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Melissa Block,host: From NPR News, this is All Things Considered. I’m Melissa Block

Mary Louise Kelly,host: And I’m Mary Louise Kelly. We have a story now about a small town justice. For more than 2 years, a legal drama has been playing out in Clarksville, Texas. In that time, two brothers have seen their lives turned upside down, and a long-time local judge has suffered his own reversals for pushing a case that just about everyone urged him to drop.

NPR’s Wade Goodwyn takes us to the evening that started it all.

Wade Goodwyn, correspondent: Clarksville was one of the first places settled in the state of Texas. 190 years after it came into existence, the town of 3,200 retains a slightly dilapidated Southern charm.

In the town square is a large statue that is looking a Confederate soldier. What's strange is that the statue is not facing east toward Murfreesboro, Tennessee or Colonel John Burks and many other locals lost their lives charging a Union battery. Nor is it facing south in honor of his beloved Confederacy.

The Confederate colonel is facing northwest like toward Idaho.

Mr.Vergil Richardson: Actually he is facing the black neighborhood of Clarksville.

Wade Goodwyn: 38-year-old Vergil Richardson grew up in Clarksville who led Clarksville high to two state championship basketball games and eventually came back to coach the team. He says that since the days of Reconstruction, the Confederate officer has been sending a quiet message from Clarksville's white community to its black community.

Mr. Vergil Richardson: The message is whatever you do I'm watching and they are.

Wade Goodwyn: Three blocks south on Columbia Street is Richardson's two-bedroom house. As Thanksgiving approached in 2007, six members of the Richardson family, including two brothers — 38-year-old Mark and 35-year-old Vergil — had gathered to celebrate. They did not know it, but they were being watched — not by Col. Burks but by Clarksville law enforcement.

As 10:30 p.m. approached, the police burst through the door without knocking.

Mr. Vergil Richardson: They were screaming, yelling, telling [us to] get on the floor, cursing us out.

Wade Goodwyn: The high school coach had never been in trouble, not even a traffic ticket.

Mr. Vergil Richardson: I was very scared, didn't know what to do. I looked up because I know some of them. The prosecutor, he was there with a gun in his hand.

Wade Goodwyn: At that moment, Vergil's brother Mark was sitting in a car outside the house talking to a friend.

Mr. Mark Richardson: And I looked and said, 'Oh my God! Look, it's cops everywhere!' And they did not see us. And I was like, 'We better get out.' She was like, 'No, let's stay in here.'

Wade Goodwyn: Earlier in the day, 25-year-old Kevin Calloway, Vergil and Mark's half-brother, had sold a bag of marijuana to a police informant. Calloway was a student at nearby Paris Junior College, and Vergil was letting him stay in his unoccupied Clarksville house while Vergil coached the nearby Texarkana.

Vergil who stood handcuffed in the kitchen asked to see the search warrant. The question seemed to take the sheriff by surprise.

Mr. Vergil Richardson: He tells me 'Yeah, [I'm going] to let you see it.' And I asked him again, you know, right after that, and he said, '[I'm going] to let you see it.' And I said, 'Well, OK. Please let me see it.'

Wade Goodwyn: Vergil says the sheriff finally pulled out of his front pocket a white piece of paper the size of a receipt, flashed it in his direction and quickly stuffed it back in his pocket. He then yelled at the officers, "Get these guys out of here!"
In a police interrogation room a few hours later, Kevin Calloway confessed to the sheriff that he kept a stash of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine locked in the garden shed in the backyard. There was just one key to the lock, and Calloway kept it in his pocket.

Calloway told the sheriff repeatedly that the drugs were all his and nobody else in the family had any idea he was dealing.

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