During the past twelve months, Tar Heelians have had few successes in the criminal justice system tally, but the few we have had have been profoundly significant. Without doubt, our number one blessing for which we should all be thankful is the release from a life sentence and exoneration from a murder conviction of Gregory Flint Taylor. Taylor, you will recall, was maliciously and willfully convicted for the 1991 murder of Jacquetta Thomas in Raleigh. Prosecutor Tom Ford managed to win a conviction against Taylor despite 1) lack of physical evidence tying Taylor to the crime; 2) the use of perjured testimony from unreliable and compromised witnesses; and 3) hocus-pocus forensics by the SBI lab. With full knowledge that Taylor was innocent of the crime, Prosecutor Ford prosecuted Taylor in a vendetta against Taylor who refused to falsely implicate Johnny Beck, a black man who was the primary target of Ford in this crime. We are all grateful that Taylor, though wrongfully incarcerated for seventeen years, was finally freed through the efforts of advocates for the wrongly convicted.
Secondly, all Tar Heelians should be thankful for the work of the NC Center for Actual Innocence for its significant contributions in winning the freedom of Greg Taylor. We are fortunate to have Christine Mumma, its director and co-founder, along with co-founder retired Judge I. Beverly Lake, heading this august group.
Third, we can also be thankful for work done by Duke law professor James Coleman on behalf of the wrongly convicted and incarcerated. Heading a program at Duke University School of Law, it has met with successes during the past year, as well.
Fourth, we can all be thankful for the exposure of the unfair and unethical practices employed by NC prosecutors who manipulated the shoddy SBI lab results that were instrumental in obtaining hocus-pocus “win-at-all-cost” convictions. Hopefully, revelations about these unfair practices which have been in play for decades will present currently imprisoned innocents with keys to freedom from their unjust confinement.
Fifth, we should be thankful for the courageous members of the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong, who lend their names and faces to the worthy cause of seeking justice for Mike Nifong… justice being the unilateral and unconditional reinstatement of his license to practice law in North Carolina without restrictions.
Finally, all North Carolinians can be thankful for Mike Nifong who represents the ideals of a prosecutorial “Minister of Justice.” In the Duke Lacrosse case, Nifong placed his dedication and determination to pursue justice above the real and imminent threat of losing his incumbency bid to be elected as Durham district attorney. He eschewed the warnings and pressures of prosecuting the case by acting independently to pursue justice against three defendants deemed by many – including media-types – to be of Class and Color too powerful, prestigious, privileged, and prominent to be convicted. And because Mike Nifong adhered to the principle of “equal justice for all,” he, like Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett (who defied England’s King Henry II) suffered the consequences by being subjected to singular and draconian retribution by the state of North Carolina, and crucifixion in the biased mainstream media.
We should all give thanks fo the above. Hopefully by the time next Thanksgiving rolls around, we will have more criminal justice victories under our belt to celebrate.
I would like to thank all of those who have contributed comments to this blog regardless of their positions, all who read this blog, and all who are advocates for justice in North Carolina. Your participation is what makes this blog the success it is and contributes to making justice in the state a reality and not just a mirage. I am hoping that you all enjoy the presence of family and friends during this special holiday, and that after a hearty meal of turkey, stuffing, cranberries and all of the trimmings you are able to push away from the dinner table without being uncomfortably stuffed.
Showing posts with label Jacquetta Thomas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jacquetta Thomas. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Captain Ahab has nothing on Prosecutor Tom Ford
Many consider Captain Ahab’s obsession to kill Moby Dick, the great White whale that took his leg, to be the height of obsessive behavior. Well, you’ll need to push that aside and make room for Wake Prosecutor Tom Ford’s obsession to convict Johnny Beck, the African American drug partner of Gregory Taylor the night that Jacquetta Thomas was murdered in 1991. As has been stated previously, Tom Ford did not care a whit about the black prostitute who was murdered, and therefore had no desire to solve the crime. He was only interested in convicting someone for it, and if he could sentence a black male to spend the rest of his life in jail, so much the better. He pinned his hopes on charging and convicting Beck on perjured testimony of Gregory Taylor. However, things did not work out as planned for the wily prosecutor who had the art of perjury-based convictions down to a science. Mr. Taylor, to the dismay of Ford, was a man of principles and integrity, and he refused to commit perjury and implicate a man who he knew to be innocent of committing homicide. So, Ford, using his trademark m.o. of perjured testimony in exchange for lesser sentences, along with fantasy forensics, convicted an obviously innocent man for the murder of Jacquetta Thomas… and it carried a life sentence.
While serving this life sentence, Ford approached Taylor in prison, and offered the promise of a lighter sentence if only he would lie under oath in order to enable him to charge Beck with the murder of Jacquetta Thomas. Even under these conditions, Greg Taylor held firm to his convictions… prepared to spend the rest of his life in jail rather than falsely finger an innocent man. And Taylor languished in jail for seventeen years until his case was finally heard by the Innocence Inquiry Commission, which led to his freedom and exoneration by Governor Bev Perdue in 2010.
According to an article in The News & Observer, dated October 6, 2010, Wake County prosecutors, led by District Attorney Colon Willoughby are focusing on Johnny Beck as the primary suspect in the 1991 Thomas homicide. The Mandy Locke article, titled “Taylor’s companion still investigated,” did break with tradition by mentioning Tom Ford’s name (in violation of the PAPEN Policy). And it was a powerful paragraph at the end of the article which bears repeating: “Charges against Beck were dismissed in August 1993. A month earlier, Wake County Assistant District Attorney Tom Ford wrote to Taylor and told him that he could persuade the governor to adjust Taylor's sentence if he would testify against Beck. Taylor refused.”
Charges were dismissed against Beck in 1993. So, what has changed in the subsequent seventeen years to make Wake County prosecutors focus their investigation on Beck now? I can think of only two things: (1) Gregory Taylor has been completely exonerated; and (2) Prosecutor Tom Ford, his prosecution against Taylor, and the SBI lab has been totally discredited. It was not only obvious to the three judge panel and the media that Gregory Taylor was innocent, but it is also obvious to the public. If Taylor is innocent of the murder of Jacquetta Thomas, then by all rationale, Johnny Beck, his companion of that fateful night, is innocent as well.
By pursuing Beck as a suspect, D.A. Willoughby and his team are essentially saying that the public is stupid. The N&O reported as follows: “Willoughby said in the motion that any evidence showing contact between Thomas and a white vehicle may be relevant to prosecutors or defense attorneys should anyone be prosecuted for Thomas' death in the future.” I fail to comprehend the logic therein. Personally, I am insulted by Willoughby’s reasoning for wanting to hold on to property of Taylor and Beck. It is almost as insulting to my intelligence as was the statement by Duke University’s Michael Schoenfeld that defined “solicitation” as handing out business cards.
The obsessive targeting of Johnny Beck for a murder he could not have committed not only insults the intelligence of Tar Heelians and wastes taxpayer money, but goes contrary to the supposed role of prosecutors acting as “Ministers of Justice.” A true minister of justice would have dismissed Gregory Taylor and Johnny Beck as suspects in the Thomas murder back in 1991 or early 1992 (at the latest). Alas, Tom Ford, and Colon Willoughby are no ministers of justice by their actions in this case. Neither was the Attorney General’s Office acting as a minister of justice when it re-tried Alan Gell after it became apparent that Prosecutor David Hoke withheld from defense attorneys 17 eyewitness statements that proved beyond doubt that Gell could not have possibly committed the murder for which he was sentenced to die.
A shining example of a true Minister of Justice can be found in the way former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong handled the Duke Lacrosse case. After initially charging the three Duke Lacrosse defendants with multiple offenses, Mr. Nifong dismissed the charge of rape when he felt that statements by the alleged victim no longer supported it. He, however, continued to pursue other charges against the defendants, including sexual assault. This is the action of a prosecutor with an open mind who is determined to aggressively seek a conviction, but with the priority of first and foremost attaining justice. Mr. Nifong never tried to solicit perjured testimony or false statements as did Wake County Prosecutor Tom Ford in the Gregory Taylor case. Mr. Nifong never harbored personal ill-will or a vendetta against the defendants… he just merely executed his job to the best of his abilities and within acceptable standards.
Hopefully the judge hearing the motion filed by Willoughby, to hang on to evidentiary property that is no longer of value, will deny his request. Enough is enough. Johnny Beck is innocent… just like Gregory Taylor. It is past time to put an end to this Tom Ford foolery.
NOTE: Link provided below tells of interesting event featuring Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson. (Click the botton featuring that headline)
LINK: http://justice4nifong.com/direc/newsDirec/news.htm
While serving this life sentence, Ford approached Taylor in prison, and offered the promise of a lighter sentence if only he would lie under oath in order to enable him to charge Beck with the murder of Jacquetta Thomas. Even under these conditions, Greg Taylor held firm to his convictions… prepared to spend the rest of his life in jail rather than falsely finger an innocent man. And Taylor languished in jail for seventeen years until his case was finally heard by the Innocence Inquiry Commission, which led to his freedom and exoneration by Governor Bev Perdue in 2010.
According to an article in The News & Observer, dated October 6, 2010, Wake County prosecutors, led by District Attorney Colon Willoughby are focusing on Johnny Beck as the primary suspect in the 1991 Thomas homicide. The Mandy Locke article, titled “Taylor’s companion still investigated,” did break with tradition by mentioning Tom Ford’s name (in violation of the PAPEN Policy). And it was a powerful paragraph at the end of the article which bears repeating: “Charges against Beck were dismissed in August 1993. A month earlier, Wake County Assistant District Attorney Tom Ford wrote to Taylor and told him that he could persuade the governor to adjust Taylor's sentence if he would testify against Beck. Taylor refused.”
Charges were dismissed against Beck in 1993. So, what has changed in the subsequent seventeen years to make Wake County prosecutors focus their investigation on Beck now? I can think of only two things: (1) Gregory Taylor has been completely exonerated; and (2) Prosecutor Tom Ford, his prosecution against Taylor, and the SBI lab has been totally discredited. It was not only obvious to the three judge panel and the media that Gregory Taylor was innocent, but it is also obvious to the public. If Taylor is innocent of the murder of Jacquetta Thomas, then by all rationale, Johnny Beck, his companion of that fateful night, is innocent as well.
By pursuing Beck as a suspect, D.A. Willoughby and his team are essentially saying that the public is stupid. The N&O reported as follows: “Willoughby said in the motion that any evidence showing contact between Thomas and a white vehicle may be relevant to prosecutors or defense attorneys should anyone be prosecuted for Thomas' death in the future.” I fail to comprehend the logic therein. Personally, I am insulted by Willoughby’s reasoning for wanting to hold on to property of Taylor and Beck. It is almost as insulting to my intelligence as was the statement by Duke University’s Michael Schoenfeld that defined “solicitation” as handing out business cards.
The obsessive targeting of Johnny Beck for a murder he could not have committed not only insults the intelligence of Tar Heelians and wastes taxpayer money, but goes contrary to the supposed role of prosecutors acting as “Ministers of Justice.” A true minister of justice would have dismissed Gregory Taylor and Johnny Beck as suspects in the Thomas murder back in 1991 or early 1992 (at the latest). Alas, Tom Ford, and Colon Willoughby are no ministers of justice by their actions in this case. Neither was the Attorney General’s Office acting as a minister of justice when it re-tried Alan Gell after it became apparent that Prosecutor David Hoke withheld from defense attorneys 17 eyewitness statements that proved beyond doubt that Gell could not have possibly committed the murder for which he was sentenced to die.
A shining example of a true Minister of Justice can be found in the way former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong handled the Duke Lacrosse case. After initially charging the three Duke Lacrosse defendants with multiple offenses, Mr. Nifong dismissed the charge of rape when he felt that statements by the alleged victim no longer supported it. He, however, continued to pursue other charges against the defendants, including sexual assault. This is the action of a prosecutor with an open mind who is determined to aggressively seek a conviction, but with the priority of first and foremost attaining justice. Mr. Nifong never tried to solicit perjured testimony or false statements as did Wake County Prosecutor Tom Ford in the Gregory Taylor case. Mr. Nifong never harbored personal ill-will or a vendetta against the defendants… he just merely executed his job to the best of his abilities and within acceptable standards.
Hopefully the judge hearing the motion filed by Willoughby, to hang on to evidentiary property that is no longer of value, will deny his request. Enough is enough. Johnny Beck is innocent… just like Gregory Taylor. It is past time to put an end to this Tom Ford foolery.
NOTE: Link provided below tells of interesting event featuring Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson. (Click the botton featuring that headline)
LINK: http://justice4nifong.com/direc/newsDirec/news.htm
Monday, October 11, 2010
SBI agent Duane Deaver to be sacrificial lamb
The abominable legal proceeding in 1993 that resulted in an innocent man, Gregory Taylor, being locked away for seventeen years on a murder charge can be credited to Wake County prosecutor Tom Ford. When confronted with the 1991 murder of Jacquetta Thomas, an African American prostitute whose body was discovered in a desolate Raleigh cul-de-sac, Mr. Ford’s primary goal was to close the case quickly by convicting a “perpetrator.” Ford didn’t care whether or not the designated “perpetrator” was guilty or not, because he did not care about the victim or her family. So he set his sights on two unfortunate individuals who happened to come upon the body in the early morning hours after they were forced to walk from their vehicle which had gotten stuck in the mud.
Because the disabled vehicle belonged to Taylor, Ford felt obligated to charge him… but only as an accomplice. What Ford really wanted was to pressure Taylor to implicate Johnny Beck, the black man with whom Taylor had been doing drugs just hours prior to the discovery of the body. Other than walking by the body earlier in the morning, there was no physical evidence connecting Taylor or his African American friend to the crime. Furthermore, no plausible motive existed for Taylor or Beck to attack Ms. Thomas. To win a conviction, Ford would resort to the tactic which he has honed to an art… obtain perjured testimony in exchange for the promise of leniency or a reduced sentence.
No “Minister of Justice” Prosecutor Tom Ford believed that this cut and dried case would be shut and closed easily, by threatening Taylor with life in prison unless he cooperated with his demands that he implicate the black man (who Ford had no reason to believe was guilty of the homicide). After all, Ford believed, Greg Taylor did not come from the upper echelon of society, he was not of a privileged class, and he was a drug user. And, all he had to do was implicate a black man… how hard could that be? An easy choice, right? It would have been an easy choice for Ford, and probably 99 per cent of people in the state. But this would not be a slam dunk for Ford, because he had not counted on Taylor possessing the integrity and moral compass to withstand his despicable offer.
Gregory Taylor never wavered in the accounting of his innocence and that of Johnny Beck, but that didn’t deter Prosecutor Ford. Tom Ford was obsessed with putting the African American man behind bars for life, and Taylor’s refusal to join his conspiracy did nothing but fuel Ford’s animus towards Taylor. Because Taylor would not comply with Ford’s game plan, Ford utilized the same “perjured testimony” tactic (that he tried unsuccessfully to employ using Taylor to implicate Beck) to obtain a guilty verdict against Taylor. Ford approached two disreputable individuals and promised them a reduction in their sentences in exchange for testimony that would implicate Greg Taylor in the murder of Ms. Thomas. They both jumped at the opportunity, lied before the court, and handed Prosecutor Ford his tainted courtroom victory. As a result, Taylor was sentenced to serve the remainder of his life in prison. He served seventeen long years in prison before the truth of his indisputable innocence would surface.
It was during the hearing which freed Taylor that it became apparent that Ford not only employed false witnesses in obtaining Taylor’s conviction, but that he also used false science. SBI agent Duane Deaver, it seems, had given misleading and false testimony about the presence of blood on the bumper of Taylor’s SUV, which became mired in the mud the night of the Thomas murder. Although he knew that presumptive tests for blood were not supported by a confirmative lab test, Deaver did not give such testimony in court. The jury was misled into believing that blood from Taylor’s vehicle was linked to the body. Taylor’s 2010 hearing before the three judge panel that exonerated him also exposed how Ford used a little hocus pocus on the 1992 jury in winning a conviction by getting tracking dog handlers to imply that a trail could be traced from the victim to Taylor’s vehicle.
Tom Ford orchestrated the cruel and vindictive prosecution against Gregory Taylor, skillfully bringing in false witnesses and false testimony resulting in a conviction. However, the media has given Ford a pass on this debacle, and instead has zeroed in on Duane Deaver. The News & Observer led the charge against Deaver and the SBI with its four part series on the misdeeds of the SBI in the Taylor case. However, in compliance with its PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy, Ford’s name was mentioned only once or twice (and then, in passing). So, the criminal justice system, in following the media’s lead, has ordered a contempt hearing for Mr. Deaver on the charge that he made false and misleading testimony before the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission in 2009. According to a recent News & Observer article, a date for the hearing has not been set. Deaver has become the sacrificial lamb for the miscues, mistakes, and malfeasance that resulted in an innocent man spending seventeen of his most productive years of life behind bars.
Focusing attention on SBI Agent Deaver, not only provides a scapegoat for the injustice that befell Greg Taylor, but it is to divert attention from the true culprit, Tom Ford. To believe that Ford did not know the substance on the bumper was not blood defies logic. Ford’s stock and trade in prosecuting comes from eliciting perjured courtroom testimony in exchange for promises of a reduced sentence. Deaver was nothing more than Ford’s accomplice. That’s not to say that Deaver should not face a hearing on his conduct, but I believe that his position is more defensible because he worked in a culture where it was acceptable to stretch the truth in order to obtain the desired outcome of a conviction. And it appears that Deaver was more than willing to work with vigilante prosecutors in their pursuit of rogue justice.
Despite the suffering experienced by Gregory Taylor and his family, the unresolved murder of Jacquetta Thomas and its impact on her family and friends, Tom Ford seems to have weathered the storm unscathed. The media has handled him with Teflon gloves and even powerhouse defense attorney Joseph B. Cheshire V complimented Ford on how well he handled the prosecution’s interests in Taylor’s February 2010 hearing. In fact, Cheshire, who represented Taylor in his hearing before the three judge panel, never uttered a disparaging word about Ford… a prosecutor who needlessly left many shattered lives in his wake. Now, Cheshire has no problem with castigating former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong who was prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case. That is because the Duke Lacrosse prosecution by Nifong was a North Carolina legal aberration in that it did not comply with the state’s tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color.” Cheshire was vociferous and upfront in his criticism of Nifong, pleading for the severest of sanctions against him, despite the fact that Mr. Nifong was doing nothing more than pursuing a prosecution which was well within acceptable standards. However, on the subject of Prosecutor Tom Ford (whose malicious, vindictive and vile prosecution of Cheshire’s own client Greg Taylor), Cheshire is as silent as a dormouse.
In North Carolina it is acceptable to sacrifice a prosecutor, such as Mr. Nifong, in order to set an example of what will happen if a prosecutor steps beyond the bounds of the state’s tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color.” It is also acceptable to sacrifice a designated scapegoat from another sector, such as SBI agent Duane Deaver, in order to protect a prosecutor who zealously clings to the state’s selective justice tenet.
Because the disabled vehicle belonged to Taylor, Ford felt obligated to charge him… but only as an accomplice. What Ford really wanted was to pressure Taylor to implicate Johnny Beck, the black man with whom Taylor had been doing drugs just hours prior to the discovery of the body. Other than walking by the body earlier in the morning, there was no physical evidence connecting Taylor or his African American friend to the crime. Furthermore, no plausible motive existed for Taylor or Beck to attack Ms. Thomas. To win a conviction, Ford would resort to the tactic which he has honed to an art… obtain perjured testimony in exchange for the promise of leniency or a reduced sentence.
No “Minister of Justice” Prosecutor Tom Ford believed that this cut and dried case would be shut and closed easily, by threatening Taylor with life in prison unless he cooperated with his demands that he implicate the black man (who Ford had no reason to believe was guilty of the homicide). After all, Ford believed, Greg Taylor did not come from the upper echelon of society, he was not of a privileged class, and he was a drug user. And, all he had to do was implicate a black man… how hard could that be? An easy choice, right? It would have been an easy choice for Ford, and probably 99 per cent of people in the state. But this would not be a slam dunk for Ford, because he had not counted on Taylor possessing the integrity and moral compass to withstand his despicable offer.
Gregory Taylor never wavered in the accounting of his innocence and that of Johnny Beck, but that didn’t deter Prosecutor Ford. Tom Ford was obsessed with putting the African American man behind bars for life, and Taylor’s refusal to join his conspiracy did nothing but fuel Ford’s animus towards Taylor. Because Taylor would not comply with Ford’s game plan, Ford utilized the same “perjured testimony” tactic (that he tried unsuccessfully to employ using Taylor to implicate Beck) to obtain a guilty verdict against Taylor. Ford approached two disreputable individuals and promised them a reduction in their sentences in exchange for testimony that would implicate Greg Taylor in the murder of Ms. Thomas. They both jumped at the opportunity, lied before the court, and handed Prosecutor Ford his tainted courtroom victory. As a result, Taylor was sentenced to serve the remainder of his life in prison. He served seventeen long years in prison before the truth of his indisputable innocence would surface.
It was during the hearing which freed Taylor that it became apparent that Ford not only employed false witnesses in obtaining Taylor’s conviction, but that he also used false science. SBI agent Duane Deaver, it seems, had given misleading and false testimony about the presence of blood on the bumper of Taylor’s SUV, which became mired in the mud the night of the Thomas murder. Although he knew that presumptive tests for blood were not supported by a confirmative lab test, Deaver did not give such testimony in court. The jury was misled into believing that blood from Taylor’s vehicle was linked to the body. Taylor’s 2010 hearing before the three judge panel that exonerated him also exposed how Ford used a little hocus pocus on the 1992 jury in winning a conviction by getting tracking dog handlers to imply that a trail could be traced from the victim to Taylor’s vehicle.
Tom Ford orchestrated the cruel and vindictive prosecution against Gregory Taylor, skillfully bringing in false witnesses and false testimony resulting in a conviction. However, the media has given Ford a pass on this debacle, and instead has zeroed in on Duane Deaver. The News & Observer led the charge against Deaver and the SBI with its four part series on the misdeeds of the SBI in the Taylor case. However, in compliance with its PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy, Ford’s name was mentioned only once or twice (and then, in passing). So, the criminal justice system, in following the media’s lead, has ordered a contempt hearing for Mr. Deaver on the charge that he made false and misleading testimony before the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission in 2009. According to a recent News & Observer article, a date for the hearing has not been set. Deaver has become the sacrificial lamb for the miscues, mistakes, and malfeasance that resulted in an innocent man spending seventeen of his most productive years of life behind bars.
Focusing attention on SBI Agent Deaver, not only provides a scapegoat for the injustice that befell Greg Taylor, but it is to divert attention from the true culprit, Tom Ford. To believe that Ford did not know the substance on the bumper was not blood defies logic. Ford’s stock and trade in prosecuting comes from eliciting perjured courtroom testimony in exchange for promises of a reduced sentence. Deaver was nothing more than Ford’s accomplice. That’s not to say that Deaver should not face a hearing on his conduct, but I believe that his position is more defensible because he worked in a culture where it was acceptable to stretch the truth in order to obtain the desired outcome of a conviction. And it appears that Deaver was more than willing to work with vigilante prosecutors in their pursuit of rogue justice.
Despite the suffering experienced by Gregory Taylor and his family, the unresolved murder of Jacquetta Thomas and its impact on her family and friends, Tom Ford seems to have weathered the storm unscathed. The media has handled him with Teflon gloves and even powerhouse defense attorney Joseph B. Cheshire V complimented Ford on how well he handled the prosecution’s interests in Taylor’s February 2010 hearing. In fact, Cheshire, who represented Taylor in his hearing before the three judge panel, never uttered a disparaging word about Ford… a prosecutor who needlessly left many shattered lives in his wake. Now, Cheshire has no problem with castigating former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong who was prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case. That is because the Duke Lacrosse prosecution by Nifong was a North Carolina legal aberration in that it did not comply with the state’s tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color.” Cheshire was vociferous and upfront in his criticism of Nifong, pleading for the severest of sanctions against him, despite the fact that Mr. Nifong was doing nothing more than pursuing a prosecution which was well within acceptable standards. However, on the subject of Prosecutor Tom Ford (whose malicious, vindictive and vile prosecution of Cheshire’s own client Greg Taylor), Cheshire is as silent as a dormouse.
In North Carolina it is acceptable to sacrifice a prosecutor, such as Mr. Nifong, in order to set an example of what will happen if a prosecutor steps beyond the bounds of the state’s tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color.” It is also acceptable to sacrifice a designated scapegoat from another sector, such as SBI agent Duane Deaver, in order to protect a prosecutor who zealously clings to the state’s selective justice tenet.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
An ultimate betrayal by the SBI agents and its lab?
The News & Observer, with a big boost from its recent four-part series on “Agents’ Secrets,” in which it actually shares blame with someone other than Mike Nifong for the abysmal state of the North Carolina justice system, is now the front-runner for my annual “Jedi Mind-trick Award”… barely squeaking ahead of NBC-17 News. The series by staff writers Mandy Locke and Joseph Neff predictably places blame for all the state’s criminal justice woes on a few bad apples in the State Bureau of Investigation and the forensic lab that it runs. The four-part series recounts numerous horrific tales of injustice and wrongful incarcerations that have occurred in the state in the not so distant past, but what is truly remarkable is that the writers did it while mentioning the name of a prosecutor (linked to a case) only once! And even when mentioned, it was not in a derogatory context. Ms. Locke and Mr. Neff surely deserve accolades for adhering to the PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy when presented with such a challenging topic. And they did well to shift all responsibility from North Carolina State prosecutors to SBI agents and SBI lab personnel.
When it comes down to it, a few individuals in the SBI and its lab were sacrificed as scapegoats to take the downfall and accept blame for all of the malicious and baseless prosecutions and lengthy incarcerations of the innocents that have occurred. The prosecutors, the newspaper would like you to believe, were nothing much more than bystanders and onlookers when the prosecutorial treads of injustice squashed designated individuals (mostly the disenfranchised, poor, and people of color) along with their civil and constitutional rights. From reading the four-part series, one would swear that the investigative agents and lab technicians were single-handedly in charge of determining the fate of the state’s defendants.
The Gregory Taylor case was, of course, mentioned. Revelations from his hearing before a three judge bench in February 2010 was responsible for media focus being directed at the SBI and its forensic practices. But Prosecutor Tom Ford’s name was never mentioned in the series, and his actions in that case were some of the most despicable in the annals of North Carolina juris prudence. Ford was responsible for the vindictive and malicious incarceration of Mr. Taylor because he (Taylor) would not bow to Ford’s urgings for him to implicate an innocent African American man in a murder. Without any credible evidence, Mr. Taylor was sentenced to life, and served 17 years before he was freed by a three judge panel. Ford was even a pivotal figure in attempts to persuade the recently seated panel to deny Taylor’s bid for freedom by arguing against Taylor’s release.
In the Taylor case, The News & Observer left the SBI lab workers and its lab protocol, which in general heavily trended in favor of the prosecution, holding the bag when it came to the fact that the prosecution identified blood on the bumper of Taylor’s car… crucial in winning a conviction against an innocent man. It was the only so-called “evidence” used by Ford against Taylor besides the trumped up testimony of two so-called “witnesses” seeking shorter sentences in exchange for their statements. Prosecutor Tom Ford is neither dumb nor naïve… to the contrary, he is smart, cunning, and calculating. Make no mistake about it, Ford knew in 1991, as well as in February of 2010, exactly what the SBI lab’s complete results were with respect to the red substance on the bumper of Greg Taylor’s vehicle. He was aware that the confirmatory tests did not support the specimen being human blood.
But with the murder of African American prostitute Jacquetta Thomas, Ford was not interested in solving a crime… because he cared not about the victim, his priority was in closing the case. Despite Tom Ford knowing that Taylor was innocent, Taylor’s refusal to falsely implicate Johnny Beck, a black “suspect,” was all it took for Ford to seek a life sentence conviction. Prosecutor Ford could care less whether results forthcoming from the lab were bogus or legit, as long as they supported his case against Taylor.
In another case cited by the newspaper, unnamed prosecutors referred to only as “Davie County prosecutors” supposedly relied on lab work and forensic testimony in prosecuting a Kernersville dentist for the murder of his wife. It seems that the SBI agent involved in the case did not make the appropriate notes and documentation, predated a document, and made false statements about evidence. According to the newspaper, the misdeeds by the agents and bloodstain pattern expert were done to fit the investigator’s theory. The reader is to believe that the unidentified prosecutors were totally out of the loop? Such a scenario is not to be believed as it is the prosecutors who drive the prosecution of defendants, not the other way around. The investigators and agents try to conjure up results backing up the prosecutor’s story about how the crime(s) unfolded and the defendant’s role.
Perhaps the most blatant example of the PAPEN Policy in The News & Observer series is a redacted quote by Barry Scheck who is questioning Alan Gell investigator Dwight Ransome: “When you were talking with [the district attorney], didn’t you…” Mr. Scheck probably said, “When you were talking with David Hoke, didn’t you…” So in order to protect the identity of the Gell prosecutor (Hoke) who put an innocent man (Gell) on death row despite exculpatory evidence that proved Gell could not possibly have committed a murder, the newspaper substituted a generic [the district attorney].
There are many more examples which I could point out, but doing so would only be redundant. The fact is that whether it’s DNA, bloodstain patterns, confirmatory testing for human blood, missing notations and documentation, false testimony, purposely not conducting tests on evidence, etc., the investigators and lab analysts who are acting unethically and inappropriately are doing so at the behest of the prosecutors to help win a conviction. By and large, prosecutors are anything but “ministers of justice” whom they are portrayed to be… prosecuting a case but seeking the truth and assuring that the defendant receives justice. In North Carolina with its system of “selective justice based on Class and Color,” prosecutors have absolutely no qualms about putting away individuals in society who are disenfranchised, poor, and people of color. Likewise, as exemplified by the murder of Jacquetta Thomas, prosecutors lack the resolve to solve to crimes against the disenfranchised, poor, and people of color. They just want to close their case by sticking any body fitting the desirable profile (disenfranchise, poor, and of color) behind bars.
There once was a district attorney who did not fit the mold of the typical North Carolina prosecutor. Nearly a quarter of a decade before it became mandated, he had an open file policy wherein he shared all of his evidence with defense attorneys. He was a district attorney of the highest integrity, who believed in the principle of “equal justice for all.” He had the same respect for the law, sense of fair play, and obligation to duty as famed lawmen Wyatt Earp and Elliot Ness. And he had the independence and courage of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett to forge ahead and do what was right… and not do what was expedient or expected. As a result, Mike Nifong, former Durham district attorney was persecuted by the state and crucified in the media. The best district attorney the state of North Carolina will probably ever see was figuratively speaking thrown under the bus because he would not adhere to the Carpetbagger agenda in the Duke Lacrosse case. Unfortunately, the crimes by the state against Mr. Nifong are an abomination that has placed a scar on the justice system from which the state will never recover.
Although prompted by testimony at Greg Taylor’s hearing just months ago, the problems with the state’s criminal justice system have festered for many decades. What I find thoroughly disingenuous is the reaction to The News & Observer four-part series, with politicians and prosecutors feigning shock and indignation at problems which they have known to exist and have tolerated. Durham Representative Mickey Michaux, according to the newspaper, “was disturbed to read about false reports filed by SBI agents and the innocent people harmed, and said that agents who violate law and policy need to be punished.” But Michaux knows that the rights and liberty of innocent people (especially the poor and of color) are violated routinely by police and prosecutors. What has Representative Michaux done about it? Nothing, at least that I am aware of. And punishing agents who violate law and policy seems to be misplaced when they do so in response to the persuasion and pressure applied by prosecutors. Punishing wayward prosecutors, who are the driving force behind many innocents being locked away and mistreated, is not an unreasonable step. In my mind, it is also unlikely to be undertaken.
After reading the newspaper series, North Carolina Prosecutor Ann Kirby was quoted as saying: “It’s an absolute betrayal to us as prosecutors and to the agents who are doing their job fairly. To find out that people we relied on so heavily in so many cases were slanting results – by their own accord or by the instruction of supervisors – is the ultimate betrayal. We are not playing a game here. These are people’s lives.” To me, the betrayal seems to be on the other foot. The prosecutors entice, cajole, plead, demand, threaten and do whatever is necessary to extract results, regardless of how bogus, from willing or vulnerable agents and lab technicians in order to prevail in court. Then, when the unsavory practices for which these prosecutors are responsible are exposed by the media spotlight, they attack the agents and lab techs who did their bidding. Now that’s what I call the ultimate betrayal.
When it comes down to it, a few individuals in the SBI and its lab were sacrificed as scapegoats to take the downfall and accept blame for all of the malicious and baseless prosecutions and lengthy incarcerations of the innocents that have occurred. The prosecutors, the newspaper would like you to believe, were nothing much more than bystanders and onlookers when the prosecutorial treads of injustice squashed designated individuals (mostly the disenfranchised, poor, and people of color) along with their civil and constitutional rights. From reading the four-part series, one would swear that the investigative agents and lab technicians were single-handedly in charge of determining the fate of the state’s defendants.
The Gregory Taylor case was, of course, mentioned. Revelations from his hearing before a three judge bench in February 2010 was responsible for media focus being directed at the SBI and its forensic practices. But Prosecutor Tom Ford’s name was never mentioned in the series, and his actions in that case were some of the most despicable in the annals of North Carolina juris prudence. Ford was responsible for the vindictive and malicious incarceration of Mr. Taylor because he (Taylor) would not bow to Ford’s urgings for him to implicate an innocent African American man in a murder. Without any credible evidence, Mr. Taylor was sentenced to life, and served 17 years before he was freed by a three judge panel. Ford was even a pivotal figure in attempts to persuade the recently seated panel to deny Taylor’s bid for freedom by arguing against Taylor’s release.
In the Taylor case, The News & Observer left the SBI lab workers and its lab protocol, which in general heavily trended in favor of the prosecution, holding the bag when it came to the fact that the prosecution identified blood on the bumper of Taylor’s car… crucial in winning a conviction against an innocent man. It was the only so-called “evidence” used by Ford against Taylor besides the trumped up testimony of two so-called “witnesses” seeking shorter sentences in exchange for their statements. Prosecutor Tom Ford is neither dumb nor naïve… to the contrary, he is smart, cunning, and calculating. Make no mistake about it, Ford knew in 1991, as well as in February of 2010, exactly what the SBI lab’s complete results were with respect to the red substance on the bumper of Greg Taylor’s vehicle. He was aware that the confirmatory tests did not support the specimen being human blood.
But with the murder of African American prostitute Jacquetta Thomas, Ford was not interested in solving a crime… because he cared not about the victim, his priority was in closing the case. Despite Tom Ford knowing that Taylor was innocent, Taylor’s refusal to falsely implicate Johnny Beck, a black “suspect,” was all it took for Ford to seek a life sentence conviction. Prosecutor Ford could care less whether results forthcoming from the lab were bogus or legit, as long as they supported his case against Taylor.
In another case cited by the newspaper, unnamed prosecutors referred to only as “Davie County prosecutors” supposedly relied on lab work and forensic testimony in prosecuting a Kernersville dentist for the murder of his wife. It seems that the SBI agent involved in the case did not make the appropriate notes and documentation, predated a document, and made false statements about evidence. According to the newspaper, the misdeeds by the agents and bloodstain pattern expert were done to fit the investigator’s theory. The reader is to believe that the unidentified prosecutors were totally out of the loop? Such a scenario is not to be believed as it is the prosecutors who drive the prosecution of defendants, not the other way around. The investigators and agents try to conjure up results backing up the prosecutor’s story about how the crime(s) unfolded and the defendant’s role.
Perhaps the most blatant example of the PAPEN Policy in The News & Observer series is a redacted quote by Barry Scheck who is questioning Alan Gell investigator Dwight Ransome: “When you were talking with [the district attorney], didn’t you…” Mr. Scheck probably said, “When you were talking with David Hoke, didn’t you…” So in order to protect the identity of the Gell prosecutor (Hoke) who put an innocent man (Gell) on death row despite exculpatory evidence that proved Gell could not possibly have committed a murder, the newspaper substituted a generic [the district attorney].
There are many more examples which I could point out, but doing so would only be redundant. The fact is that whether it’s DNA, bloodstain patterns, confirmatory testing for human blood, missing notations and documentation, false testimony, purposely not conducting tests on evidence, etc., the investigators and lab analysts who are acting unethically and inappropriately are doing so at the behest of the prosecutors to help win a conviction. By and large, prosecutors are anything but “ministers of justice” whom they are portrayed to be… prosecuting a case but seeking the truth and assuring that the defendant receives justice. In North Carolina with its system of “selective justice based on Class and Color,” prosecutors have absolutely no qualms about putting away individuals in society who are disenfranchised, poor, and people of color. Likewise, as exemplified by the murder of Jacquetta Thomas, prosecutors lack the resolve to solve to crimes against the disenfranchised, poor, and people of color. They just want to close their case by sticking any body fitting the desirable profile (disenfranchise, poor, and of color) behind bars.
There once was a district attorney who did not fit the mold of the typical North Carolina prosecutor. Nearly a quarter of a decade before it became mandated, he had an open file policy wherein he shared all of his evidence with defense attorneys. He was a district attorney of the highest integrity, who believed in the principle of “equal justice for all.” He had the same respect for the law, sense of fair play, and obligation to duty as famed lawmen Wyatt Earp and Elliot Ness. And he had the independence and courage of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett to forge ahead and do what was right… and not do what was expedient or expected. As a result, Mike Nifong, former Durham district attorney was persecuted by the state and crucified in the media. The best district attorney the state of North Carolina will probably ever see was figuratively speaking thrown under the bus because he would not adhere to the Carpetbagger agenda in the Duke Lacrosse case. Unfortunately, the crimes by the state against Mr. Nifong are an abomination that has placed a scar on the justice system from which the state will never recover.
Although prompted by testimony at Greg Taylor’s hearing just months ago, the problems with the state’s criminal justice system have festered for many decades. What I find thoroughly disingenuous is the reaction to The News & Observer four-part series, with politicians and prosecutors feigning shock and indignation at problems which they have known to exist and have tolerated. Durham Representative Mickey Michaux, according to the newspaper, “was disturbed to read about false reports filed by SBI agents and the innocent people harmed, and said that agents who violate law and policy need to be punished.” But Michaux knows that the rights and liberty of innocent people (especially the poor and of color) are violated routinely by police and prosecutors. What has Representative Michaux done about it? Nothing, at least that I am aware of. And punishing agents who violate law and policy seems to be misplaced when they do so in response to the persuasion and pressure applied by prosecutors. Punishing wayward prosecutors, who are the driving force behind many innocents being locked away and mistreated, is not an unreasonable step. In my mind, it is also unlikely to be undertaken.
After reading the newspaper series, North Carolina Prosecutor Ann Kirby was quoted as saying: “It’s an absolute betrayal to us as prosecutors and to the agents who are doing their job fairly. To find out that people we relied on so heavily in so many cases were slanting results – by their own accord or by the instruction of supervisors – is the ultimate betrayal. We are not playing a game here. These are people’s lives.” To me, the betrayal seems to be on the other foot. The prosecutors entice, cajole, plead, demand, threaten and do whatever is necessary to extract results, regardless of how bogus, from willing or vulnerable agents and lab technicians in order to prevail in court. Then, when the unsavory practices for which these prosecutors are responsible are exposed by the media spotlight, they attack the agents and lab techs who did their bidding. Now that’s what I call the ultimate betrayal.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Before going to police, consider the consequences
Recently investigators in Henry County, VA, announced an increase of a reward to $100,000 for information leading to the resolution of a heinous crime that was committed there eight years ago… the murder of the Short family. Parents Michael and Mary Short were found fatally shot in the head in their home, while their nine year-old daughter Jennifer’s remains were found six weeks later in Rockingham, NC; cause of her death was also due to a single gunshot to the head.
Before approaching police with information about a crime, whether or not a reward is offered, one should consider the case of James Arthur Johnson, of Wilson, NC. Around June 2004, Wilson teenager Brittany Willis was senselessly and brutally kidnapped, raped, and killed by 16 year-old Kenneth Meeks. He confided with his new friend of several months, James Arthur Johnson, about his dastardly deeds, and even drove Johnson to the crime scene to see the body. After the discovery of the victim’s body, the family and friends of Brittany Willis offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest of the culprit responsible. Johnson finally went to his father with his knowledge of the crime, whereupon his father immediately took James to the police station, without an attorney in tow and without first contacting an attorney. James Arthur Johnson gave police the identity of the killer, thus solving the crimes against Brittany Willis.
Kenneth Meeks, who later confessed to the crimes, is an African American, as is James Arthur Johnson. The police investigator, during an interrogation of Meeks, told him that his friend (James Arthur Johnson) had “snitched” on him. This resulted in a predictably enraged response by the young Meeks of implicating Johnson as payback. James Arthur Johnson was then arrested on charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery, although there was no credible evidence to connect him to any crime… only the word of the confessed killer. After a couple of years, Meeks, who was serving a life sentence, recanted his accusations against Johnson, stating that he made the initial false statements in anger. Despite that, Johnson remained in jail for more than three years awaiting trial. Prosecutor Bill Wolfe, who manufactured two eyewitnesses linking Johnson to victim Willis (both with connections to the Wilson Police Department), jettisoned them when the NAACP’s Rev. William Barber got involved. Wolfe knew that his false witnesses would not be able to stand up to the intense media scrutiny which the trial would undoubtedly bring. To the very end, Wolfe tried his best to get Johnson to accept a plea deal in exchange for time served, but none was forthcoming as the time for the trial arrived. Prosecutors Bill Wolfe and Wilson District Attorney Howard Boney Jr., who had no case against Johnson, folded like accordions, and on day trial was set to begin, announced that they would turn the case over to a special prosecutor.
After spending 39 months in jail, Johnson was able to bond out, to await the decision of the special prosecutor. The events which transpired subsequently were all foreordained, with Special Prosecutor Belinda Foster dropping the murder, rape, kidnapping, and robbery charges, but instituting an “accessory after the fact” charge instead. This was based solely on statements that Johnson made when he was first interviewed by police when he told them that he wiped fingerprints off of the victim’s vehicle at Meeks’s command… actions which had no bearing on the case against the killer.
Special Prosecutor W. David McFadyen, after pretending to conduct a thorough investigation, announced that he would proceed to prosecute James Arthur Johnson. As his predecessors before him, McFadyen tried to obtain a plea deal, and James, who had tasted freedom and abhorred the prospect, regardless of how remote, of returning to jail, finally gave in. He pleaded guilty to “misprision of felony,” in exchange for time served.
Misprision of felony is most often described as a common law in which the misdemeanor of observing a felony and failing to prevent it, or of knowing about a felony and failing to disclose the fact of its occurrence. A case that is cited in the legal annals is one occurring in South Carolina in which a witness to a crime refused to testify out of fear of retribution from the criminals. The judge found him guilty of “misprision of felony” and he was sentenced to three years.
As opposed to the aforementioned case, Johnson did disclose his knowledge of the crime to police, but prosecutors argued that he waited three whole days to do it! (Without Johnson’s assistance, I doubt that the Willis case would be solved today.) Not only that, but Johnson served three months more than the man sentenced in South Carolina. Yet Prosecutor McFadyen went forward with his prosecution of Johnson.
James Arthur Johnson was a hero who had the courage to go against the “no-snitch”laws of the street and tell authorities everything he knew about the Willis case. Yet, he was vilified by the police, prosecution, and Wilson media, which effectively resulted in the town being divided along racial lines. Not only that, but he did not receive the $20,000 reward which he had earned. There is no explanation as to why it was not awarded.
Because North Carolina has a system of “selective justice based on Class and Color” anyone with knowledge about a crime needs to seriously consider whether or not to approach authorities with it. With the James Arthur Johnson case as a precedent, police and prosecutors may decide to charge one with “misprision of felony” for not coming forward in a timely manner. As is commonly the case, charges are likely to be arbitrary depending on one’s financial status, class, and skin color.
Unlike the murder of Jacquetta Thomas, the African American destitute prostitute whose body was discovered on a deserted cul-de-sac in 1991, in which Prosecutor Tom Ford didn’t care about the victim and was more interested in closing the case than solving the crime, the same cannot be said in the Short murders… the authorities are committed to finding the true perpetrators of those crimes. In this instance, the disenfranchised, poor, and people of color are more likely able to provide information about a crime without fear of being tied to it.
The media’s publication of the sources of the reward gives it some credibility, but then again, the family and friends of Brittany Willis offered a reward, which they then refused to honor. So it is important to keep in mind that in the state of North Carolina, whether or not one receives a reward after solving said requirements is basically a crapshoot.
James Arthur Johnson did the right thing by going to police with his knowledge of the crimes against Willis. It is the police, prosecutors, and media who did the wrong thing by unjustly depriving the young man of 39 months of the best years of his life and putting in its place confinement in hell. The city of Wilson should have been grateful to Johnson for solving a senseless and despicable crime and putting a dangerous young man off the streets. However, the media has taught the good people of Wilson to despise him.
The treatment of James Arthur Johnson by Wilson police, prosecutors, and media does not bode well for a system of justice in North Carolina which relies on citizens coming forward to assist in solving crimes using reward money as an incentive. Instead of being celebrated for doing the right thing, one might be crucified.
Before approaching police with information about a crime, whether or not a reward is offered, one should consider the case of James Arthur Johnson, of Wilson, NC. Around June 2004, Wilson teenager Brittany Willis was senselessly and brutally kidnapped, raped, and killed by 16 year-old Kenneth Meeks. He confided with his new friend of several months, James Arthur Johnson, about his dastardly deeds, and even drove Johnson to the crime scene to see the body. After the discovery of the victim’s body, the family and friends of Brittany Willis offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest of the culprit responsible. Johnson finally went to his father with his knowledge of the crime, whereupon his father immediately took James to the police station, without an attorney in tow and without first contacting an attorney. James Arthur Johnson gave police the identity of the killer, thus solving the crimes against Brittany Willis.
Kenneth Meeks, who later confessed to the crimes, is an African American, as is James Arthur Johnson. The police investigator, during an interrogation of Meeks, told him that his friend (James Arthur Johnson) had “snitched” on him. This resulted in a predictably enraged response by the young Meeks of implicating Johnson as payback. James Arthur Johnson was then arrested on charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery, although there was no credible evidence to connect him to any crime… only the word of the confessed killer. After a couple of years, Meeks, who was serving a life sentence, recanted his accusations against Johnson, stating that he made the initial false statements in anger. Despite that, Johnson remained in jail for more than three years awaiting trial. Prosecutor Bill Wolfe, who manufactured two eyewitnesses linking Johnson to victim Willis (both with connections to the Wilson Police Department), jettisoned them when the NAACP’s Rev. William Barber got involved. Wolfe knew that his false witnesses would not be able to stand up to the intense media scrutiny which the trial would undoubtedly bring. To the very end, Wolfe tried his best to get Johnson to accept a plea deal in exchange for time served, but none was forthcoming as the time for the trial arrived. Prosecutors Bill Wolfe and Wilson District Attorney Howard Boney Jr., who had no case against Johnson, folded like accordions, and on day trial was set to begin, announced that they would turn the case over to a special prosecutor.
After spending 39 months in jail, Johnson was able to bond out, to await the decision of the special prosecutor. The events which transpired subsequently were all foreordained, with Special Prosecutor Belinda Foster dropping the murder, rape, kidnapping, and robbery charges, but instituting an “accessory after the fact” charge instead. This was based solely on statements that Johnson made when he was first interviewed by police when he told them that he wiped fingerprints off of the victim’s vehicle at Meeks’s command… actions which had no bearing on the case against the killer.
Special Prosecutor W. David McFadyen, after pretending to conduct a thorough investigation, announced that he would proceed to prosecute James Arthur Johnson. As his predecessors before him, McFadyen tried to obtain a plea deal, and James, who had tasted freedom and abhorred the prospect, regardless of how remote, of returning to jail, finally gave in. He pleaded guilty to “misprision of felony,” in exchange for time served.
Misprision of felony is most often described as a common law in which the misdemeanor of observing a felony and failing to prevent it, or of knowing about a felony and failing to disclose the fact of its occurrence. A case that is cited in the legal annals is one occurring in South Carolina in which a witness to a crime refused to testify out of fear of retribution from the criminals. The judge found him guilty of “misprision of felony” and he was sentenced to three years.
As opposed to the aforementioned case, Johnson did disclose his knowledge of the crime to police, but prosecutors argued that he waited three whole days to do it! (Without Johnson’s assistance, I doubt that the Willis case would be solved today.) Not only that, but Johnson served three months more than the man sentenced in South Carolina. Yet Prosecutor McFadyen went forward with his prosecution of Johnson.
James Arthur Johnson was a hero who had the courage to go against the “no-snitch”laws of the street and tell authorities everything he knew about the Willis case. Yet, he was vilified by the police, prosecution, and Wilson media, which effectively resulted in the town being divided along racial lines. Not only that, but he did not receive the $20,000 reward which he had earned. There is no explanation as to why it was not awarded.
Because North Carolina has a system of “selective justice based on Class and Color” anyone with knowledge about a crime needs to seriously consider whether or not to approach authorities with it. With the James Arthur Johnson case as a precedent, police and prosecutors may decide to charge one with “misprision of felony” for not coming forward in a timely manner. As is commonly the case, charges are likely to be arbitrary depending on one’s financial status, class, and skin color.
Unlike the murder of Jacquetta Thomas, the African American destitute prostitute whose body was discovered on a deserted cul-de-sac in 1991, in which Prosecutor Tom Ford didn’t care about the victim and was more interested in closing the case than solving the crime, the same cannot be said in the Short murders… the authorities are committed to finding the true perpetrators of those crimes. In this instance, the disenfranchised, poor, and people of color are more likely able to provide information about a crime without fear of being tied to it.
The media’s publication of the sources of the reward gives it some credibility, but then again, the family and friends of Brittany Willis offered a reward, which they then refused to honor. So it is important to keep in mind that in the state of North Carolina, whether or not one receives a reward after solving said requirements is basically a crapshoot.
James Arthur Johnson did the right thing by going to police with his knowledge of the crimes against Willis. It is the police, prosecutors, and media who did the wrong thing by unjustly depriving the young man of 39 months of the best years of his life and putting in its place confinement in hell. The city of Wilson should have been grateful to Johnson for solving a senseless and despicable crime and putting a dangerous young man off the streets. However, the media has taught the good people of Wilson to despise him.
The treatment of James Arthur Johnson by Wilson police, prosecutors, and media does not bode well for a system of justice in North Carolina which relies on citizens coming forward to assist in solving crimes using reward money as an incentive. Instead of being celebrated for doing the right thing, one might be crucified.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Golfer Brian Davis and Greg Taylor: men of conscience and integrity
Last Sunday I watched the final round sudden death playoff at the Verizon Heritage golf tournament between veteran Jim Furyk and Brian Davis. Furyk who has more than a dozen PGA career wins under his belt, was tied after regulation play with Brian Davis, who has never won a PGA golf event. The difference in earnings of the winner and runner-up was $400,000, with more than a million dollars being awarded to the winner.
On the first playoff hole, Brian Davis playing in the rough, barely touched a reed with his backstroke, and then swung and hit the ball onto the green. It is an infraction if a loose object is touched by the club before it hits the ball. I was watching the swing on television, and did not notice any movement on the backstroke, and apparently neither did anyone else, with the exception of Davis himself. He immediately informed the judge of what he believed to be illegal contact with his club, which instant video replay confirmed. Davis was assessed a two-stroke penalty, which essentially assured that he would not take home the championship trophy.
Had Davis not been penalized, he would have been in contention to win the event, and had he not drawn attention to it, no one would have been the wiser… but he would have known. It would have been tempting for most golfers to have kept quiet about the stroke, considering its importance and the violation was nothing more than a trivial technicality that really did not place his opponent at an unfair disadvantage. Yes, it would be easy to rationalize away the violation, and it would have been easy for him to say that he did not notice the loose twig shimmy a bit when he brought his club back to begin his swing.
Yes, I have a new hero on the pro links circuit… and from now on, I will be pulling for a golfer named Brian Davis. I’ll be rooting for him not because of his athletic skills, but because of his personal qualities of honesty and integrity.
Another man for whom I have a tremendous amount of admiration and respect is Gregory Flint Taylor, a man of exceptional integrity. Although Davis’s honesty cost him a prestigious title and hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money, Greg Taylor’s honesty cost him a life sentence behind bars. Just as I believe that many golfers would not have made the fiduciary sacrifice Davis did with his honesty, many innocent people facing a life sentence would not pass up the opportunity for freedom in exchange for falsely implicating another person at the prosecutor’s request. Greg Taylor, however, refused to submit to Prosecutor Tom Ford’s repeated demands that he implicate a man Taylor knew to be innocent of the charge of murder. Had it not been for the Innocence Inquiry Commission project that was championed by former NC Supreme Court Justice I. Beverly Lake and Christine Mumma (director of the NC Center on Actual Innocence), Greg Taylor would still be languishing in jail… where he had been since 1993, and where he was sentenced to spend the remainder of his days.
When Jacquetta Thomas, a black prostitute, was murdered in 1991, Wake Prosecutor Tom Ford was more interested in closing the case than solving the crime because he didn’t care about the victim. So instead of using gumshoe detective work (as was done in the investigation into the murder of School Board member Kathy Taft), Tom Ford tried to build a case based on perjured testimony. Because Greg Taylor and his friend Johnny Beck, an African American, had been in the vicinity of the desolate area where Thomas’s body was found, Ford’s strategy was to first accuse Taylor of the crime and thereby pressure him to turn on Beck, the black man. Even without forensic evidence tying Beck to the crime, Ford believed that Taylor’s testimony – though perjured – would be enough to win a conviction against Beck. However, there is one thing that Tom Ford did not count on, and that was that Greg Taylor would possess integrity… in fact, much more than Ford himself. Ford made it plain to Taylor that he would be spending the rest of his life in jail unless he cooperated with the prosecution and lied to the court to implicate Johnny Beck in a murder he did not commit. Taylor was steadfast and never wavered in his refusal to falsely implicate Beck, so Ford set out to make Taylor pay by getting a jailhouse snitch and prostitute to provide false testimony implicating Taylor. Ford even withheld from Taylor’s defense team the fact that the prosecutors had struck a backroom deal with the snitch and prostitute with a promise for a reduced sentence in exchange for their perjured statements that implicated Taylor. So Ford, with perjured testimony and the withholding of important SBI lab notes, won a conviction against Greg Taylor in 1993.
Just as the jailhouse snitch and prostitute provided the necessary perjured testimony needed to convict Taylor, Prosecutor Ford assumed that Taylor would readily provide the false testimony necessary for him to gain his freedom. But Taylor refused to lie on an innocent man… an African American man… and a man who he knew almost solely as companion with whom he occasionally purchased or shared drugs. Gregory Taylor was prepared to spend the rest of his life behind bars rather than falsely implicate another innocent person. But fortunately, Taylor’s loss only equated to seventeen of his most productive years, which is itself truly a shame.
Yes, I am now a proud follower and fan of golf pro Brian Davis, whose integrity cost him a shot at his first PGA tour championship and hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money. Davis put honesty before financial and championship considerations. Likewise, Gregory Taylor displayed an inordinate amount of integrity with his commitment to remain in jail (likely for the remainder of his life) rather than obtaining freedom by working in cahoots with the Wake County prosecutor in his unseemly efforts to falsely convict Johnny Beck.
When it comes to a role model of honesty and integrity, it is hard to beat the wrongly convicted and exonerated Gregory F. Taylor, although Brian Davis came in close with his actions at the Heritage’s first playoff hole. I am sure that ol’ Honest Abe, himself, like I, would hold both Taylor and Davis in high esteem.
On the first playoff hole, Brian Davis playing in the rough, barely touched a reed with his backstroke, and then swung and hit the ball onto the green. It is an infraction if a loose object is touched by the club before it hits the ball. I was watching the swing on television, and did not notice any movement on the backstroke, and apparently neither did anyone else, with the exception of Davis himself. He immediately informed the judge of what he believed to be illegal contact with his club, which instant video replay confirmed. Davis was assessed a two-stroke penalty, which essentially assured that he would not take home the championship trophy.
Had Davis not been penalized, he would have been in contention to win the event, and had he not drawn attention to it, no one would have been the wiser… but he would have known. It would have been tempting for most golfers to have kept quiet about the stroke, considering its importance and the violation was nothing more than a trivial technicality that really did not place his opponent at an unfair disadvantage. Yes, it would be easy to rationalize away the violation, and it would have been easy for him to say that he did not notice the loose twig shimmy a bit when he brought his club back to begin his swing.
Yes, I have a new hero on the pro links circuit… and from now on, I will be pulling for a golfer named Brian Davis. I’ll be rooting for him not because of his athletic skills, but because of his personal qualities of honesty and integrity.
Another man for whom I have a tremendous amount of admiration and respect is Gregory Flint Taylor, a man of exceptional integrity. Although Davis’s honesty cost him a prestigious title and hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money, Greg Taylor’s honesty cost him a life sentence behind bars. Just as I believe that many golfers would not have made the fiduciary sacrifice Davis did with his honesty, many innocent people facing a life sentence would not pass up the opportunity for freedom in exchange for falsely implicating another person at the prosecutor’s request. Greg Taylor, however, refused to submit to Prosecutor Tom Ford’s repeated demands that he implicate a man Taylor knew to be innocent of the charge of murder. Had it not been for the Innocence Inquiry Commission project that was championed by former NC Supreme Court Justice I. Beverly Lake and Christine Mumma (director of the NC Center on Actual Innocence), Greg Taylor would still be languishing in jail… where he had been since 1993, and where he was sentenced to spend the remainder of his days.
When Jacquetta Thomas, a black prostitute, was murdered in 1991, Wake Prosecutor Tom Ford was more interested in closing the case than solving the crime because he didn’t care about the victim. So instead of using gumshoe detective work (as was done in the investigation into the murder of School Board member Kathy Taft), Tom Ford tried to build a case based on perjured testimony. Because Greg Taylor and his friend Johnny Beck, an African American, had been in the vicinity of the desolate area where Thomas’s body was found, Ford’s strategy was to first accuse Taylor of the crime and thereby pressure him to turn on Beck, the black man. Even without forensic evidence tying Beck to the crime, Ford believed that Taylor’s testimony – though perjured – would be enough to win a conviction against Beck. However, there is one thing that Tom Ford did not count on, and that was that Greg Taylor would possess integrity… in fact, much more than Ford himself. Ford made it plain to Taylor that he would be spending the rest of his life in jail unless he cooperated with the prosecution and lied to the court to implicate Johnny Beck in a murder he did not commit. Taylor was steadfast and never wavered in his refusal to falsely implicate Beck, so Ford set out to make Taylor pay by getting a jailhouse snitch and prostitute to provide false testimony implicating Taylor. Ford even withheld from Taylor’s defense team the fact that the prosecutors had struck a backroom deal with the snitch and prostitute with a promise for a reduced sentence in exchange for their perjured statements that implicated Taylor. So Ford, with perjured testimony and the withholding of important SBI lab notes, won a conviction against Greg Taylor in 1993.
Just as the jailhouse snitch and prostitute provided the necessary perjured testimony needed to convict Taylor, Prosecutor Ford assumed that Taylor would readily provide the false testimony necessary for him to gain his freedom. But Taylor refused to lie on an innocent man… an African American man… and a man who he knew almost solely as companion with whom he occasionally purchased or shared drugs. Gregory Taylor was prepared to spend the rest of his life behind bars rather than falsely implicate another innocent person. But fortunately, Taylor’s loss only equated to seventeen of his most productive years, which is itself truly a shame.
Yes, I am now a proud follower and fan of golf pro Brian Davis, whose integrity cost him a shot at his first PGA tour championship and hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money. Davis put honesty before financial and championship considerations. Likewise, Gregory Taylor displayed an inordinate amount of integrity with his commitment to remain in jail (likely for the remainder of his life) rather than obtaining freedom by working in cahoots with the Wake County prosecutor in his unseemly efforts to falsely convict Johnny Beck.
When it comes to a role model of honesty and integrity, it is hard to beat the wrongly convicted and exonerated Gregory F. Taylor, although Brian Davis came in close with his actions at the Heritage’s first playoff hole. I am sure that ol’ Honest Abe, himself, like I, would hold both Taylor and Davis in high esteem.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Prosecutors behaving badly: Wolfe and Ford
“Taylor gets his shot at release: 17-year convict could be freed,” is the headline of an outstanding article in today’s February 7, 2010 News & Observer newspaper written by Mandy Locke. More details are furnished in this news story that tells about early investigative actions to solve the Raleigh murder of Jacquetta Thomas in September 1991. Gregory Taylor, whose truck had gotten stuck in the mud near the murder site, and his passenger Johnny Beck, hitched hiked home late that evening with plans to retrieve the truck the following morning. Taylor and Beck became suspects solely because Taylor’s truck had been found about a football field’s length away from the body. Police attempted to have Gregory Taylor implicate Johnny Beck (an African American) by telling him the falsehood that Beck had fingered him (Taylor) for committing the murder. Mr. Taylor refused to lie and state that Beck was involved. The police suggested to Mr. Taylor that he could face the death penalty; still Mr. Taylor refused to lie on Mr. Beck. The police lied again, stating that the victim’s blood had been found in his truck. Mr. Taylor still refused to implicate Mr. Beck, and he requested to speak to an attorney. Greg Taylor asked four times for an attorney, but the police refused to acquiesce. Within twelve hours of finding the slain body of Jacquetta Thomas, police had charged Taylor and Beck with first-degree murder… despite lack of physical evidence or eyewitness testimony. Talk about a rush to judgment!!!
When the possibility of two or more suspects are considered as perpetrators of a crime, a commonly used tactic by the police, prosecutors, and investigators is to have one of the individuals implicate the others. For the murder of Jacquetta Thomas, the attempt was made by Prosecutor Tom Ford to get Taylor, who is white, to implicate Beck who is black. In another recent case, the murder of Wilson teen Brittany Willis, the police were successful in getting teen murderer Kenneth Meeks to finger an innocent friend, James Arthur Johnson. The investigators told Meeks that Johnson had “snitched” on him, which unlike the case against Greg Taylor, was the truth. Meeks had confided in Johnson that he had committed the murder of Ms. Willis, and days later, when Johnson told his father what Meeks had told him, his father took him to Wilson police to provide authorities with the information. Although James Arthur Johnson provided information that solved the murder of Ms. Willis, and that should have earned him the gratitude of the Willis family, as well as the $20,000.00 reward offered by the family and friends of Brittany Willis, what he received was a murder charge and 39 months wrongfully incarcerated. The charge against Johnson was based solely on the testimony of Meeks, who fingered Johnson in retaliation for “snitching.” Years later, after the misplaced anger had subsided, Meeks recanted his statements about Johnson, leaving the prosecution without probable cause. That is when two eyewitnesses suddenly appeared, both with connections to the Wilson Police Department, to help provide a basis for taking the case to trial. However, increased media scrutiny and public outrage caused the prosecutor to re-think that approach… the eyewitnesses quietly disappeared.
In the case against Taylor, a good faith effort was not conducted into investigating the death of Jacquetta Thomas. Bringing charges against Taylor and Beck was a rush to judgment by Tom Ford in an attempt to close the murder case. In the Johnson case, police had in custody the killer (Kenneth Meeks, an African American) of Brittany Willis, but their outrage at the senseless crime against the white teenager spurred them to seek to punish as many young African American males as possible… their guilt or innocence being irrelevant.
Here are two cases where justice has been denied for James Arthur Johnson and Gregory Flint Taylor. Johnson was wrongfully incarcerated for 39 months, but eventually freed after charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery were dropped by a special prosecutor, and he ultimately made an Alford plea on a “misprision of felony” charge (a rarely used charge for citizens who do not report their knowledge of a crime). The case against Gregory Taylor should have an acceptable resolution after a three panel judge hears arguments seeking his release… the hearing beginning on Tuesday, February 9th. His freedom is the most important judgment that could be handed out by the judges, but it is certainly just a fraction of the restorative justice to which this innocent man, with an abundance of integrity, deserves.
When the possibility of two or more suspects are considered as perpetrators of a crime, a commonly used tactic by the police, prosecutors, and investigators is to have one of the individuals implicate the others. For the murder of Jacquetta Thomas, the attempt was made by Prosecutor Tom Ford to get Taylor, who is white, to implicate Beck who is black. In another recent case, the murder of Wilson teen Brittany Willis, the police were successful in getting teen murderer Kenneth Meeks to finger an innocent friend, James Arthur Johnson. The investigators told Meeks that Johnson had “snitched” on him, which unlike the case against Greg Taylor, was the truth. Meeks had confided in Johnson that he had committed the murder of Ms. Willis, and days later, when Johnson told his father what Meeks had told him, his father took him to Wilson police to provide authorities with the information. Although James Arthur Johnson provided information that solved the murder of Ms. Willis, and that should have earned him the gratitude of the Willis family, as well as the $20,000.00 reward offered by the family and friends of Brittany Willis, what he received was a murder charge and 39 months wrongfully incarcerated. The charge against Johnson was based solely on the testimony of Meeks, who fingered Johnson in retaliation for “snitching.” Years later, after the misplaced anger had subsided, Meeks recanted his statements about Johnson, leaving the prosecution without probable cause. That is when two eyewitnesses suddenly appeared, both with connections to the Wilson Police Department, to help provide a basis for taking the case to trial. However, increased media scrutiny and public outrage caused the prosecutor to re-think that approach… the eyewitnesses quietly disappeared.
In the case against Taylor, a good faith effort was not conducted into investigating the death of Jacquetta Thomas. Bringing charges against Taylor and Beck was a rush to judgment by Tom Ford in an attempt to close the murder case. In the Johnson case, police had in custody the killer (Kenneth Meeks, an African American) of Brittany Willis, but their outrage at the senseless crime against the white teenager spurred them to seek to punish as many young African American males as possible… their guilt or innocence being irrelevant.
Here are two cases where justice has been denied for James Arthur Johnson and Gregory Flint Taylor. Johnson was wrongfully incarcerated for 39 months, but eventually freed after charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery were dropped by a special prosecutor, and he ultimately made an Alford plea on a “misprision of felony” charge (a rarely used charge for citizens who do not report their knowledge of a crime). The case against Gregory Taylor should have an acceptable resolution after a three panel judge hears arguments seeking his release… the hearing beginning on Tuesday, February 9th. His freedom is the most important judgment that could be handed out by the judges, but it is certainly just a fraction of the restorative justice to which this innocent man, with an abundance of integrity, deserves.
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