Regina Kelly, Drug War Victim

Radley Balko | June 18, 2007

This weekend, I spoke about the use and abuse of confidential informants at the ACLU's biennial conference in Seattle. One of my co-panelists was Regina Kelly, a resident of Hearne, Texas who was wrongly arrested, jailed, and indicted based on the word of a confidential informant who not only had psychological problems, but was facing his own robbery charges, and claims he was beaten by local authorities. She was one of 27 black residents of Hearne arrested based on information provided by the informant. Most, including Kelly, were later exonerated. I was so impressed with her speech I asked her to sit down for an interview.