Rare deals in the North Carolina justice system are pretty common

An article by Thomasi McDonald of The News & Observer dated January 13, 2011 is titled “Sheriff’s daughter gets a rare deal.” This is about Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison’s daughter Paula Gail Harrison who was charged with drug trafficking. She pled guilty to the charges, but the Johnston County prosecutor Adren Harris made a deal with the defendant wherein she was granted a prayer for judgment continued… which is legalese mumbo-jumbo for withholding any punishment if the defendant follows some arbitrary and ambiguous conditions set forth by the prosecutor. Prosecutor Harris refused to state what those conditions might be or what consequences she would face if she did not follow said conditions.

Ms. Harrison is one lucky lady, as she was charged with three felony counts of trafficking opium or heroin, a Class E felony that carries jail sentences of seven to nine years for each count. So technically Ms. Harrison faced a maximum of 27 years in prison, but instead is getting off scott free.

What I find most offensive about this entire case is that the Johnston County Assistant District Attorney Harris had the gall to state that this “rare deal” had absolutely nothing to do with Ms. Harrison being the daughter of the popular Wake County Sheriff, Donnie Harrison. Prosecutor Harris stated, “Because she is his daughter then it’s going to be deemed by some as biased, but it’s not. I trust that what we are doing is in the best interest of justice.” Well, Harris is correct, because everyone knows that the deal is biased and was reached because of her family ties. Harris insults the intelligence of North Carolinians when he makes such disingenuous statements. Not only that, but he refuses, along with Harrison’s attorney (state Representative Leo Daughtry) to publicly express the details of the conditions of this rare deal.

But North Carolina is full of rare deals… one of the most obvious being all of the rare deals given to former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong. For actually honorably doing his job in good faith, he was disbarred… an extremely rare deal, as he is the only prosecutor to be disbarred since the State Bar’s inception in 1933.

Another rare deal is that given to Duke Lacrosse victim Crystal Mangum who was beaten up by her ex-boyfriend only to have police arrest her on bogus arson charges. No action was taken against her boyfriend who initiated the physical conflict by repeatedly punching Ms. Mangum in the face. The rare deal Ms. Mangum got was that she served three months of what prosecutors had planned was a two or three year jail stint while awaiting trial. (Similar to the rare deal given to James Arthur Johnson who solved a murder in Wilson. The rare deal he got for solving the heinous murder of Brittany Willis was not the $20,000 reward offered by the family and friends of Brittany Willis, but 39 months in jail, and being forced to accept a plea deal.)

Former NC Governor Mike Easley also benefited from a rare deal doled out by Rowan County Prosecutor Bill Kenerly, escaping jail time for the felonies he committed and satisfying his criminal debt to society with a $1,000 fine. State Senator R. C. Soles also received a rare deal after shooting an unarmed man in the leg who had his back turned, was retreating and posed no imminent threat.

Rare deals in North Carolina are very common. I speak from personal experience because I got a rare deal when I attended a public event on Duke University’s campus in April 2010. I was kicked off campus without explanation, merit, or logic… and my rare deal nearly ended with my arrest. When pressed for an explanation about being kicked off the campus, the lame excuse that Duke Spokesman Michael Schoenfeld came up with was that I was “soliciting” which he described as handing out business cards and asking people to visit my website.

Surely Mr. Schoenfeld doesn’t believe that I’m stupid enough to believe the reason he gave for my ouster last April. No more than Prosecutor Adren Harris could possibly believe that North Carolinians are dumb enough to believe that the rare deal that Paula Harrison received had nothing to do with her being the daughter of Sheriff Donnie Harrison. And Tar Heelians aren’t dummies when it comes to the rare deal that Mike Nifong was given by the State Bar. For the Bar head F. Lane Williamson to even imagine that Mr. Nifong prosecuted three boys from wealthy and privileged families for the purpose of winning an election defies rationale in the reasonable person who investigates the facts and is not brainwashed by the media. Since when is courting the black vote a sure fire recipe for an electorial victory?

In North Carolina rare deals are commonplace and are correlated to issues of Class and Color of those involved. To put it another way, “equal justice for all” has no place in the North Carolina justice system. It is no wonder that Prosecutor Adren Harris refused to prosecute Paula Harrison with the same fervor as he would drug trafficking defendants who are poor, disenfranchised, and people of color… Harris treated Harrison with kid gloves for the same reason that Prosecutor Bill Kenerly treated former Governor Easley. As Kenerly so aptly put it, Harris did not want to make a “Mike Nifong mistake.” So Harris pulled the prosecutorial punch when faced with the sticky situation involving a sheriff’s daughter, and once again “selective justice based on Class and Color” prevailed.

Tar Heelian prosecutors have certainly learned their lessons well by the example set of Mike Nifong by the state for pursuing the principle of “equal justice for all” when he prosecuted the Duke Lacrosse case. g

NOTE: Part 3 of Episode V of “The MisAdventures of Super-Duper Cooper” is now posted. Click on the link below for the most current installment.

LINK: http://justice4nifong.com/direc/sdcDirec/sdcEpv/sdc109.htm

A criminal justice system well designed for the well-heeled

It should not be a surprise to anyone, but the criminal justice system, like so much else in our society, is designed to benefit the wealthy and privileged… not only by the way in which laws are put on the books, but by the way they are carried out. In short, criminals belonging to society’s upper crust, are mainly saddled with a fine. Real serious crimes by the aristocrats might also include probation (unsupervised, naturally) and possibly community service (arbitrary and vague). Now for the rest of the people, which is mostly comprised of those living in poverty and those on the verge of living in poverty, if they commit a crime you can bet he/she will serve time behind bars. And, of course the penalty for crimes committed by the poor, disenfranchised, and people of color is disproportionately more severe than it is for crimes committed by those in high places.

Wealthy people in positions of prominence, for example, are often not even charged when they go afoul of the law, much less prosecuted. Look no further than what happened when North Carolina senator R. C. Soles shot an unarmed man who was walking away from him and posed no immediate threat. The police report, if one was taken, was never released. Mr. Soles was not arrested. He was not charged. The whole incident was swept under the carpet and the media was muzzled. For the average citizen who carried out such action, you better believe that he/she would be charged with “assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury” at the minimum. Factors such as Class and Color of the victim would determine the amount of bail, and the way in which the prosecution moved forward.

Although Mr. Soles acted criminally and exhibited extremely poor judgment in the shooting incident, the North Carolina State Bar refused to act on a complaint filed against Mr. Soles. Again, not surprising since the Bar is an unregulated agency that is drunk with power… so much that it disbarred former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong on baseless trumped up “ethics” charges; charges which were initiated by some anonymous person in the Bar for the sole purpose of removing Mr. Nifong from the Duke Lacrosse case.

But businessmen are revered in our capitalistic society, and great pains are taken to look the other way when they commit crimes. Although most of the mainstream media has ignored the crimes of Somerhill Gallery President Joe Rowand, the weekly entertainment tabloid, The Independent Weekly, did expose his criminal activities. In short, Rowand defrauded artists out of at least $270,000 worth of commissions for artwork on consignment at the Durham gallery. And, according to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing, he owed $200,000 in unpaid rent, and owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to other creditors. He managed to amass this debt for the business while paying himself a salary of $15,000 per month (roughly $180,000 annually). Now Mr. Rowand is not even charged with a crime. Why? Because he is a businessman.

Heather Holley was not a businesswoman. So when she went on her identity theft spree, during which she tried to obtain some health insurance, and spent $1,800 at Best Buy, police and prosecutors and the courts were ready to throw the book at her. After her arrest, bail was set at $5 million. What made Ms. Holley’s crime so unforgivable was that she victimized a wealthy respectable lady. Had she targeted riff-raff in her crimes, she might have been released without bond, especially considering it was her first run-in with the law. When Ms. Holley had the audacity to ask the judge about her bail being excessive considering the charges against her, he retaliated by raising it an additional million. Of course, there was no outrage at her treatment in court by the media. No editorials in newspapers… in other words, this selective and unjust treatment is as acceptable to the media as the unjust disbarment and persecution of Mike Nifong. The media is well aware of which side its bread is buttered on, and who’s doing the buttering. To champion "equal justice for all" would undoubtedly garner consternation amongst the bigwigs who help support the media by paying for advertising and other contributions.

Recently Rusty Carter, a businessman and owner of Atlantic Corporation, was fined $100,000 by the State Board of Elections because he illegally funneled money to the campaigns of Governor Bev Perdue and two state senators. His company gave $266,900 to state and federal candidates during the 2008 election cycle, according to a sworn affidavit. According to The News & Observer the three recipients of the businessman’s largess “agreed to forfeit the donations.” What does that mean? Are they going to return it to Atlantic? Give the money to charity? And, who’s going to see that these politicians follow up on their promises? Is there going to be a public accounting? (I doubt it.)

Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina asked the State Board of Elections to hand out a $200,000 fine to Carter, suggesting that a hefty fine “sends a signal that these kids of violations deserve to be punished.” Sure, these types of violations deserve punishment, but because he is a businessman, jail time is out of the question… not even a consideration. Regarding the amount of the fine, the Board, under Chairman Larry Leake couldn’t bear to issue a fine greater than $100,000. Hall considers the fine imposed, although half of what he sought, to be “some serious money.” Who does he think he is fooling? $100 grand is serious money to common folk (or “little people”), but to the owner and CEO of a large corporation, that amount probably is barely enough to cover his monthly bar tab. But the media, Mr. Hall, and the courts want the people to believe that Mr. Carter has been severely wounded fiscally. That amount is nothing more than pocket change to a businessman of Mr. Carter’s means.

The General Assembly, which is basically a reactionary body, responded to the Carter case by passing a law making it a felony if a donor gives more than $10,000 in illegal campaign donations, not a misdemeanor like Mr. Carter faced. From what I read from the newly passed law, a donor can make illegal donations up to the $10,000 limit and still be considered to have committed a misdemeanor crime. Why the big cushion? Keep in mind that laws are made by the wealthy and privileged, and they are going to have a definite slant towards benefiting the upper echelon.

Not long ago, I was nearly arrested on the Duke campus because I am a supporter of Mike Nifong. Duke, of course, denied this, with Michael Schoenfeld, a vice president, accusing me of repeatedly violating the school’s regulation against solicitation. What is their definition of solicitation? According to Mr. Schoenfeld it is passing out business cards (I passed out about a half dozen to people with whom I had had a conversation) and asking someone to visit your website. That is unbelievable, but it was the only excuse the university could come up with for kicking me off of its campus when I went to attend an event which was advertised as open to the public. Even if it was the reason behind my near-arrest… to arrest me for passing out business cards? This unjust and malicious behavior against me on Duke’s part is acceptable to the media, and subsequently, the masses because I do not matter when the issue is scrutinized through the lens of the state’s tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color.” Laws, and the way they are applied are adjustable to the individuals involved, their standing in society, and the color of their skin.

With the media helping to direct public opinion, it will always be acceptable to the mindless masses for the well-heeled to pay for their crimes with their wallets, while the disenfranchised, poor, people of color, and the majority of common folk will be expected to pay for their crimes by languishing behind bars at taxpayer expense (and at the benefit of corporations in the correctional institution business).

The sad life and cruel death of Timothy Helms

On Sunday, September 5, 2010, the tragic life and brutal death of Timothy E. Helms mercifully came to an end at the age of 49. There are many people who live unfulfilled lives that are lacking love, amenities, and joy, but one would be hard pressed, by any measure, to find one as sad as Timothy Helms’s. He was dealt a bad hand at birth with a low I.Q. and the emergence of mental health problems as he developed. During his youth, he attended special education classes until he dropped out of school at the age of 16. His many psychiatric problems led to frequent hospitalizations in mental health facilities throughout his adult life. However, his early demise began with his entanglement with North Carolina authorities after a 1994 vehicular accident.

In 1994, Helms claimed that he was a passenger in a truck, driven by a drunken friend, which collided with another vehicle resulting in three deaths. Although he had no driver’s license, and it is unknown whether he even knew how to drive, North Carolina police and prosecutors determined that Helms was the driver and won convictions on three counts of second degree murder against him. He would be held in custody to live out the rest of what would be his remaining sixteen years of life.

The prison system is ill-equipped to treat the mentally ill, although many mentally ill people who allegedly run afoul of the law are housed there. During his years of incarceration, Helms accumulated 125 rule infractions, according to The News & Observer article. An infraction could be anything from threatening to harm staff and using profanity, which he was accused of doing, plus hoarding 84 postage stamps. Why hoarding postage stamps would be considered an infraction, I am unaware, but it does seem to bring into question the legitimacy of the other “infractions” against Helms. His punishment for these so-called infractions included spending 1,459 days in solitary confinement… referred to by the prisoners as “The Hole”… and euphemistically by corrections officials as “Administrative Segregation.” Although rules restricted solitary confinement to no more than 60 consecutive days (two months) for a prisoner, it was documented that Helms spent 571 consecutive days (more than a year and a half) in isolation. Researchers have stated that excessively long periods of isolation can lead to or exacerbate mental problems in individuals… and Helms already had a well defined history of mental illness (which included at least six mental disorder diagnoses). For good measure, while locked in his cell, Helms was typically kept in handcuffs and shackles.

Prior to the events which led to his head trauma, Timothy Helms told the psychologist assigned to visit him that he was being abused by the guards, and he pleaded to be released from solitary confinement. But that request was never realized until August 3, 2008, when Helms, according to officials, managed to use two batteries and a strip of metal to set his mattress on fire. It was at that time that he was dragged out of his solitary confinement cell by guards, and out of range of security cameras. The remainder of security camera footage showed Helms being carried to other prison cells, never ambulating upright.

It wasn’t until the following day that corrections officials decided to have his physical condition evaluated. At the emergency room at Catawba Valley Medical Center in Hickory, where he was transported in the back of a patrol car, he was found to have two skull fractures with bleeding in his brain, a fractured nose, and bruises and welts all over his body consistent with those made by a billy club. As a result of the injuries, Helms was reduced to a bed-ridden quadriplegic who could not even feed or bathe himself, and could barely speak.

How he sustained the injuries is in dispute. Helms stated that after being taken from his smoke-filled cell that fateful day, officers picked him up and used his head as a battering ram against the concrete block wall. Corrections officials in the “Hole” are mystified as to how Helms sustained his injuries. The SBI, after a thorough investigation, was stymied, as well, as to how Helms received two skull fractures with brainstem bleeding, a fractured nose, and “billy club”-like welts and bruises over his entire body. Department of Corrections Secretary Alvin Keller suggested that Helms may have slipped and fell, striking his head on the concrete floor.

The only person charged with any wrongdoing in this incident was Timothy Helms (who was already serving three life sentences) for destroying government property in setting the fire. Prosecutors eventually had the wisdom to drop the charges against him and not waste additional taxpayer dollars with the senseless prosecution of him.

In 2009, Disability Rights North Carolina, an advocacy group for the disabled, petitioned Secretary Keller to release Helms under a program that discharges prisoners whose medical condition ensures that they are no longer a threat to the public. Helms seemed to fit the requirements as he was a bed-ridden quadriplegic… but this request was denied by Keller. In addition, Keller denied requests to release the SBI’s investigative report into the matter, which is not surprising, at least to me.

Tragic, senseless, inhumane, brutal, criminal are all words that could be used to describe Helms’s treatment by the North Carolina criminal justice system. It reinforces the premise that a certain population (usually the disenfranchised, poor, people of color, and the mentally ill and retarded) can be abused by authorities without consequence. The media is selective in which cases of correctional misdeeds and malfeasance it does report on, and is quick to tamp down its coverage of the most egregious actions by prosecutorial or correctional officials.

What makes the Timothy Helms story so heart-wrenching is that he probably never should have been charged with a crime to begin with. I believe that it is questionable as to whether Helms was even the driver of the vehicle… and I doubt that he was. Instead of being confined to a prison cell, Helms should have been hospitalized in a mental health facility where he could have received treatment. The correctional system repeatedly hindered Timothy Helms’s family’s efforts to see and communicate with him, depriving them of the ability to monitor their loved one’s treatment at the hands of correctional officers. Department of Corrections administration also proved it is not above making false statements when it stated that guards at the facility did not carry billy clubs, when video tape at that time showed the contrary. Family members inquiring on Helms’s condition were also lied to by those in charge.

But I would not expect legislators to get upset over the horrendously cruel treatment Helms sustained, because politicians, prosecutors, media types, and many in the public view criminals as expendable entities who’s treatment and fate is of little or no consequence. In addition, the wealthy, powerful, and privileged in our society receive special privileges when it comes to scrapes with the law. For example, politician R. C. Soles can shoot an unarmed man (who has his back to him and is retreating) in the leg and only have to pay a small fine. The unregulated North Carolina State Bar won’t even consider taking any action against Soles for his criminal act and exceedingly poor judgment.

Legislators will get upset, however, when the well-heeled get accused of criminal wrong-doing. What made the Duke Lacrosse case such an enigma and out of the ordinary is that a prosecutor would actually charge defendants from wealth, status, power, and privilege with a crime… especially when the alleged victim is an African American woman. Because Mike Nifong based his decision to prosecute on matters of justice and did not allow the defendants’ families positions and connections dissuade him from pursuing justice, the full weight of the Tar Heel justice system was brought down on his head. How dare he… the state was going to make an example of Mr. Nifong.

Whether or not the North Carolina General Assembly elects to get motivated by the mistreatment of Timothy Helms is of little relevance. All of the rules in place to protect inmates are of little value if those carrying out the supervision of those jailed ignore them without consequence. Timothy Helms was not supposed to be held in The Hole for more than 60 consecutive days. He was held in solitary for more than nine times the maximum amount allowed, but was anyone held accountable? No.

The brutal, cruel, vicious, inhumane, degrading treatment of those incarcerated, some of whom are innocent, is but another scar which taints our state’s justice system. Incidents similar to that which happened to Timothy Helms is not all that rare. The media has touched on a few cases in which correctional officers broke the arm and smashed the face of inmate Theodore Jerry Williams. It also wrote a blurb about a male inmate who was stripped naked and had a female guard give his genitals a dose or two of pepper spray. Unfortunately, people caught in the criminal justice cogs are completely vulnerable and at the mercy of correctional officers, many of whom are racist and sadistic.

What people should keep in mind is that, sadly, what happened, in some degree, to Timothy Helms may be more the rule than the exception.

Million dollar bail... a case comparison - Part 3

Late in the night of February 18, 2010, the nine year old daughter of Crystal Mangum called 9-1-1, and with screaming in the background told the emergency operator, “This is an emergency. Please hurry. My mom is going to die.”

Police were dispatched, and upon arriving found that Crystal Mangum, the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case, was involved in a heated argument with her boyfriend that had allegedly turned physical. According to police, Ms. Mangum threw punches and objects at her boyfriend and scratched him. So, naturally, they arrested her for attempted first degree murder. To really thicken the case against her, they tossed in a few more charges such as five counts of arson, and identity theft.

She was put in the Durham County jail and placed under a $ 1 million bail.

Contrast this with the case of Democratic State Senator R.C. Soles, who never spent a day in jail despite using a firearm to assault another individual in August 2009. Evidently, one of two men who knew the senator kicked the door of Sole’s home. This act resulted in Mr. Soles grabbing his rifle, walking outside his house and firing at the men. (The media did not disclose much about the incident, except to say that one of the men sustained a non-life threatening wound.)

The Attorney General’s Office, which took over the case from a district attorney with conflicted interests, offered a plea bargain in which Senator Soles pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, was fined $1,000, and avoided incarceration and probation.

Meanwhile, Crystal Mangum has been languishing in jail under a ridiculously humongous bail for allegedly scratching her boyfriend, while Senator Soles, who used his rifle outside his home to wound a person, spends no time behind bars. I have heard of bullets killing people, but never fingernails.

The lenient bias in the ruling is so slanted that it prompted Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger to state in reference to the Sole’s judicial outcome, “It seems to me the same rules don’t apply to average folk that apply to powerful Democrats.” Now, I am certain that Senator Berger would take his statement a step further and agree that the same rules do not apply to average folk that apply to powerful Republicans, as well. In short, within the confines of this situation, Senator Berger, it would seem, agrees that the criminal justice system in North Carolina is one of selective justice based on Class and Color.

However, the outrageousness of the charges against Ms. Mangum and the draconian treatment she has received by the courts, police, and the state belies the hostile attitude smoldering beneath the surface against supporters of Mike Nifong or detractors of the Duke Lacrosse defendants. Sadly, for the average folk, the carpetbagger jihad mentality has been well indoctrinated amidst those in positions of power within the state of North Carolina.