'Trouble-makingest lawyer in West Texas': Jeff Blackburn remembered for advocacy, reform
Amarillo attorney Jeff Blackburn, noted for his efforts advocating for civil rights and criminal justice reform and once called the "trouble-makingest lawyer in West Texas," died Tuesday at age 65 after a battle with kidney cancer, family members announced.
Blackburn was known as a fierce criminal defense attorney whose advocacy went far beyond the courtroom, often working to exonerate innocent, wrongfully convicted people and championing substantial justice reform legislation, according to biographical information provided to the Amarillo Globe-News.
Among the most significant cases in his career, Blackburn represented 38 defendants, mostly Black, who were wrongfully accused in a high-profile 1999 bogus drug bust in Tulia. Blackburn's pro-bono work on the case led to the largest mass pardon in U.S. history, spurring policing reform legislation including defunding of drug task forces.
In 2006, he founded the Innocence Project of Texas based at Texas Tech. He served as the organization's chief counsel for nine years, overturning dozens of wrongful convictions in that time.
Another significant victory in Blackburn's career came in 2009, when he secured the posthumous exoneration of Tim Cole, a Texas Tech student wrongfully convicted of rape. Cole was 39 when he died in prison in 1999 from asthma complications.
Blackburn and his associates worked tirelessly to clear Cole's name and had to "be creative" to secure the posthumous pardon, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported at the time. This first-of-its-kind exoneration led to numerous reforms.
"The law is designed to serve the needs of justice, and that sounds real simplistic, and it sounds like the kind of thing that everybody just kind of takes for granted, but the truth is, it's not at all," Blackburn said in a 2014 A-J story. "Most of the time law and justice are kind of like distant cousins who like to fight with each other at family reunions, but I don't view it that way. When there's a grave enough injustice, there ought to be a way to make the law work. … We believe if there's an injustice, we can find a way to fix it under Texas law."
Outside of law, Blackburn "loved life, his family, travel, great conversation, good music, organic farming, and the mountains and deserts of northern New Mexico," the biography noted. "Perpetually curious and open-minded, he read widely in history, economics, and philosophy. He loved art, poetry and literature. He was a terrific father and grandfather and a loyal and generous friend and mentor to countless people throughout his life."
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Amarillo attorney Jeff Blackburn remembered for advocacy, reform
