Vanita: Sworn to justice

"Basically," Gupta said, "the case had been built around the testimony of the police officer (Coleman) who had been suspended from work and who had been rejected by at least three law enforcement agencies before he got this one (in Tulia)."

As Gupta spearheaded the defense, the Tulia case rapidly gained national momentum as circumstances of the drug deals and the manner of gathering of evidence came out in the open. In one instance, Coleman claimed that during his sting operation, he had taken notes on his leg -- the reason given in court for his not being able to produce the notes as evidence.

"In effect, it was the defendant's word against his. The demographics of Tulia are such that you could get away with a jury that didn't have representation from the African-American community," Gupta recalled.

Gupta's involvement with the South went back to law school at Yale, where she worked on death penalty cases through the LDF. "The criminal justice system presents the most urgent civil rights issues and concerns in the country today. Tulia represented all that is wrong with the system today," she said. "It is replete with racial bias, and is often a corrupted system with too many people going to prison for something they haven't done or due to bad policy."

She was not alone in feeling that way. She was, however, almost unique in feeling a fierce determination to fight the system, to bring justice where none existed.

"The case was an acknowledgement that the system is not working. It gives us hope about the work we do and in even hard times, a struggle in necessary as you can make a huge difference."

The fight was not easy, but it helped, she says, that her family -- mother Kamla, and father Raj Gupta, chairman and CEO, Rohm and Haas -- was supportive. Initially, Gupta recalls, her parents were worried about her going alone to Tulia, especially post 9/11.

"They were concerned, me being a South Asian woman and going to a place like that. But once I got there, the defendants' families opened their homes and brought out everything to help. A few White residents who were very distressed at what had happened helped me."

Gupta confesses that she felt initial apprehension, especially about going to Tulia as a young, inexperienced attorney and a person of color. "The feeling quickly evaporated once I got there," she recalled. "The need for assistance was too great to let appearances and age come in the way."