Thomas Freed From Texas Jail and Heading Home : Justice: His life sentence and wrongful theft conviction wiped out, the Chula Vista man tastes freedom, along with a few beers.

Rickey Dale Thomas walked out of the Hopkins County jail Wednesday morning to freedom and a new life.

All that prodding from the outside had finally worked. All the effort had finally paid off. And then, of course, there was the matter of luck.

The life sentence that had hung over his head for so long was wiped out in a few minutes as Dist. Atty. Frank Long requested that the theft conviction be overturned.

Then, after almost a year, Thomas was out, standing in front of the jail as the cameras rolled.

“It feels good,” he said, holding his daughter, Simone, 2. “I’m happy just to be free again.”

Of Sulphur Springs, the town of his nightmare, he said: “I don’t have no bitterness about this town.”

In a moment, he was gone, headed first for a South Dallas cafeteria, where Thomas ordered a steak. Then it was on to Austin, where he and some friends stopped at a liquor store and Thomas swigged at least six Coronas, his friend Dave Bump said. He’ll be back in San Diego on Friday, where he will start over.

In the parking lot of the Texas jail Wednesday, his sister, Linda Booker, wept.

Thus ended the latest chapter in a story that brought together the stuff of high drama: a young black man’s treatment in an East Texas town; the people in San Diego who did not believe Thomas committed the crime and stood by him; an Austin man who took up his cause in Texas; a surprise confession by someone else, and, finally, freedom.

The case also brought charges of blatant racism, not uncommon for this region of the state, as well as accusations that the county prosecutor was more interested in convictions than in who actually committed the crime.

Those who have followed the case closely say Thomas should never have been tried at all, and that the trial itself was a mockery, a perfect example of what happens to a black man with no money in East Texas.

The core of this story is a purse snatching. On Oct. 20, 1989, 89-year-old Ina LeMasters of Sulphur Springs was jumped from behind and her purse, containing $27, was stolen from her. Witnesses said three black men were the thieves. At the later trial, they were referred to as “three niggers.”

Later that evening, highway patrolman Henry Sibley pulled over a Ford Bronco for speeding. Inside were three black men, two of whom produced identification that said their names were Darrell and Anthony Carter. The third young man, who had no identification, claimed his name was Richard Thomas.

Two months later, Sibley was helping out with the purse snatching investigation because of the theory that the three men he had stopped might be the thieves. Flipping through mug shots, Sibley picked out the picture of Thomas and said he had been the third person in the Bronco that night. A warrant for his arrest was issued.

The catch, though, was that Thomas was not in Texas on the day of the robbery. He was flipping hamburgers at the Chula Vista Fuddruckers. Even though he later produced proof of that, it would do him no good.

Rickey Dale Thomas brought much of the suspicion upon himself. He had been in trouble with the law for a good bit of his young life. In Hot Springs, Ark., where he grew up, Thomas, 29, hung with the wrong crowd, including the Carter brothers. In 1983, he burglarized an Arkansas pawn shop and received a suspended sentence.

In 1986, he and two other men stole some tires and a briefcase containing a gun. His parole was revoked and he spent 16 months in jail. He was twice arrested in Tennessee for drunk driving. And he violated the conditions of his Arkansas parole by moving to Chula Vista in 1989.

There, by all accounts, Thomas stayed clear of the law. He got a job at Wendy’s and later at Fuddruckers. He had a girlfriend, Debbie Lopez, who was soon pregnant with Simone. One of his bosses, Ted Felber, called him “probably one of the most hard-working kids I’ve ever been associated with in my entire life.”

Everything was moving along nicely until that fateful day--New Year’s Day 1991--when a policeman pulled him over because of a broken headlight. A routine check showed that Thomas was wanted in two states--Arkansas for parole violation and Texas for robbery. He knew, of course, about the first one. The Texas warrant took him by surprise. Rickey Thomas went to jail.

The van filled with prisoners, including Thomas, being extradited from San Diego to other states criss-crossed the West in the winter of last year. Back in an Arkansas prison, Thomas worked the pea patch and picked cotton. Convinced he could beat the robbery charges in Texas, he agreed to be extradited.

Then came the Texas trial, which ended in what James Harrington, the director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, called “another bad conviction in East Texas.”

In his commentary last month in Texas Lawyer magazine, Harrington upbraided the system for not making justice fair for people like Thomas.

“As often happens in the Texas criminal justice system, Thomas’ lack of funds turned the presumption of innocence into a presumption of guilt,” he wrote. “He also had a court-appointed attorney with little criminal defense experience.”

Thomas had half a dozen witnesses who could attest that he was in California on the day of the robbery. Only one could afford to make the trip, and the court would not pay the transportation costs for the others.

Thomas did not help matters much, failing to tell his lawyer before the trial about additional witnesses and documentation that would show even more convincingly that he was in California at the time of the robbery.

The prosecution relied on the state trooper’s testimony, Thomas’ past criminal history and his association with the Carter brothers as proof of his involvement in the robbery.

After a three-day trial, the jury found Thomas guilty. His punishment, because of his prior convictions and Texas’ stiff laws concerning crimes against the elderly, was life in prison, with a possibility of parole after 15 years. For Thomas, the system had not worked.

People on the outside did keep working for Rickey Thomas. His lawyers found new evidence bolstering his claim of innocence.

The Fuddruckers’ employee log showed he clocked out at 6:05 p.m. CDT, making it impossible for him to have been in Sulphur Springs two hours later, the time of the robbery. He cashed his $299.94 paycheck in Chula Vista the day of the robbery. Someone else remembered him dropping off a sweater at a Chula Vista dry cleaners on that day as well.

Thomas’ plight became something of a cause celebre in San Diego. His cause was taken up in Texas. He even appeared on the “Donahue.”

For all that, the motion for a new trial was denied earlier this year and Long, the prosecutor, seemed content to leave things as they were. Then came the break, the big break, for Thomas.

Earlier this month, the television series “Street Stories” once again put the Thomas story in the public eye, suggesting that a man named Ricky Knox might have been the third person in that Bronco.

As it happened, the FBI in Salt Lake City located Knox there and arrested him on an outstanding warrant. Under questioning, Knox said he had some knowledge about a robbery in Sulphur Springs, Tex., that he had been that third person.

With Rickey Thomas’ release imminent several days ago, one of the jurors in his trial stopped by the jail to apologize. “We made a mistake,” the woman told Thomas.

So, after all those months of being five men to a cell, Thomas was finally released on a cool, overcast East Texas morning.

“People believed in me, that’s what mattered,” he said Wednesday. “Freedom is priceless. You can’t put a value on it.”

In Chula Vista, there was a great sense of elation for those who had believed Thomas innocent.

“Everyone is so happy here,” said Keith Hooper, the Fuddruckers manager. “We’re happy for Rickey and his family and everyone else involved in his release. I don’t know what his plans are, but, if he comes back to San Diego, he’s got a job here.”

Peggy Hunt, who led fund-raising efforts and a letter-writing campaign in San Diego and Texas, called Wednesday “one of the best days of my life. We still can’t believe he’s out although we know it’s true. It’s been so long.”

As for Thomas, there is another “Donahue” show to do and talk of movies and maybe a book. But highest on his list is to take his daughter to Sea World.

Shamu calls.

Kennedy reported from Sulphur Springs and Platte from San Diego.