March 7, 2008, 10:55PM

Indifference to injustice

Sheriff, former district attorney did nothing to hold deputies accountable, protect civil rights

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

The civil rights lawsuit filed by Sean and Erik Ibarra cost Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal his job. It exposed in the district attorney's office a culture infested with prejudice and poor judgment.

The suit will cost county taxpayers about $3 million in damages paid to the Ibarra brothers and fees paid to their attorneys. It has already cost taxpayers millions more as the county ill-advisedly contested the lawsuit as it dragged on year after year.

But the worst aspect of this case is not the embarrassing behavior and poor judgment of the ex-district attorney or the millions in costs to the taxpayers, as bad as those are. The worst aspect of this case is Rosenthal's and Sheriff Tommy Thomas' complete indifference to outrageous injustice perpetrated by law enforcement officers.

Richard M. Nixon famously told an interviewer that if the president does it, it isn't a crime. By their failure to hold four sheriff's deputies accountable for violating the Ibarras' civil rights, Rosenthal and Thomas adopted a similar misguided principle: If peace officers do it, it can't be wrong.

In their suit, the Ibarras alleged that four sheriff's deputies invaded their property without warrant or probable cause; confiscated film from a camera one of the brothers had used to photograph the deputies executing a drug raid next-door; and then arrested the brothers on charges, later proved false, of resisting arrest. After the county agreed to settle the case, jurors said they found the brothers credible and that it was clear the deputies were in the wrong.

What does Sheriff Thomas think? He declines to admit that his deputies did anything outrageous. He couldn't be bothered to investigate the Ibarras' initial complaint. The Ibarras' lawyer, Lloyd Kelley, said Thomas could have saved the county from liability in the case simply by giving the deputies a letter of reprimand. Instead, Thomas did nothing to hold his deputies accountable and protect citizens' rights.

Rosenthal testified at the trial that he was satisfied with his office's inquiries into the case. But those inquiries led nowhere. The district attorney's office obviously did not study the case in sufficient detail.

Sheriff Thomas' continued indifference to the violation of the Ibarras' rights suggests that future violations will go equally unnoticed. As Thomas refuses to enact any official penalty on the deputies, he is giving his deputies carte blanche to commit more violations, substituting their whims for the Constitution.

The next district attorney for Harris County will have the power to enforce the law and protect residents' rights. Doing so will require thoroughgoing reform, first in the DA's office, and then in the Sheriff's Department.