Red River Justice

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Red River Justice


In an East Texas county known for corrupt law enforcement, Mark Lesher fought the justice system—until it came for him too.by Patrick Michels SUPPORT Font Size decrease font size increase font size Print Facebook Twitter Share Published on: Wednesday, July 11, 2012



PHOTOS BY PATRICK MICHELS

East Texas lawyer Mark Lesher says he and his wife were targeted by law enforcement for stirring up trouble in Red River County. The law caught up with Rhonda Lesher on a quiet Monday afternoon in April 2008. She was doing the books at Unique Touch, the hair salon and day spa she owned in the small northeast Texas town of Clarksville. She didn’t take appointments on Mondays, so the cutting stations, blow dryers and massage tables were empty when the deputies walked in.



The officers had a warrant for her arrest, but wouldn’t explain the charges. They promised more details at the sheriff’s office, and Rhonda wondered why they hadn’t just asked her to drop by. She would have walked the five blocks. They let Rhonda make a call, so she picked up a phone on the back wall and dialed her husband’s Clarksville law office. Mark wasn’t always good about answering his phone, but she knew his assistant Kenny Mitchell would be there.



“Kenny, I’m here at the shop, and I’m getting arrested.”



“For what?”



“Hell, I don’t know,” she said. “I guess it’s that crap on the Internet.” Call Mark, she told him, and hung up.



Rhonda followed the deputies out to the street fronting the town square. She knew her arrest would soon be big gossip. She’d been a pretty teenager in the late 1970s at Clarksville High, and some folks still whispered about her like they had in the high school halls. Rhonda, like many who grew up in town, remained an object of fascination into adulthood. Gossip is a popular way to fill time in Red River County, especially for those who can’t find jobs. Some county residents work at the Campbell Soup factory in Paris, 40 minutes to the west, in the neighboring county. There is a hospital in Red River, ranch land, and not much else.



People are fleeing Red River County, seeking success elsewhere. The county seat of Clarksville, population 3,300, has shrunk by a quarter over the past 20 years. More leave every year, and the empty buildings stand there and age. Like the rusting trailers and truck parts in yards on the edge of town, it’s just easier to leave them.



Certain relics are accorded higher honors. A hanging tree still presides over the main cemetery, marked by a plaque from the Clarksville High School Junior League. A statue in the town square of Confederate Col. John C. Burks faces northwest, according to local lore, because Burks is keeping watch over the historically black section of town.



Clarksville remains deeply segregated. The town is majority black today, but county law enforcement is almost completely white. Some residents say the Red River County justice system saves its harshest treatment for the black community. It got so bad decades ago that a federal judge had to set up a civil rights commission just for Red River County. By some accounts, justice in Red River hasn’t gotten much better since.



“Instead of hanging blacks from trees, nowadays they do it in the court system,” says Fred Stovall, former pastor of a black church in Detroit, Texas, west of Clarksville. He says most people in the black community there don’t trust the police—but they’re terrified to draw attention to themselves. “Somebody’s got to say something or it’s gonna be all of us in the courtrooms,” he says.



Mark Lesher said something. He’d spent a decade fighting the Red River County justice system, until they came for him too. When his wife was being arrested that Monday afternoon in 2008, Mark Lesher was an hour away, at his other office in Texarkana. After he got his assistant’s call, Mark got into his silver Chevrolet truck and headed west to bail Rhonda out, like he’d done for countless clients before. He didn’t get far. Another sheriff’s deputy was waiting for Mark on Highway 82 inside the Red River County line. He cuffed Mark’s hands behind his back—so tightly his wrists bled when the cuffs came off—and stowed him in his cruiser. The deputies searched his truck while rubberneckers on the highway slowed down for a better look. Stuck in the back seat with the air conditioning off, Mark began to sweat.



Mark was a defense attorney, but, more accurately, he was a professional agitator. As a trial lawyer, Lesher prided himself on “defending the little guy.” He looked for every chance to challenge the county establishment, gambling on lawsuits against the government and the hospital, where he could score a cut of a big award. Raised in the Panhandle, Lesher had come to East Texas in the early 1970s to work in the Texarkana district attorney’s office. Lesher says the D.A. at the time, Lynn Cooksey, was wasting money on a personal vendetta against the sheriff and neglecting good cases. Lesher left for private practice and led a successful movement to vote Cooksey out of office. In 1996, Lesher moved to a ranch in Red River County, bought some cattle, opened a second office just off the Clarksville town square, and soon met and married Rhonda. He had landed in another bubble of local power run wild. Emboldened by success in Texarkana, he started speaking out. “I thought I could turn Red River County around,” he says, “just like I did in Bowie County.” He also made enemies. “Because I will sue people, because I will represent the poor people, I get identified as the guy that’s got the black hat.”



When Mark and Rhonda both arrived at the county jail, they learned they were facing sexual assault charges. A county grand jury had secretly indicted them without ever hearing testimony from Mark or Rhonda. A few months later, they were indicted again on enhanced charges of aggravated sexual assault, a first-degree felony punishable by life in prison. The allegations were lurid: Prosecutors told of homemade drugs, sex parties, and a bizarre rape scenario. Mark had spent a decade airing the county’s secrets in court. Now it looked like the law in Red River County might have the last say.




http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/red-river-justice