As I have so frequently stated, the Grievance Commission of the North Carolina State Bar used all of the creative juices it could muster to come up with an excuse for disbarring former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong. They are so elaborate and nonsensical that not even Nifong bashers can make sense of them. The problem stems from the fact that no one can explain why Mike Nifong was disbarred… the only prosecutor to be disbarred by the North Carolina State Bar since its inception in 1933. He certainly did not withhold discovery from defense attorneys of the Duke Lacrosse defendants. He had his staff deliver more than a thousand pages of discovery in three sets to attorneys for the defendants within 24 hours of the defense’s motion. What the media doesn’t want the public to know is that defense attorneys did not reciprocate when prosecutors sought discovery held by defense.
Unlike other prosecutors, Mr. Nifong did not fabricate confessions, arrange for eyewitnesses to appear out of the woodwork, or make plea deals with jail house snitches to provide perjured testimony. Mike Nifong acted honorably and in good faith in prosecuting the complaint of sexual assault in the Duke, and assumed the mantle of “Minister of Justice” by initiating the dismissal of the rape charges when the standards required for a charge were not deemed to be met in his opinion.
Some may say that Mr. Nifong made some statements before the media that were inappropriate, inflammatory, or denied the defendants of a fair trial. The only problem with this argument is that these statements were made early on in the investigation and well before any defendants were indicted. The generalized statements were made in an attempt to flush out any courageous and conscientious partygoers into voluntarily coming forward and cooperating with the police investigation. No way was there anything within the statements made to the media that should warrant any action against Mr. Nifong.
Finally, there is the issue about so-called lies Mr. Nifong made to the court. I have been trying to find out what lies were told. One commenter referred me to a transcript by the State Bar Grievance Commission head, which, no doubt included a lot of legalese mumbo-jumbo which was an attempt to pull the old Jedi mind-trick on the gullible, naïve, and mindless. The explanation is so convoluted that not even blog commenters can recite in a clear and cogent manner what lie(s) Mr. Nifong is alleged to have told which resulted in his disbarment and contempt of court judgment.
One needs to keep in mind that making a statement which may be inaccurate or contain misstatement of facts, does not constitute telling a lie. A lie requires mental consciousness of making a statement that is false. It would appear that F. Lane Williamson, who was the head of the Grievance panel responsible for Mr. Nifong’s disbarment, has mind-reading capabilities as he has determined that Mike Nifong prosecuted the three Duke Lacrosse defendants in order to court that black vote in Durham to enhance his chances of winning election to the D.A. position to which he had been appointed. If you just give it a scintilla’s worth of thought, you could tell that that is the perfect prescription for losing an election… any election. The way for Mike Nifong to assure a victory would have been for him to drop all charges and the investigation immediately… as he was pressured to do by the Powers-That-Be. And because he acted independently in following the principles of “equal justice for all,” the state set out to make sure that he was made an example of. Their campaign was most effective, as Rowan County District Attorney Bill Kenerly, in handling the prosecution of former Governor Mike Easley with kid gloves and giving him a rare deal, stated that he was not going to make a “Mike Nifong mistake.”
You can bet that no other prosecutor will make the “Mike Nifong mistake” because it could definitely cost him/her their law license… even though he/she may do nothing to warrant such action. That is no comfort as the State Bar head honchos are very creative and can come up with a creative reason for disbarment, like they did in the Mike Nifong case.
Creative reasons are commonly used to defend unjust actions. Case in point has to do with my ouster and near arrest on the Duke University campus. Although I was at the campus on an invitation to an event open to the public, I was kicked off the campus for no reason other than being a Nifong supporter. When I pressed the university for a reason for my ouster, the creative response I got was that I was asked to leave because I was “soliciting” which was defined as handing out my business card and asking them to visit my website. (I handed out but a half dozen cards to individuals with whom I had engaged in conversation while awaiting for the event to take place.)
In case you may have missed it before, I will provide a link below to the audio and transcript of the dialogue that I had with the security guard.
LINK: http://justice4nifong.com/direc/irepoDirec/irepoB/irB4.htm
Showing posts with label F. Lane Williamson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label F. Lane Williamson. Show all posts
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Thursday, September 16, 2010
N & O on Tim Helms’s death: An open case
Nearly a half century ago, Timothy Helms was born with severe retardation. Compounding his tragic life was the fact that he had been plagued with mental illness throughout his years. In 1994, he was accused of driving a vehicle which took the lives of three individuals, and later convicted and sentenced to three life sentences. While incarcerated, he racked up many “infractions,” including one for hoarding postage stamps. His retardation and mental illness made Timothy Helms a difficult prisoner to manage, and prior to his 2008 head trauma incident, he complained of abusive treatment he received and pleaded to be released from solitary confinement (euphemistically referred to as “administrative segregation” by authorities, while referred to as “The Hole” by those who have spent time there). Because of the great potential for psychological damage, solitary confinement is restricted to no more than 60 consecutive days. Helms had been in solitary for more than nine times that long (more than a year and a half) when he set his mattress on fire which resulted in his head being used as a battering ram on the concrete walls. Although setting the fire helped effect his release from solitary, it unfortunately resulted in head trauma that left him a quadriplegic who could barely speak. The SBI did its perfunctory investigation and to no one’s surprise could find no wrongdoing on behalf of the guards in solitary… they were stumped as to how Mr. Helms received his injuries (which in addition to two skull fractures and bleeding in the brain, included a fractured nose and welts all over his body consistent with those made by a baton). Department of Corrections Secretary Alvin Keller suggested that Mr. Helms might have sustained those injuries by falling and striking his head on the concrete floor. Paralyzed and unable to feed or take care of himself, Keller considered Helms too serious a threat to society to release from custody, so taxpayers continued to foot the bill for his lodgings and care until his recent, merciful death.
Now, The News & Observer wanting to toot its own horn about its four-part investigative report critical of the SBI lab, wrote an editorial in its September 8, 2010 paper titled “An open case: Recent revelations about the SBI’s work add to questions remaining in the case of Timothy Helms.” As usual, the editorial section in The News & Observer is a Johnny-come-lately… always making comments and observations long after they should have been made. To begin with, the newspaper editorial writers should have questioned the prosecution and conviction of the mentally ill and severely retarded man. Mr. Helms denied driving the car that took three lives, and to my knowledge there was no credible evidence that he did (the man Helms alleged to have been driving died from injuries in the crash). Furthermore, I do not believe that it had been established that Mr. Helms had been drinking or was drunk at the scene of the fatal accident.
Although Mr. Helms passed away some time ago, and the Department of Corrections and the SBI have closed their cases on the death of Mr. Helms, I agree with The News & Observer that the case of Timothy Helms should be opened and seriously investigated. It is obvious that, as Mr. Helms stated, after the brutal assault against him his head was repeatedly bashed into the concrete cell wall. The state, of course does not want to revisit this case anymore than it does other cases which the state closed with full knowledge that their resolution was far from just. In particular is the disbarment of former Durham Prosecutor Mike Nifong by the North Carolina State Bar. The Bar is an unregulated organization without accountability. It has a long-standing history of protecting prosecutors regardless of the magnitude of injustice they mete out. Since its inception in 1933, Mike Nifong is the only prosecutor to be disbarred by this organization. What’s worse, is that the was disbarred on trumped up trifle. Other prosecutors, such as David Hoke, Bill Wolfe, Tom Ford, Michael Parker, and Freda Black, have withheld exculpatory evidence, tried to force plea deals, won convictions on perjured testimony obtained in exchange for promises of reduced sentences, fabricated evidence and confessions… the list of unethical and dastardly prosecutorial practices by these state attorneys goes on. But these prosecutors are all protected not only by the state, but by the media which has embraced the PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy.
What did Mr. Nifong do to deserve to be disbarred? Well, according to The News & Observer he was guilty of 20 ethics violations. The only problem is that nobody, especially media types, knows what they were. Media has gone out of its way to mislead the public by inferring that Mr. Nifong withheld exculpatory evidence. Truth of the matter is that Mr. Nifong did not withhold any discovery, and that the DNA lab evidence he has been accused of withholding is not exculpatory. Mr. Nifong has also been accused of lying to the court, which is, itself, a lie. But that is not important to the State Bar’s F. Lane Williamson… death of the truth was considered acceptable collateral damage in the state’s efforts to remove Mr. Nifong from the Duke Lacrosse case. In the Carpetbagger Jihad against Mr. Nifong et al., the truth, facts, morals, and justice are expendable concepts and contrary to their goals of destroying Mike Nifong and anyone and everyone who even had the most peripheral connection with the prosecution in the case.
Open the case regarding the death of inmate Timothy Helms… I agree. But I believe that The News & Observer editorial page should also call for opening the investigation into the trumped up disbarment of Mike Nifong.
Now, The News & Observer wanting to toot its own horn about its four-part investigative report critical of the SBI lab, wrote an editorial in its September 8, 2010 paper titled “An open case: Recent revelations about the SBI’s work add to questions remaining in the case of Timothy Helms.” As usual, the editorial section in The News & Observer is a Johnny-come-lately… always making comments and observations long after they should have been made. To begin with, the newspaper editorial writers should have questioned the prosecution and conviction of the mentally ill and severely retarded man. Mr. Helms denied driving the car that took three lives, and to my knowledge there was no credible evidence that he did (the man Helms alleged to have been driving died from injuries in the crash). Furthermore, I do not believe that it had been established that Mr. Helms had been drinking or was drunk at the scene of the fatal accident.
Although Mr. Helms passed away some time ago, and the Department of Corrections and the SBI have closed their cases on the death of Mr. Helms, I agree with The News & Observer that the case of Timothy Helms should be opened and seriously investigated. It is obvious that, as Mr. Helms stated, after the brutal assault against him his head was repeatedly bashed into the concrete cell wall. The state, of course does not want to revisit this case anymore than it does other cases which the state closed with full knowledge that their resolution was far from just. In particular is the disbarment of former Durham Prosecutor Mike Nifong by the North Carolina State Bar. The Bar is an unregulated organization without accountability. It has a long-standing history of protecting prosecutors regardless of the magnitude of injustice they mete out. Since its inception in 1933, Mike Nifong is the only prosecutor to be disbarred by this organization. What’s worse, is that the was disbarred on trumped up trifle. Other prosecutors, such as David Hoke, Bill Wolfe, Tom Ford, Michael Parker, and Freda Black, have withheld exculpatory evidence, tried to force plea deals, won convictions on perjured testimony obtained in exchange for promises of reduced sentences, fabricated evidence and confessions… the list of unethical and dastardly prosecutorial practices by these state attorneys goes on. But these prosecutors are all protected not only by the state, but by the media which has embraced the PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy.
What did Mr. Nifong do to deserve to be disbarred? Well, according to The News & Observer he was guilty of 20 ethics violations. The only problem is that nobody, especially media types, knows what they were. Media has gone out of its way to mislead the public by inferring that Mr. Nifong withheld exculpatory evidence. Truth of the matter is that Mr. Nifong did not withhold any discovery, and that the DNA lab evidence he has been accused of withholding is not exculpatory. Mr. Nifong has also been accused of lying to the court, which is, itself, a lie. But that is not important to the State Bar’s F. Lane Williamson… death of the truth was considered acceptable collateral damage in the state’s efforts to remove Mr. Nifong from the Duke Lacrosse case. In the Carpetbagger Jihad against Mr. Nifong et al., the truth, facts, morals, and justice are expendable concepts and contrary to their goals of destroying Mike Nifong and anyone and everyone who even had the most peripheral connection with the prosecution in the case.
Open the case regarding the death of inmate Timothy Helms… I agree. But I believe that The News & Observer editorial page should also call for opening the investigation into the trumped up disbarment of Mike Nifong.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Why Prosecutor Tom Ford is among the worst of the worse
On the morning of September 26, 1991, Raleigh police officers come upon the body of Jacquetta Thomas, a 26 year old African American, in a cul de sac at the end of Blount Street. The murder victim, who worked as a prostitute, had been severely beaten and her body partially exposed. Near by, but out of sight, is an SUV belonging to Gregory Flint Taylor, which had been abandoned earlier that morning after it became bogged down off-road in marshy land.
When Greg Taylor returns to the scene to see about extricating his vehicle, he identifies himself to the police at the crime scene as the owner of the vehicle and cooperates with their questioning in the homicide investigation. He does so freely and without legal consultation, and even goes to the police station to submit to further interrogation.
During his interviews, Greg Taylor gives consistent statements to the investigators. He he tells that he did not know the victim Jacquetta Thomas, never met her, and that she never was inside of his SUV. He states that his only passenger that night was Johnny Beck (an African American man), that they were riding around seeking and using drugs, and that while driving off road, his car got stuck in the moist terrain during the wee hours of the morning. He tells detectives that unable to remove it from its quagmire, the two decided to leave the vehicle to walk and try to hitch a ride home. On exiting the cul de sac, they noticed for the first time what appeared to be a body, but did not get close or examine it; planning instead to call authorities later in the morning if it had not been discovered by then.
Within twelve hours of the police’s discovery of Jacquetta Thomas’s body, Greg Taylor is charged with the murder. He is charged without forensic evidence linking him to the victim or vice versa, and without evidence confirming the victim’s presence in his vehicle. The unsubstantiated motive for the murder, according to Wake County Prosecutor Tom Ford is that Jacquetta Thomas, a prostitute, refused to engage in sex with Taylor, which resulted in Taylor becoming so enraged that he severely beat her to death. As was pointed out during the February 2010 hearing before the three judge panel, Gregory Taylor has never had a history or reputation of violence, either before the murder or afterwards during his 17 years of incarceration (during time spent in prison, he was not charged with any violations or misconduct… a rare accomplishment).
Prosecutor Tom Ford, I strongly believe, does not care whether or not the killer of Ms. Thomas is apprehended and faces judgment because he has absolutely no compassion for the victim… an African American and a prostitute. His only priority is closing the case, and not solving the crime. So, he rushes to judgment in charging Greg Taylor with the murder of Jacquetta Thomas without reasonable cause or due diligence. Tom Ford heeds the state’s tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color” when he charges Taylor, who is white but admitted to drug use and did not come from a family of material wealth and privilege, with the murder of Ms. Thomas.
Now, this is where Tom Ford’s actions become really sinister and despicable. His plan is to entice Greg Taylor, the white owner of the SUV, to falsely implicate his black passenger and fellow drug user Johnny Beck for the murder of Jacquetta Thomas. If Taylor refuses, Ford threatens to convict Taylor and have him spend the rest of his life in jail. By doing so, Ford could accomplish two objectives… close the case on a murder, and take a black man off the Raleigh streets (innocent or not). Ford initially believes that wrapping up this case would be relatively easy, thinking that Taylor would jump at the chance to avoid a conviction for murder and a lifetime in prison by simply implicating a black man for the commission of the crime, even though Taylor knew Beck to be innocent. However, Tom Ford does not count on Greg Taylor being a man of such integrity that it far exceeds what little that Ford, himself, possesses. Gregory Flint Taylor, at the repeated urgings and threats by Prosecutor Ford, refuses to give false testimony implicating Johnny Beck, a man he knew to be innocent.
Because Greg Taylor refuses to perjure himself by giving false testimony at the behest of Prosecutor Ford for the purpose of implicating another innocent man, Tom Ford makes good on his threat to convict Taylor of the murder. Ford achieves this goal by making deals with two other incarcerated individuals (a prostitute and a jailhouse snitch), who are facing long stretches behind bars, and like him, are lacking morals and integrity. They provide false testimony against Taylor in exchange for the promise of a reduction in their sentences. What is particularly egregious about this action is that Taylor’s defense team is not made aware by the prosecution of this backroom deal between Ford and the perjurers. In addition to the false testimony, false forensic blood test results, as well as the falsely misinterpreted actions of a scent hound, are used by Prosecutor Ford to win a conviction against Taylor in 1993 for the murder of Jacquetta Thomas. Greg Taylor is sentenced to life in prison.
Facing a life sentence for a murder he did not commit, Prosecutor Ford continues to offer Greg Taylor incentives for a reduced sentence and a chance at freedom in exchange for the false testimony needed to convict Johnny Beck, the black man against whom Ford was forced to drop charges because Taylor would not provide the false and necessary testimony to needed to convict. Despite the prospect of spending the rest of his life and dying within the dreary confines of a small prison cell, Greg’s ethics and integrity remain strong. Ford is unable to break him.
After sixteen years in prison, the North Carolina Actual Innocence Commission takes up Greg Taylor’s case and presents it to the Innocence Inquiry Commission. After a thorough review of the case, the eight member board unanimously recommends that Greg Taylor’s case be brought before the three judge panel to determine whether or not he should be proclaimed innocent and freed, or remain in jail… the burden of this hearing being placed on the defense.
Wake Prosecutor Tom Ford, with full knowledge of the sleazy backroom deals made with the jailhouse snitch and the prostitute, and full knowledge that the SBI lab test results were not confirmatory for the presence of blood on Greg Taylor’s SUV, nonetheless decides to work with Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby to fight and try to keep an innocent man in jail for the remainder of his life. Tom Ford is definitely no “minister of justice.”
In February 2010, the truth, as cogently and orderly presented by Attorneys representing Greg Taylor (Mumma, Klinkosum, and Cheshire), combined with the pathetically convoluted, disjointed, and irrelevant presentation by the state assures a pronouncement of “innocent” by the judicial body at the hearing. Gregory Taylor, at long last, is unfettered by shackles and bars, and tastes freedom for the first time in nearly two decades. Seventeen years of his life are lost because of the actions of a prosecutor who, is angered by Taylor’s refusal to work with him to wrongfully convict an innocent black man in the Thomas murder. This anger is what led Ford to punish Taylor by convicting him of the Thomas murder.
Clearly, actions by Ford in the Greg Taylor case, warrant Tom Ford the dubious distinction of being hailed as among the “worst of the worse prosecutors in the Tar Heel state. Other deserving North Carolina prosecutors include David Hoke, who withheld from the defense attorney of Alan Gell exculpatory testimony of seventeen independent eyewitnesses which absolutely refuted Gell’s guilt in a murder for which he was sentenced to death and served a decade wrongfully behind bars. Wilson County Prosecutor Bill Wolfe deserves mention as one of North Carolina’s worst prosecutors for charging James Arthur Johnson for the murder of Wilson teen Brittany Willis, a crime that Wolfe knew Johnson did not commit… a charge based on the statement of Kenneth Meeks, a black teenager and the true killer of the victim. Meeks made the statement implicating Johnson (who is also African American) in the murder of the Wilson teen after police informed the killer that Johnson snitched on him. When Meeks, more than a year later, recanted his statement and admitted that he made it out of anger, Prosecutor Wolfe had no case against Johnson because there was no forensic evidence tying Johnson to the crime. Therefore, Wolfe shortly thereafter manufactured two eyewitnesses, both related to the Wilson Police Department (one being a retired police officer) to implicate Johnson in the crime. The use of these two false witnesses was quickly jettisoned by the prosecution after Dr. Reverend William Barber, President of the NC NAACP became involved; because with his involvement came closer media scrutiny… scrutiny that the false testimony of Wolfe’s two eyewitnesses could not withstand.
As horrendous as these overt acts of prosecutorial misconduct are, and the terrible injustice for which they are responsible, only one of the prosecutors, David Hoke, was taken before the unregulated North Carolina State Bar’s Disciplinary panel. He was merely given a mild reprimand by the group. However, professionally Hoke did not suffer as he was promoted to the position of Assistant Director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts. Rev. Barber filed a complaint of prosecutorial misconduct with the North Carolina State Bar against Bill Wolfe, which the Bar proceeded to ignore. Likewise, the North Carolina State Bar refused to act on my complaint against Tom Ford (for his actions in the Gregory Taylor case) which was filed in August 2009. As things now stand, former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong remains the only prosecutor to be disbarred by the North Carolina State Bar since its inception in 1933.
And why was Mike Nifong disbarred? He was disbarred because, as Rae Evans (mother of Duke Lacrosse defendant Dave Evans) so insightfully put it during an interview on “60 Minutes,” he “picked on the wrong families.” In other words, Mr. Nifong did not automatically stop the investigation and he did not refrain from pressing charges in the alleged sexual assault against the Duke University student-athlete partygoers who came from families of wealth, status, and privilege, as was expected from a Durham district attorney. Instead Mr. Nifong pursued the investigation and prosecution as he would in any other case, without Class or Color entering the equation. To express the displeasure by the state, Mike Nifong was singularly persecuted to an extent never before seen… and it was done in order to set an example for other North Carolina prosecutors who might consider not complying with the unwritten state tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color. In addition to disbarment, Mr. Nifong was convicted on a trumped up contempt of court charge and sentenced to jail; the U.S. Department of Justice was asked to launch a criminal investigation into Mr. Nifong for depriving the Duke Lacrosse defendants of their civil rights; Mr. Nifong was denied immunity to which he was entitled as a state employee carrying out his duties; the Attorney General’s Office refused to represent him at his hearing before the North Carolina State Bar; the North Carolina State Board of Elections chose to harass Mr. Nifong by singularly auditing his campaign without cause; and he was blatantly bashed by the biased mainstream media.
The unregulated and self-serving North Carolina State Bar was so hard pressed to come up with a complaint carrying enough substance against Mr. Nifong to appear legit that it was forced to amend the complaint initially filed… a rare action indeed and not supported by law. The Bar alleged that Mr. Nifong withheld evidence… which he did not. The Bar alleged that Mr. Nifong lied to the court… which he did not. The Bar alleged that Mr. Nifong made prejudicial and inflammatory statements against the defendants… which he did not (most, if not all, of the statements for which Mr. Nifong was accused of making took place prior to any indictments being handed down). It is the position of the Committee of Justice for Mike Nifong that Mr. Nifong acted within the acceptable standards of the state’s prosecuting attorneys.
F. Lane Williamson, the chair of the Bar’s grievance panel, used his divine powers of mind reading to reach the conclusion that Mike Nifong prosecuted the Duke Lacrosse case solely for political gain (to retain his post as Durham district attorney). A rigged poll by SurveyUSA conducted for WTVD – ABC 11 News helped fertilize the idea that the May 2, 2006 primary for Durham district attorney was close and that wooing black voters would assure Nifong of victory. In actuality nothing could be further from the truth, as black voter registration was low, and black voter turnout was even lower. Using common sense and logic, the best route to a victory would have been for Mr. Nifong not to have brought charges against the Duke lacrosse player or to dismissed them. Instead, his pursuit of the prosecution turned a landslide May 2006 primary victory into a narrow one, and enabled another campaigner (who ran on a platform of solely beating Nifong and promising to give up his position to enable an appointment to the Durham D.A. position by Governor Mike Easley) to garner a whopping 39% of the fall election vote. The only person to use the Duke Lacrosse case for his/her own political gain was Attorney General Roy Cooper, whose main television campaign ad begain with a screen showing in big letters: “The Duke Lacrosse Decision.”
It should be noted that Mr. Nifong acted as a “minister of justice” as evidenced by the fact that he dropped the rape charges against the Duke Lacrosse defendants after the alleged victim could not give assurances in later testimony, to his satisfaction, that a rape had taken place. Mr. Nifong’s actions in this respect are in stark contrast to those of Tom Ford, who continues to press for Greg Taylor to remain in jail for the rest of his life in spite of the fact that his contention that blood evidence used to convict Taylor was false, as was the interpretation of actions by a scent hound in the initial trial. Also, the Attorney General’s Office continued to fight for Alan Gell to remain locked up after it came to light that 17 eyewitness statements that proved Gell could not possibly have committed the crime for which he was sentenced to death.
Wake County Prosecutor Tom Ford is no minister of justice, but as a prosecutor he most definitely is among the worst of the worse. Yet, the state does not go after him professionally or personally. The biased mainstream media follows the PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy and shields his identity from the public whenever possible when discussing the Taylor case. Even Greg Taylor’s attorney, Joseph B. Cheshire V, has not a disparaging word to say about Tom Ford, the prosecutor responsible for his client losing 17 productive years of his life due to Ford’s malicious vendetta. Yet, Cheshire, the most powerful attorney in North Carolina, is quick to chastise and criticize Mr. Nifong for his actions in the Duke Lacrosse case (well within standards practiced by other prosecutors), even though Cheshire’s client (one of the Duke Lacrosse defendants) does not spend one day in jail, and receives a $7 million out-of-court settlement with Duke University.
What I find most disheartening, however, is the response, or lack thereof, by the leadership of the African American communities in Durham and throughout the state of North Carolina. To my knowledge, Dr. Reverend William Barber (president of the NC NAACP) and other leaders have not been critical of Prosecutor Tom Ford and his actions in the Gregory Taylor case. To my knowledge, leaders of the black communities have also been silent about the barbaric treatment of Mike Nifong by the state and the media for his handling of the Duke Lacrosse case in which he adhered to the principle of “equal justice for all.” And now that fallout from the Carpetbagger Jihad against Mike Nifong etal. has engulfed Crystal Mangum (charged with attempted first degree murder for allegedly scratching her boyfriend and held in jail on a million dollar bond), the black leadership continues to follow its course of timidity, and remains silent about this injustice. This is disgraceful.
Don’t believe the hype fostered by the Carpetbagger Jihad Juggernaut and dutifully disseminated by the biased mainstream media that Mike Nifong is the worst prosector in North Carolina history and the only one deserving of disbarment. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Mr. Nifong’s nearly thirty years of service to the state has been exemplary and exemplified by the principle of “equal justice for all.” The truly worst of the worst designation, without doubt, goes to Wake County Prosecutor Tom Ford, although compelling arguments could be made for prosecutors Bill Wolfe (in the James Arthur Johnson case) and David Hoke (the Alan Gell case.)
When Greg Taylor returns to the scene to see about extricating his vehicle, he identifies himself to the police at the crime scene as the owner of the vehicle and cooperates with their questioning in the homicide investigation. He does so freely and without legal consultation, and even goes to the police station to submit to further interrogation.
During his interviews, Greg Taylor gives consistent statements to the investigators. He he tells that he did not know the victim Jacquetta Thomas, never met her, and that she never was inside of his SUV. He states that his only passenger that night was Johnny Beck (an African American man), that they were riding around seeking and using drugs, and that while driving off road, his car got stuck in the moist terrain during the wee hours of the morning. He tells detectives that unable to remove it from its quagmire, the two decided to leave the vehicle to walk and try to hitch a ride home. On exiting the cul de sac, they noticed for the first time what appeared to be a body, but did not get close or examine it; planning instead to call authorities later in the morning if it had not been discovered by then.
Within twelve hours of the police’s discovery of Jacquetta Thomas’s body, Greg Taylor is charged with the murder. He is charged without forensic evidence linking him to the victim or vice versa, and without evidence confirming the victim’s presence in his vehicle. The unsubstantiated motive for the murder, according to Wake County Prosecutor Tom Ford is that Jacquetta Thomas, a prostitute, refused to engage in sex with Taylor, which resulted in Taylor becoming so enraged that he severely beat her to death. As was pointed out during the February 2010 hearing before the three judge panel, Gregory Taylor has never had a history or reputation of violence, either before the murder or afterwards during his 17 years of incarceration (during time spent in prison, he was not charged with any violations or misconduct… a rare accomplishment).
Prosecutor Tom Ford, I strongly believe, does not care whether or not the killer of Ms. Thomas is apprehended and faces judgment because he has absolutely no compassion for the victim… an African American and a prostitute. His only priority is closing the case, and not solving the crime. So, he rushes to judgment in charging Greg Taylor with the murder of Jacquetta Thomas without reasonable cause or due diligence. Tom Ford heeds the state’s tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color” when he charges Taylor, who is white but admitted to drug use and did not come from a family of material wealth and privilege, with the murder of Ms. Thomas.
Now, this is where Tom Ford’s actions become really sinister and despicable. His plan is to entice Greg Taylor, the white owner of the SUV, to falsely implicate his black passenger and fellow drug user Johnny Beck for the murder of Jacquetta Thomas. If Taylor refuses, Ford threatens to convict Taylor and have him spend the rest of his life in jail. By doing so, Ford could accomplish two objectives… close the case on a murder, and take a black man off the Raleigh streets (innocent or not). Ford initially believes that wrapping up this case would be relatively easy, thinking that Taylor would jump at the chance to avoid a conviction for murder and a lifetime in prison by simply implicating a black man for the commission of the crime, even though Taylor knew Beck to be innocent. However, Tom Ford does not count on Greg Taylor being a man of such integrity that it far exceeds what little that Ford, himself, possesses. Gregory Flint Taylor, at the repeated urgings and threats by Prosecutor Ford, refuses to give false testimony implicating Johnny Beck, a man he knew to be innocent.
Because Greg Taylor refuses to perjure himself by giving false testimony at the behest of Prosecutor Ford for the purpose of implicating another innocent man, Tom Ford makes good on his threat to convict Taylor of the murder. Ford achieves this goal by making deals with two other incarcerated individuals (a prostitute and a jailhouse snitch), who are facing long stretches behind bars, and like him, are lacking morals and integrity. They provide false testimony against Taylor in exchange for the promise of a reduction in their sentences. What is particularly egregious about this action is that Taylor’s defense team is not made aware by the prosecution of this backroom deal between Ford and the perjurers. In addition to the false testimony, false forensic blood test results, as well as the falsely misinterpreted actions of a scent hound, are used by Prosecutor Ford to win a conviction against Taylor in 1993 for the murder of Jacquetta Thomas. Greg Taylor is sentenced to life in prison.
Facing a life sentence for a murder he did not commit, Prosecutor Ford continues to offer Greg Taylor incentives for a reduced sentence and a chance at freedom in exchange for the false testimony needed to convict Johnny Beck, the black man against whom Ford was forced to drop charges because Taylor would not provide the false and necessary testimony to needed to convict. Despite the prospect of spending the rest of his life and dying within the dreary confines of a small prison cell, Greg’s ethics and integrity remain strong. Ford is unable to break him.
After sixteen years in prison, the North Carolina Actual Innocence Commission takes up Greg Taylor’s case and presents it to the Innocence Inquiry Commission. After a thorough review of the case, the eight member board unanimously recommends that Greg Taylor’s case be brought before the three judge panel to determine whether or not he should be proclaimed innocent and freed, or remain in jail… the burden of this hearing being placed on the defense.
Wake Prosecutor Tom Ford, with full knowledge of the sleazy backroom deals made with the jailhouse snitch and the prostitute, and full knowledge that the SBI lab test results were not confirmatory for the presence of blood on Greg Taylor’s SUV, nonetheless decides to work with Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby to fight and try to keep an innocent man in jail for the remainder of his life. Tom Ford is definitely no “minister of justice.”
In February 2010, the truth, as cogently and orderly presented by Attorneys representing Greg Taylor (Mumma, Klinkosum, and Cheshire), combined with the pathetically convoluted, disjointed, and irrelevant presentation by the state assures a pronouncement of “innocent” by the judicial body at the hearing. Gregory Taylor, at long last, is unfettered by shackles and bars, and tastes freedom for the first time in nearly two decades. Seventeen years of his life are lost because of the actions of a prosecutor who, is angered by Taylor’s refusal to work with him to wrongfully convict an innocent black man in the Thomas murder. This anger is what led Ford to punish Taylor by convicting him of the Thomas murder.
Clearly, actions by Ford in the Greg Taylor case, warrant Tom Ford the dubious distinction of being hailed as among the “worst of the worse prosecutors in the Tar Heel state. Other deserving North Carolina prosecutors include David Hoke, who withheld from the defense attorney of Alan Gell exculpatory testimony of seventeen independent eyewitnesses which absolutely refuted Gell’s guilt in a murder for which he was sentenced to death and served a decade wrongfully behind bars. Wilson County Prosecutor Bill Wolfe deserves mention as one of North Carolina’s worst prosecutors for charging James Arthur Johnson for the murder of Wilson teen Brittany Willis, a crime that Wolfe knew Johnson did not commit… a charge based on the statement of Kenneth Meeks, a black teenager and the true killer of the victim. Meeks made the statement implicating Johnson (who is also African American) in the murder of the Wilson teen after police informed the killer that Johnson snitched on him. When Meeks, more than a year later, recanted his statement and admitted that he made it out of anger, Prosecutor Wolfe had no case against Johnson because there was no forensic evidence tying Johnson to the crime. Therefore, Wolfe shortly thereafter manufactured two eyewitnesses, both related to the Wilson Police Department (one being a retired police officer) to implicate Johnson in the crime. The use of these two false witnesses was quickly jettisoned by the prosecution after Dr. Reverend William Barber, President of the NC NAACP became involved; because with his involvement came closer media scrutiny… scrutiny that the false testimony of Wolfe’s two eyewitnesses could not withstand.
As horrendous as these overt acts of prosecutorial misconduct are, and the terrible injustice for which they are responsible, only one of the prosecutors, David Hoke, was taken before the unregulated North Carolina State Bar’s Disciplinary panel. He was merely given a mild reprimand by the group. However, professionally Hoke did not suffer as he was promoted to the position of Assistant Director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts. Rev. Barber filed a complaint of prosecutorial misconduct with the North Carolina State Bar against Bill Wolfe, which the Bar proceeded to ignore. Likewise, the North Carolina State Bar refused to act on my complaint against Tom Ford (for his actions in the Gregory Taylor case) which was filed in August 2009. As things now stand, former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong remains the only prosecutor to be disbarred by the North Carolina State Bar since its inception in 1933.
And why was Mike Nifong disbarred? He was disbarred because, as Rae Evans (mother of Duke Lacrosse defendant Dave Evans) so insightfully put it during an interview on “60 Minutes,” he “picked on the wrong families.” In other words, Mr. Nifong did not automatically stop the investigation and he did not refrain from pressing charges in the alleged sexual assault against the Duke University student-athlete partygoers who came from families of wealth, status, and privilege, as was expected from a Durham district attorney. Instead Mr. Nifong pursued the investigation and prosecution as he would in any other case, without Class or Color entering the equation. To express the displeasure by the state, Mike Nifong was singularly persecuted to an extent never before seen… and it was done in order to set an example for other North Carolina prosecutors who might consider not complying with the unwritten state tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color. In addition to disbarment, Mr. Nifong was convicted on a trumped up contempt of court charge and sentenced to jail; the U.S. Department of Justice was asked to launch a criminal investigation into Mr. Nifong for depriving the Duke Lacrosse defendants of their civil rights; Mr. Nifong was denied immunity to which he was entitled as a state employee carrying out his duties; the Attorney General’s Office refused to represent him at his hearing before the North Carolina State Bar; the North Carolina State Board of Elections chose to harass Mr. Nifong by singularly auditing his campaign without cause; and he was blatantly bashed by the biased mainstream media.
The unregulated and self-serving North Carolina State Bar was so hard pressed to come up with a complaint carrying enough substance against Mr. Nifong to appear legit that it was forced to amend the complaint initially filed… a rare action indeed and not supported by law. The Bar alleged that Mr. Nifong withheld evidence… which he did not. The Bar alleged that Mr. Nifong lied to the court… which he did not. The Bar alleged that Mr. Nifong made prejudicial and inflammatory statements against the defendants… which he did not (most, if not all, of the statements for which Mr. Nifong was accused of making took place prior to any indictments being handed down). It is the position of the Committee of Justice for Mike Nifong that Mr. Nifong acted within the acceptable standards of the state’s prosecuting attorneys.
F. Lane Williamson, the chair of the Bar’s grievance panel, used his divine powers of mind reading to reach the conclusion that Mike Nifong prosecuted the Duke Lacrosse case solely for political gain (to retain his post as Durham district attorney). A rigged poll by SurveyUSA conducted for WTVD – ABC 11 News helped fertilize the idea that the May 2, 2006 primary for Durham district attorney was close and that wooing black voters would assure Nifong of victory. In actuality nothing could be further from the truth, as black voter registration was low, and black voter turnout was even lower. Using common sense and logic, the best route to a victory would have been for Mr. Nifong not to have brought charges against the Duke lacrosse player or to dismissed them. Instead, his pursuit of the prosecution turned a landslide May 2006 primary victory into a narrow one, and enabled another campaigner (who ran on a platform of solely beating Nifong and promising to give up his position to enable an appointment to the Durham D.A. position by Governor Mike Easley) to garner a whopping 39% of the fall election vote. The only person to use the Duke Lacrosse case for his/her own political gain was Attorney General Roy Cooper, whose main television campaign ad begain with a screen showing in big letters: “The Duke Lacrosse Decision.”
It should be noted that Mr. Nifong acted as a “minister of justice” as evidenced by the fact that he dropped the rape charges against the Duke Lacrosse defendants after the alleged victim could not give assurances in later testimony, to his satisfaction, that a rape had taken place. Mr. Nifong’s actions in this respect are in stark contrast to those of Tom Ford, who continues to press for Greg Taylor to remain in jail for the rest of his life in spite of the fact that his contention that blood evidence used to convict Taylor was false, as was the interpretation of actions by a scent hound in the initial trial. Also, the Attorney General’s Office continued to fight for Alan Gell to remain locked up after it came to light that 17 eyewitness statements that proved Gell could not possibly have committed the crime for which he was sentenced to death.
Wake County Prosecutor Tom Ford is no minister of justice, but as a prosecutor he most definitely is among the worst of the worse. Yet, the state does not go after him professionally or personally. The biased mainstream media follows the PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy and shields his identity from the public whenever possible when discussing the Taylor case. Even Greg Taylor’s attorney, Joseph B. Cheshire V, has not a disparaging word to say about Tom Ford, the prosecutor responsible for his client losing 17 productive years of his life due to Ford’s malicious vendetta. Yet, Cheshire, the most powerful attorney in North Carolina, is quick to chastise and criticize Mr. Nifong for his actions in the Duke Lacrosse case (well within standards practiced by other prosecutors), even though Cheshire’s client (one of the Duke Lacrosse defendants) does not spend one day in jail, and receives a $7 million out-of-court settlement with Duke University.
What I find most disheartening, however, is the response, or lack thereof, by the leadership of the African American communities in Durham and throughout the state of North Carolina. To my knowledge, Dr. Reverend William Barber (president of the NC NAACP) and other leaders have not been critical of Prosecutor Tom Ford and his actions in the Gregory Taylor case. To my knowledge, leaders of the black communities have also been silent about the barbaric treatment of Mike Nifong by the state and the media for his handling of the Duke Lacrosse case in which he adhered to the principle of “equal justice for all.” And now that fallout from the Carpetbagger Jihad against Mike Nifong etal. has engulfed Crystal Mangum (charged with attempted first degree murder for allegedly scratching her boyfriend and held in jail on a million dollar bond), the black leadership continues to follow its course of timidity, and remains silent about this injustice. This is disgraceful.
Don’t believe the hype fostered by the Carpetbagger Jihad Juggernaut and dutifully disseminated by the biased mainstream media that Mike Nifong is the worst prosector in North Carolina history and the only one deserving of disbarment. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Mr. Nifong’s nearly thirty years of service to the state has been exemplary and exemplified by the principle of “equal justice for all.” The truly worst of the worst designation, without doubt, goes to Wake County Prosecutor Tom Ford, although compelling arguments could be made for prosecutors Bill Wolfe (in the James Arthur Johnson case) and David Hoke (the Alan Gell case.)
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
State Bar joined Carpetbagger Jihad against Nifong with gusto
When the carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants declared jihad against former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong because he had the nerve to charge their boys with a crime, the media, judges, state officials all made full commitments to assist in their vindictive cause. As stated in her call to arms which aired on CBS – TV’s “60 Minutes,” defendant mom Rhea Evans made clear their mandate… to see that Mike Nifong and his family “pays” every day for the rest of his life.
The North Carolina State Bar went above and beyond the call of duty, and are deserving of special carpetbagging recognition. First, it trumped up a flimsy ethics complaint that was so weak, that even they had to amend it a second time and re-file. The State Bar’s action was necessary in order to get the dedicated D.A. Nifong off the Duke Lacrosse case, and into friendly hands. Unbeknownst to Mr. Nifong at the time, the Attorney General’s Office was in bed with the carpetbagger crew, following its every directive to the tee… such as later carrying out the dismissal of the Duke Lacrosse case and innocent promulgation of April 11, 2007.
The State Bar’s F. Lane Williamson, who headed up the grievance panel, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, went so far as to claim that Mike Nifong pursued the Duke Lacrosse case for the political purpose of being elected to the district attorney position to which he had been appointed. What makes this widely held motive so laughable is the fact that simple math would point out that the way to assure victory in the May 2006 primary was to dismiss the Duke Lacrosse case, not pursue it. Williamson and Duke Lacrosse defense attorney Kirk Osborn, among others seemed to believe that by wooing the black vote, Mr. Nifong would win the primary. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the voting results confirmed that. Of the African Americans who made up 38.2% of the total registered voters, they accounted for only 34% of those who voted in the primary. Fewer blacks turned out percentage-wise. Of the white voters who comprised 56.3% of the total registered voters, they accounted for a whopping 63% of the voters for the May 2, 2006 primary. A higher turnout of white voters percentage-wise. Yet, Mike Nifong won, proving wrong the WTVD ABC 11 Eyewitness News poll that proclaimed the primary race was a dead heat with Nifong requiring a huge black turnout in order to beat chief rival Freda Black. ABC 11 News deserves a lot of credit for this Jedi Mind-trick, for its poll and coverage convinced many that Nifong would benefit by pursuing the Duke Lacrosse case. The fact is, that pursuing the Duke Lacrosse case presented a tremendous impediment for him to overcome on his way to victory.
Besides disbarring Mr. Nifong, the North Carolina State Bar decided to turn the knife in his back while simultaneously pouring salt in his wounds. They decided to send Mr. Nifong an invoice to cover the costs of holding the five day hearing to disbar him. The bill amounted to eight thousand, eight hundred ninety-seven dollars and 91 cents ($8,897.91), with payment due within ninety days. According to the Bar’s counsel, Katherine E. Jean, the Bar is given this authority under regulation: 27 NCAC 1B .0109(8). She informed me that this regulation was used when it fined David Hoke and Deborah Graves for their disciplinary hearing held years earlier… however they were billed a total of $702.10… an amount which they shared, each paying half. Even though David Hoke’s actions against Alan Gell were far more egregious than anything Mr. Nifong was accused of doing in the Duke Lacrosse case, Hoke got off paying $350.05, whereas Mr. Nifong faced a tab that approached nine thousand dollars. The disparity in the amounts of the fines can be attributed to but one thing…the carpetbagger jihad against Mike Nifong. How many other attorneys have been sent an invoice by the State Bar to pay for the costs to discipline them? Not many, I bet. I was only given the one example other than Mike Nifong.
All I can say is, “How shameful.” Selective persecution against Mike Nifong has sadly been widespread among state agencies, especially the unregulated State Bar.
The North Carolina State Bar went above and beyond the call of duty, and are deserving of special carpetbagging recognition. First, it trumped up a flimsy ethics complaint that was so weak, that even they had to amend it a second time and re-file. The State Bar’s action was necessary in order to get the dedicated D.A. Nifong off the Duke Lacrosse case, and into friendly hands. Unbeknownst to Mr. Nifong at the time, the Attorney General’s Office was in bed with the carpetbagger crew, following its every directive to the tee… such as later carrying out the dismissal of the Duke Lacrosse case and innocent promulgation of April 11, 2007.
The State Bar’s F. Lane Williamson, who headed up the grievance panel, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, went so far as to claim that Mike Nifong pursued the Duke Lacrosse case for the political purpose of being elected to the district attorney position to which he had been appointed. What makes this widely held motive so laughable is the fact that simple math would point out that the way to assure victory in the May 2006 primary was to dismiss the Duke Lacrosse case, not pursue it. Williamson and Duke Lacrosse defense attorney Kirk Osborn, among others seemed to believe that by wooing the black vote, Mr. Nifong would win the primary. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the voting results confirmed that. Of the African Americans who made up 38.2% of the total registered voters, they accounted for only 34% of those who voted in the primary. Fewer blacks turned out percentage-wise. Of the white voters who comprised 56.3% of the total registered voters, they accounted for a whopping 63% of the voters for the May 2, 2006 primary. A higher turnout of white voters percentage-wise. Yet, Mike Nifong won, proving wrong the WTVD ABC 11 Eyewitness News poll that proclaimed the primary race was a dead heat with Nifong requiring a huge black turnout in order to beat chief rival Freda Black. ABC 11 News deserves a lot of credit for this Jedi Mind-trick, for its poll and coverage convinced many that Nifong would benefit by pursuing the Duke Lacrosse case. The fact is, that pursuing the Duke Lacrosse case presented a tremendous impediment for him to overcome on his way to victory.
Besides disbarring Mr. Nifong, the North Carolina State Bar decided to turn the knife in his back while simultaneously pouring salt in his wounds. They decided to send Mr. Nifong an invoice to cover the costs of holding the five day hearing to disbar him. The bill amounted to eight thousand, eight hundred ninety-seven dollars and 91 cents ($8,897.91), with payment due within ninety days. According to the Bar’s counsel, Katherine E. Jean, the Bar is given this authority under regulation: 27 NCAC 1B .0109(8). She informed me that this regulation was used when it fined David Hoke and Deborah Graves for their disciplinary hearing held years earlier… however they were billed a total of $702.10… an amount which they shared, each paying half. Even though David Hoke’s actions against Alan Gell were far more egregious than anything Mr. Nifong was accused of doing in the Duke Lacrosse case, Hoke got off paying $350.05, whereas Mr. Nifong faced a tab that approached nine thousand dollars. The disparity in the amounts of the fines can be attributed to but one thing…the carpetbagger jihad against Mike Nifong. How many other attorneys have been sent an invoice by the State Bar to pay for the costs to discipline them? Not many, I bet. I was only given the one example other than Mike Nifong.
All I can say is, “How shameful.” Selective persecution against Mike Nifong has sadly been widespread among state agencies, especially the unregulated State Bar.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
MSNBC legal analyst needs more than a pretty face... objectivity and fairness would be a good start
Susan F. Filan, senior legal analyst for MSNBC TV, authored an online editorial in mid-June 2007, titled: "Nifong's punishment is extreme, appropriate." Although opinion pieces have a bit more leeway than news articles, they should at least consist of facts, statements should be substantiated within the text, and there should be a modicum of objectivity. In fact, the entire article is misleading, inaccurate, and flagrantly biased, beginning with her initial premise that disbarment of a lawyer is as rare as a "unicorn sighting." Nothing could be further from the truth. Since its inception in 1933, the North Carolina State Bar has disbarred thousands of attorneys. According to their own web page posted in the past, approximately 350 attorneys were disbarred during a ten year period, an average of nearly three a month. This blatantly false statement is made for the purpose of making former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong's disbarment reflect more harshly on his actions in the Duke Lacrosse case.
Had Ms. Filan stated that disbarment of prosecutors is as rare as "unicorn sightings," then that would be right on. During its 76 years in existence, the North Carolina State Bar has only disbarred one prosecutor... Mike Nifong. This, despite the fact that North Carolina lags just behind Illinois and Louisiana in the number of death row inmates who have been exonerated. Many of them, such as Alan Gell, were convicted due to prosecutorial misconduct by their prosecutor (in this particular case, David Hoke, who is now serving as assistant director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts). However the state, the Duke Lacrosse defense attorneys, and the media, including Ms. Filan, purposely keep the fact that Mr. Nifong is the only prosecutor to be disbarred hidden from the public. That is what makes his treatment so selective, also when you adopt our view which is that Mr. Nifong did nothing wrong in pursuing prosecution in the Duke Lacrosse case.
Ms. Filan presumptuously states that Mr. Nifong will not receive his pension and not be able to retire, which is exactly what he is doing. And, he is not starting "from scratch" as Ms. Filan again falsely predicted. The article by Ms. Filan is filled with a lot of baseless speculation (or "bs"), and misleading and false statements. Most outrageous is the accusation that Mr. Nifong used the Duke case to get re-elected. What information does she have to base this upon? The only television ad I recall appearing during the campaign season which used the Duke Lacrosse case for his/her advantage was run by Attorney General Roy Cooper... "The Duke Lacrosse Decision." In prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case, Mr. Nifong was merely doing his job. By suggest that performing his duties as district attorney while running for re-election is a conflict of interest is absurd. Does she expect Mr. Nifong to remain idle until the election returns are in? F. Lane Williamson of the State Bar also buy into this ridiculous belief, which they both know to be false. These statements are made purely to mold the impressionable minds of the lay public.
Ms. Filan really gets in the gutter when she accuses Mr. Nifong of using his son as a ploy to gain sympathy, leniency, and pity. I seen nothing wrong with a knowledgeable older teenage son wanting to show support for his father by attending his hearing. What I find reprehensible is Ms. Filan's attempt to spin this positive family gesture into something sinister. It is Ms. Filan, not Mr. Nifong, who is guilty of taking advantage of Mr. Nifong's son by needlessly bringing it up in her article in order to get in yet another cheap shot at Mike Nifong. Ms. Filan's actions here are truly shameful, and unbefitting a respectable news outlet.
One of the most ludicrous accusations penned by Ms. Filan is that Mr. Nifong damaged the reputation of Duke University. I would like to know how? She also insinuates that he damaged the reputation of the sport of lacrosse? Again, how?
I don't have a law degree, but I did take a civics class in high school, and I learned about the three different branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. An attorney general, who belongs to he executive branch, cannot make a judicial pronouncement. Yet the media and Ms. Filan give Roy Cooper's "innocent" proclamation the validity as that coming from a judge or jury. This is wrong, period! She also claims that Mr. Nifong damaged the lives of three "innocent" young men. How? They never spent one day in jail, they each received $7 million from Duke University in an out-of-court settlement for reasons unbeknownst to me, they are heroically depicted in books, there is an upcoming HBO movie about these wonderful lads, and individually, Collin Finnerty's celebrity moved a judge to expunge an assault charge from his record. Furthermore, they have all continued on with their lives, one graduating, the other two being offered reinstatement at Duke but deciding to enroll in other prestigious institutes of higher learning with lacrosse teams. Also, the families of these boys are currently seeking an additional $10 million from the cash-strapped city of Durham (which has already spent well more than a million dollars to defend). In the annals of North Carolina jurisprudence, there are many far more compelling instances of truly innocent people whose live have been severely damaged, and by and large, they are the disenfranchised, poor, and/or people of color.
One of the most outrageous statements made by Ms. Filan suggests that Mr. Nifong, in prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case, damaged the public's confidence in the criminal justice system (of North Carolina). Ms. Filan fails to place blame for the public's sour perception of the criminal justice system where it is due... not on Mike Nifong, but on actions of Prosecutors Hoke, Graves, Honeycutt, Brewer, Parker, Wolfe, Keith, Ford, Black, Hardin, McFadyen and a multitude of others. Hoke and Graves won a conviction by withholding exculpatory evidence which resulted in an innocent man being convicted of capital murder and spending more than nine years in jail. Bill Wolfe charged the teenager James Arthur Johnson who solved the Brittany Willis murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery with those crimes based solely on the word of the killer, who implicated Johnson only after investigators told him that Johnson "snitched" on him. After the killer recanted, Wolfe brought forward two "eyewitnesses," both with connections to the police department. These witnesses disappeared when media scrutiny became a factor. Johnson served 39 months in jail without a trial before charges were finally dropped by a special prosecutor. Michael Parker charged mentally retarded Floyd Brown with murder based on a confession which experts said Brown could not possibly made. Brown was held for fourteen years without a trial for the murder, and charges were reluctantly dismissed. Prosecutor Tom Ford tried to force Gregory Taylor to falsely implicate a black suspect for a murder. Ford threatened Taylor that if he did not cooperate, then he would charge Taylor with the crime (which is what he did). Without cause and no physical evidence linking Gregory Taylor to the crime, Ford won a conviction against him based on solely on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch and a prostitute. Their testimony was given in exchange for a decrease in their jail sentence, a fact which the prosecutor willfully withheld from Taylor's defense attorney. Prosecutors were so incensed with Theodore Jerry Williams for complaining about the District Attorney, that correction guards beat him up while in custody, his face pulverized and arm broken. They then charged Williams with assaulting a guard. When the case was dismissed because the prosecution destroyed material evidence that the defendant had requested, Attorney General Roy Cooper appealed. These are only a few of the cases that shed a disfavorable light on the North Carolina justice system. Not Mr. Nifong's actions in the Duke Lacrosse case.
Mr. Nifong's actions in prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case were well within the acceptable standards practiced by other prosecutors. He did not withhold evidence, as the defense attorneys had all DNA lab evidence no later than October 27, 2006, at a time when a court date had yet to be set. In addition, the DNA evidence Mr. Nifong is accused of "withholding" was not exculpatory, as the defense attorneys and media would have the public believe. Mr. Nifong did not lie to the court when he stated that "this is the first that I have heard of this situation." He was without a doubt referring to the first he had heard that the defense attorneys had accused him of withholding evidence. Chairman of the Disciplinary Hearing Commission F. Lane Williamson is no mind reader, and a reasonable person would not accept his interpretation of Mr. Nifong's statement over Nifong's own interpretation. The statement itself was not material and should never have been given the attention it was given, however, the State Bar was so desperate to find a reason to disbar Mr. Nifong that they grasped at all straws. Finally, pre-trial statements made by Mr. Nifong were benign, made prior to indictments being handed down, and were intended to encourage witnesses to come forward. The majority of pre-trial statements made to the media were done so by the attorneys of the Duke Lacrosse defendants, yet Ms. Filan wants to accuse Mr. Nifong of going "Hollywood" and trying the case in the press.
If Mr. Nifong was guilty of any wrongdoing in his prosecution of the Duke Lacrosse case you could not tell by reading Ms. Filan's article. Never once did she explain what he did that was deserving of disbarment. She is not alone, because law professors at Duke University School of Law are unable to explain why Mr. Nifong was disbarred. I asked more than two dozen of them, and they were even afraid to discuss what has become a taboo topic. Taboo because the attorneys, and individuals with a knowledge and understanding of the issues surrounding Mr. Nifong's disbarment, know that the actions by the North Carolina State Bar are selective and unjust. Had the Bar's disbarment of Mr. Nifong been justified, attorneys and law school professors would not be hesitant to enter into dialogue about it.
I have no problem with opinion pieces that are accurate and based on facts, however I take umbrage when such statements are based on lies, rumor, unsubstiated pronouncements, and baseless speculation. In her article "Nifong's punishment is extreme, appropriate," MSNBC Senior legal analyst Susan Filan not only does a disservice to her professions in the legal and media arenas, but an even greater disservice to the impressionable media consuming public. The article is a disgrace.
That said, I believe in fair play, and I would like to offer Ms. Filan the opportunity to respond on our blog site (www.justice4nifong.blogspot.com), our website (www.justice4nifong.com), or in any other venue or forum over which the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong has control. Any response would be published in its entirety without editing or direct rebuttal. Shortly after the posting of this blog, I will send by postal mail an invitation to Ms. Filan asking for a reply not only to issues covered in her article and this blog, but on any other related or unrelated subjects upon which she may wish to expound.
Had Ms. Filan stated that disbarment of prosecutors is as rare as "unicorn sightings," then that would be right on. During its 76 years in existence, the North Carolina State Bar has only disbarred one prosecutor... Mike Nifong. This, despite the fact that North Carolina lags just behind Illinois and Louisiana in the number of death row inmates who have been exonerated. Many of them, such as Alan Gell, were convicted due to prosecutorial misconduct by their prosecutor (in this particular case, David Hoke, who is now serving as assistant director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts). However the state, the Duke Lacrosse defense attorneys, and the media, including Ms. Filan, purposely keep the fact that Mr. Nifong is the only prosecutor to be disbarred hidden from the public. That is what makes his treatment so selective, also when you adopt our view which is that Mr. Nifong did nothing wrong in pursuing prosecution in the Duke Lacrosse case.
Ms. Filan presumptuously states that Mr. Nifong will not receive his pension and not be able to retire, which is exactly what he is doing. And, he is not starting "from scratch" as Ms. Filan again falsely predicted. The article by Ms. Filan is filled with a lot of baseless speculation (or "bs"), and misleading and false statements. Most outrageous is the accusation that Mr. Nifong used the Duke case to get re-elected. What information does she have to base this upon? The only television ad I recall appearing during the campaign season which used the Duke Lacrosse case for his/her advantage was run by Attorney General Roy Cooper... "The Duke Lacrosse Decision." In prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case, Mr. Nifong was merely doing his job. By suggest that performing his duties as district attorney while running for re-election is a conflict of interest is absurd. Does she expect Mr. Nifong to remain idle until the election returns are in? F. Lane Williamson of the State Bar also buy into this ridiculous belief, which they both know to be false. These statements are made purely to mold the impressionable minds of the lay public.
Ms. Filan really gets in the gutter when she accuses Mr. Nifong of using his son as a ploy to gain sympathy, leniency, and pity. I seen nothing wrong with a knowledgeable older teenage son wanting to show support for his father by attending his hearing. What I find reprehensible is Ms. Filan's attempt to spin this positive family gesture into something sinister. It is Ms. Filan, not Mr. Nifong, who is guilty of taking advantage of Mr. Nifong's son by needlessly bringing it up in her article in order to get in yet another cheap shot at Mike Nifong. Ms. Filan's actions here are truly shameful, and unbefitting a respectable news outlet.
One of the most ludicrous accusations penned by Ms. Filan is that Mr. Nifong damaged the reputation of Duke University. I would like to know how? She also insinuates that he damaged the reputation of the sport of lacrosse? Again, how?
I don't have a law degree, but I did take a civics class in high school, and I learned about the three different branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. An attorney general, who belongs to he executive branch, cannot make a judicial pronouncement. Yet the media and Ms. Filan give Roy Cooper's "innocent" proclamation the validity as that coming from a judge or jury. This is wrong, period! She also claims that Mr. Nifong damaged the lives of three "innocent" young men. How? They never spent one day in jail, they each received $7 million from Duke University in an out-of-court settlement for reasons unbeknownst to me, they are heroically depicted in books, there is an upcoming HBO movie about these wonderful lads, and individually, Collin Finnerty's celebrity moved a judge to expunge an assault charge from his record. Furthermore, they have all continued on with their lives, one graduating, the other two being offered reinstatement at Duke but deciding to enroll in other prestigious institutes of higher learning with lacrosse teams. Also, the families of these boys are currently seeking an additional $10 million from the cash-strapped city of Durham (which has already spent well more than a million dollars to defend). In the annals of North Carolina jurisprudence, there are many far more compelling instances of truly innocent people whose live have been severely damaged, and by and large, they are the disenfranchised, poor, and/or people of color.
One of the most outrageous statements made by Ms. Filan suggests that Mr. Nifong, in prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case, damaged the public's confidence in the criminal justice system (of North Carolina). Ms. Filan fails to place blame for the public's sour perception of the criminal justice system where it is due... not on Mike Nifong, but on actions of Prosecutors Hoke, Graves, Honeycutt, Brewer, Parker, Wolfe, Keith, Ford, Black, Hardin, McFadyen and a multitude of others. Hoke and Graves won a conviction by withholding exculpatory evidence which resulted in an innocent man being convicted of capital murder and spending more than nine years in jail. Bill Wolfe charged the teenager James Arthur Johnson who solved the Brittany Willis murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery with those crimes based solely on the word of the killer, who implicated Johnson only after investigators told him that Johnson "snitched" on him. After the killer recanted, Wolfe brought forward two "eyewitnesses," both with connections to the police department. These witnesses disappeared when media scrutiny became a factor. Johnson served 39 months in jail without a trial before charges were finally dropped by a special prosecutor. Michael Parker charged mentally retarded Floyd Brown with murder based on a confession which experts said Brown could not possibly made. Brown was held for fourteen years without a trial for the murder, and charges were reluctantly dismissed. Prosecutor Tom Ford tried to force Gregory Taylor to falsely implicate a black suspect for a murder. Ford threatened Taylor that if he did not cooperate, then he would charge Taylor with the crime (which is what he did). Without cause and no physical evidence linking Gregory Taylor to the crime, Ford won a conviction against him based on solely on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch and a prostitute. Their testimony was given in exchange for a decrease in their jail sentence, a fact which the prosecutor willfully withheld from Taylor's defense attorney. Prosecutors were so incensed with Theodore Jerry Williams for complaining about the District Attorney, that correction guards beat him up while in custody, his face pulverized and arm broken. They then charged Williams with assaulting a guard. When the case was dismissed because the prosecution destroyed material evidence that the defendant had requested, Attorney General Roy Cooper appealed. These are only a few of the cases that shed a disfavorable light on the North Carolina justice system. Not Mr. Nifong's actions in the Duke Lacrosse case.
Mr. Nifong's actions in prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case were well within the acceptable standards practiced by other prosecutors. He did not withhold evidence, as the defense attorneys had all DNA lab evidence no later than October 27, 2006, at a time when a court date had yet to be set. In addition, the DNA evidence Mr. Nifong is accused of "withholding" was not exculpatory, as the defense attorneys and media would have the public believe. Mr. Nifong did not lie to the court when he stated that "this is the first that I have heard of this situation." He was without a doubt referring to the first he had heard that the defense attorneys had accused him of withholding evidence. Chairman of the Disciplinary Hearing Commission F. Lane Williamson is no mind reader, and a reasonable person would not accept his interpretation of Mr. Nifong's statement over Nifong's own interpretation. The statement itself was not material and should never have been given the attention it was given, however, the State Bar was so desperate to find a reason to disbar Mr. Nifong that they grasped at all straws. Finally, pre-trial statements made by Mr. Nifong were benign, made prior to indictments being handed down, and were intended to encourage witnesses to come forward. The majority of pre-trial statements made to the media were done so by the attorneys of the Duke Lacrosse defendants, yet Ms. Filan wants to accuse Mr. Nifong of going "Hollywood" and trying the case in the press.
If Mr. Nifong was guilty of any wrongdoing in his prosecution of the Duke Lacrosse case you could not tell by reading Ms. Filan's article. Never once did she explain what he did that was deserving of disbarment. She is not alone, because law professors at Duke University School of Law are unable to explain why Mr. Nifong was disbarred. I asked more than two dozen of them, and they were even afraid to discuss what has become a taboo topic. Taboo because the attorneys, and individuals with a knowledge and understanding of the issues surrounding Mr. Nifong's disbarment, know that the actions by the North Carolina State Bar are selective and unjust. Had the Bar's disbarment of Mr. Nifong been justified, attorneys and law school professors would not be hesitant to enter into dialogue about it.
I have no problem with opinion pieces that are accurate and based on facts, however I take umbrage when such statements are based on lies, rumor, unsubstiated pronouncements, and baseless speculation. In her article "Nifong's punishment is extreme, appropriate," MSNBC Senior legal analyst Susan Filan not only does a disservice to her professions in the legal and media arenas, but an even greater disservice to the impressionable media consuming public. The article is a disgrace.
That said, I believe in fair play, and I would like to offer Ms. Filan the opportunity to respond on our blog site (www.justice4nifong.blogspot.com), our website (www.justice4nifong.com), or in any other venue or forum over which the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong has control. Any response would be published in its entirety without editing or direct rebuttal. Shortly after the posting of this blog, I will send by postal mail an invitation to Ms. Filan asking for a reply not only to issues covered in her article and this blog, but on any other related or unrelated subjects upon which she may wish to expound.
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