ruben Navarrette's e-mail address is rnavarrette@dallasnews.com.
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