SBI agent Duane Deaver is fired

North Carolina SBI agent Duane Deaver, who testified on behalf of Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby and prosecutor Tom Ford against Gregory F. Taylor’s bid for freedom after 17 years of wrongful incarceration, was fired on January 7, 2011. Before the three judge panel of the Innocence Commission which heard the appeal, Deaver testified about the SBI lab and its long-standing policy of withholding and/or skewing data and lab results from a criminal investigation which might be beneficial to defendants. Such was the case in Gregory Taylor’s case, as Deaver stated the SBI lab, according to policy, allowed the jury hearing Taylor’s case to be misled into believing that blood was on the bumper of Taylor’s vehicle (which prosecutor Tom Ford maintained came from a murder victim Jacquetta Thomas). Fact was that although a presumptive test was positive a confirmatory test for human blood was not. Deaver’s testimony under questioning by defense attorney Mike Klinkosum exposed how the SBI lab purposely and systematically tilted the playing field against defendants in hundreds of cases. This revelation, in part, no doubt played a role in Greg Taylor’s subsequent exoneration.

Christine Mumma, executive director of the NC Center on Actual Innocence, who also represented Taylor, aptly referred to Deaver’s termination as the SBI’s “throwing the employee under the bus while those responsible for giving the employee direction and approving his work walk away unscathed.” Her assessment is right on the money. Deaver, the good soldier who was following orders to help prosecutors with their weak cases by providing hocus-pocus lab results and misleading testimony on the stand, was given the shaft by the very people who had earlier depended upon and lauded his devious work. His firing, however is cold comfort for the many innocents who have spent years wrongfully behind bars, dependent mainly on their Class and Color.

The fortuitous exposure and downward spiral of the reliability in the SBI’s past prejudicial lab work on criminal evidence was a self-inflicted wound. Hubris of Taylor’s original prosecutor Tom Ford enabled him and the Wake County district attorney to fight the overwhelming evidence which strongly supported Greg Taylor’s innocence. According to the January 11, 2011 article in The News & Observer, which per PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy did not mention Tom Ford’s name, Deaver plans to appeal his firing. This is a good thing… not so much in that it could possibly lead to Deaver’s reinstatement, but rather for the light it will shed on the conduct, attitudes, and culture of prosecutors statewide.

As I have religiously maintained, the prosecutors (such as Tom Ford, Bill Wolfe, and others) are at the crux of the injustice that has been meted out by the North Carolina justice system. For the most part they are intelligent, diabolical, and cunning, and have no qualms about orchestrating lab techs and agents in order to obtain convictions in weak cases without credible evidence. To suggest that prosecutor Tom Ford was unaware of the underlying deceit in Deaver’s testimony in the case against Taylor is not credulous. Ford knew that the SBI lab’s statements about alleged blood on the bumper of Taylor’s SUV was as credible as the plea deals he brokered to acquire false testimony against Taylor in retaliation for Taylor’s refusal to implicate a black man, Johnny Beck, who he knew to be innocent of a murder.

The solution to North Carolina state’s woeful justice system is to institute a policy following the principle of “equal justice for all” and to abandon its current tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color.” A tall order indeed. Prosecutors need to become something that few of them have ever been… Ministers of Justice. As was clearly evident in the Duke Lacrosse case, however, doing so can be hazardous to one’s professional and private lives. Former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong was honorably executing his prosecutorial duties in that case and was exemplifying the very concept of “Minister of Justice.” As a result, he was disbarred, tossed in jail, deprived of professional immunity, denied representation before the State Bar, and crucified in the media – both locally and nationally.

Until the North Carolina State Bar unilaterally and unconditionally reinstate Mr. Nifong’s license to practice law in the state without restrictions, the state’s system of justice will never take a step on the road to recovery.

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

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.

What would you do..? Extreme version

When I was growing up in the 50s, and television was in its infancy, many critics of the new fangled contraption derisively referred to it as the “idiot box” because time spent being entertained by it deprived boys and girls from time that could be much better spent reading and doing homework. As a result, today I spend very little time watching free TV. I definitely do not subscribe to cable or satellite because that would only encourage me to watch more television just in order to get my money’s worth… like gorging oneself at a buffet, such as Golden Corral. The only shows I currently watch are “The Bold and the Beautiful” (a soap opera that is mercifully only 30 minute long), the local and national news, occasional re-runs of “The Patty Duke Show,” “Jeopardy,” and a few minutes of sports, usually ones showing highlights. I almost never watch a sporting event from beginning to end.

From my relatively brief viewing, I have become aware of a show advertised on CBS or ABC titled “What would you do?” It is a take off on the old “Candid Camera” hidden camera show that featured Allen Funt, except, from what I gather, a bit more sinister. Whereas “Candid Camera” was played strictly for laughs, “What would you do” stages hidden camera incidents to unsuspecting civilians that are much more stress producing, and afterwards conducts an interview with them. Depending on the video victim’s reaction, they are berated or lauded for their behavior. One example of an actual episode filmed in a public bar, exposed the unsuspecting video victim to a staged scenario in which a man laced his female companion’s drink with a substance that could have been a date-rape drug while she was away. The video victim is then faced with the dilemma of what to do… mind his/her own business and say nothing, or butt in and attempt to prevent an assault. Not an easy choice, especially when not all the facts are at hand. So that is the basic gist of the program, as I am able to deduct from the advertisements on TV.

Now, I would like to invite the reader to play the game based on a real-life situation. Let’s see what your response will be.

Unlike the television version, this game requires a little role-playing. First, let’s assume that you’re an average Joe in America (either living in poverty, or on the verge of poverty). Also, let’s assume that you are an alcoholic and have a bit of a drug habit… mainly marijuana and cocaine. Finally, let’s assume that you’re white. Now, let’s set the stage. You’re out late at night getting high with an African American friend, and your vehicle gets stuck in mud and you’re forced to walk home. On the way, you come across the body of a partially clad black woman in a cul-de-sac, but do not come in close physical contact with her. The following morning when you go to retrieve your vehicle, police are at the scene as you walk to your SUV located nearby. You are arrested for the crime of murdering the victim whose body you came across the night before, but knowing your total innocence, feel the misunderstanding will be cleared up shortly and that you’ll be only a few minutes late for work. Then you meet with the prosecutor and you declare your innocence. The prosecutor dismisses it and gives you a choice. Implicate your black drug-using friend (who you know to be innocent) as the perpetrator of the murder in return for a light charge and sentence, or be charged with the murder and face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted. WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Hold on… we’re not through yet. You end up being convicted of the murder with which you had nothing to do, and you’re sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Now the prosecutor returns and makes you another offer. Implicate the black man you did drugs with as the murderer, and get your sentenced substantially reduced, possibly with time served and probation. Your choice is to lie and put a black man who is innocent of the murder in jail for life in exchange for your release from jail and a short period of probation, or to defy the prosecutor and turn down his offer and remain in jail for the rest of your life. WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

This is the exact true-life “What would you do?” situation that faced Gregory Flint Taylor. Prosecutor Tom Ford counted on getting perjured testimony from Taylor in order to convict Taylor’s black friend Johnny Beck. He did not believe it would be a difficult task because Taylor was an alcoholic and drug user, and in order to save himself, surely he would have no problem in getting Taylor to go along with his plan to put an innocent black man in jail. If Taylor was faced with life in prison, surely he would go along with the program in order to taste freedom. After all, Tom Ford had no trouble getting two other people to falsely implicate Taylor for the murder in return for promises of leniency related to their criminal cases. The truth of the matter is that Tom Ford specialized in getting perjured testimony in exchange for plea deals… that’s how he won his cases. This was especially true in cases where the victim is poor, disenfranchised, and of color, and closing the case is more of a concern with Ford than solving it. So what if an innocent person lands in jail… who cares?

But Ford misjudged Gregory Taylor. Taylor was, and is, a man of great inner strength, high ethical standards, and a determination to do the right thing. He refused the multiple plea deals of Prosecutor Ford, and as a result, remained in jail for seventeen years before finally being freed… and there was no guarantee that he would ever be free.

I have tried to put myself in Greg Taylor’s shoes, and have always come to the same conclusion… I would not implicate an innocent man in exchange for my freedom. But hypothetical and real life are entirely different. In real life… I just don’t know what I would do. There is no doubt in my mind that the majority of people, if not all, if faced with this choice would have caved in and worked with Prosecutor Ford to put an innocent black man in jail. That is what makes Greg Taylor’s case all the more remarkable and worthy of being told. That is the movie that HBO should be making, instead of the propaganda fictional movie about the Duke Lacrosse case.

Only by putting yourself in his moccasins can you begin to appreciate what Greg Taylor did. In a similar situation, what would you do?

LINK to HBO struggling with its Duke LAXer movie:
http://justice4nifong.com/btnnews/news18/news18.htm

LINK to preview trailer of Episode V of “The MisAdventures of Super-Duper Cooper:
http://justice4nifong.com/mmedia/trailerA/trailerA.htm

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.

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.)

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.

D.A. Colon Willoughby fights to keep innocent man in jail in order to shield prosecutor Tom Ford

Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby, in fighting to keep Gregory Taylor behind bars, is doing his best to protect the prosecutor who unjustly put him there, Tom Ford. Currently Gregory Taylor is serving a life sentence for the 1991 murder of Jacquetta Thomas. Recent evidence brought forth by Taylor’s attorneys state that Prosecutor Ford and a detective tried repeatedly to force Greg Taylor to falsely implicate Johnny Beck (an African American with a criminal drug record) in the murder of Ms. Thomas. They threatened to pin the murder on him if he did not cooperate to help them get an innocent (of the murder) black man off the street. Displaying more integrity, honesty, and sense of ethics than the prosecutor and detectives, Taylor refused, and as a result, the bogus case was manufactured against him, as promised. Because of his decision to do the right thing morally, Gregory Taylor has spent the last sixteen years in prison for a murder that he did not commit. And he remains in prison today.

The case against Gregory Taylor was flimsy to non-existent from the beginning. Without physical evidence tying him to the crime, he was convicted solely on the testimony of a prostitute and jailhouse snitch (both of whom received from the prosecutor a deal similar to the deal offered to Taylor). For implicating Taylor in the murder, the prosecutor gave them a break in their jail sentences; information about that prosecutorial offer was withheld from Greg Taylor’s attorneys at the time of trial. The case against Gregory Taylor really collapsed when another man, Craig Taylor (no relation) confessed to the crime. In confessing he established that he had a personal relationship with the victim, and he had knowledge about aspects of the crime that were not made public by investigators. In contrast, the witnesses who received a break for testifying against Greg Taylor, got a lot of the information about the crime wrong.

“Minister of Justice” Tom Ford, as late as 2003, asked a judge to deny Taylor’s request for DNA testing, despite the willingness of Taylor’s family to pay the costs. Fortunately for Mr. Taylor, who consistently appealed his conviction, the state’s Innocence Inquiry Commission took notice of his case. After a hearing, it declared that he was innocent and recommended that a three judge panel hear the case and make a ruling. In preparing for the hearing before the Innocence Inquiry Commission, Wake District Attorney Colon Willoughby requested that Tom Ford (who prosecuted Taylor and is hardly impartial about him) assist him. Also, in their preparation, no one from the prosecutor’s office bothered to interview Craig Taylor, the man who confessed to the crime.

And about Johnny Beck, the African American with a criminal drug record who Prosecutor Ford hoped to pin Thomas’s murder on by using false testimony of Greg Taylor, and who was identified by Ford as the actual murderer of Jacquetta Thomas: Ford was forced to drop charges because Greg Taylor refused to lie against Beck, and without that false testimony, there was absolutely no case against Beck.

Wilson Prosecutor Bill Wolfe accused James Arthur Johnson of the murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery of Brittany Willis after Johnson heroically solved her murder. He did the right thing by going to the police with information about a crime, and it cost him 39 months in jail. Another innocent man, Gregory Taylor did the right thing by refusing to accept an offer by Prosecutor Ford to give false testimony against an innocent man, and he was sentenced to life in prison on trumped up murder charges. Both prosecutors have no problem with putting innocent people behind bars, and as long as they follow the state’s tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color,” they have no reason not to continue doing so when prosecuting. In both cases, the powers that be make sure to go out of their way, even at wasteful taxpayer expense, to shield them from any consequences of their unjust and abhorrent actions.