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.

MSNBC legal analyst needs more than a pretty face... objectivity and fairness would be a good start

Susan F. Filan, senior legal analyst for MSNBC TV, authored an online editorial in mid-June 2007, titled: "Nifong's punishment is extreme, appropriate." Although opinion pieces have a bit more leeway than news articles, they should at least consist of facts, statements should be substantiated within the text, and there should be a modicum of objectivity. In fact, the entire article is misleading, inaccurate, and flagrantly biased, beginning with her initial premise that disbarment of a lawyer is as rare as a "unicorn sighting." Nothing could be further from the truth. Since its inception in 1933, the North Carolina State Bar has disbarred thousands of attorneys. According to their own web page posted in the past, approximately 350 attorneys were disbarred during a ten year period, an average of nearly three a month. This blatantly false statement is made for the purpose of making former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong's disbarment reflect more harshly on his actions in the Duke Lacrosse case.

Had Ms. Filan stated that disbarment of prosecutors is as rare as "unicorn sightings," then that would be right on. During its 76 years in existence, the North Carolina State Bar has only disbarred one prosecutor... Mike Nifong. This, despite the fact that North Carolina lags just behind Illinois and Louisiana in the number of death row inmates who have been exonerated. Many of them, such as Alan Gell, were convicted due to prosecutorial misconduct by their prosecutor (in this particular case, David Hoke, who is now serving as assistant director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts). However the state, the Duke Lacrosse defense attorneys, and the media, including Ms. Filan, purposely keep the fact that Mr. Nifong is the only prosecutor to be disbarred hidden from the public. That is what makes his treatment so selective, also when you adopt our view which is that Mr. Nifong did nothing wrong in pursuing prosecution in the Duke Lacrosse case.

Ms. Filan presumptuously states that Mr. Nifong will not receive his pension and not be able to retire, which is exactly what he is doing. And, he is not starting "from scratch" as Ms. Filan again falsely predicted. The article by Ms. Filan is filled with a lot of baseless speculation (or "bs"), and misleading and false statements. Most outrageous is the accusation that Mr. Nifong used the Duke case to get re-elected. What information does she have to base this upon? The only television ad I recall appearing during the campaign season which used the Duke Lacrosse case for his/her advantage was run by Attorney General Roy Cooper... "The Duke Lacrosse Decision." In prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case, Mr. Nifong was merely doing his job. By suggest that performing his duties as district attorney while running for re-election is a conflict of interest is absurd. Does she expect Mr. Nifong to remain idle until the election returns are in? F. Lane Williamson of the State Bar also buy into this ridiculous belief, which they both know to be false. These statements are made purely to mold the impressionable minds of the lay public.

Ms. Filan really gets in the gutter when she accuses Mr. Nifong of using his son as a ploy to gain sympathy, leniency, and pity. I seen nothing wrong with a knowledgeable older teenage son wanting to show support for his father by attending his hearing. What I find reprehensible is Ms. Filan's attempt to spin this positive family gesture into something sinister. It is Ms. Filan, not Mr. Nifong, who is guilty of taking advantage of Mr. Nifong's son by needlessly bringing it up in her article in order to get in yet another cheap shot at Mike Nifong. Ms. Filan's actions here are truly shameful, and unbefitting a respectable news outlet.

One of the most ludicrous accusations penned by Ms. Filan is that Mr. Nifong damaged the reputation of Duke University. I would like to know how? She also insinuates that he damaged the reputation of the sport of lacrosse? Again, how?

I don't have a law degree, but I did take a civics class in high school, and I learned about the three different branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. An attorney general, who belongs to he executive branch, cannot make a judicial pronouncement. Yet the media and Ms. Filan give Roy Cooper's "innocent" proclamation the validity as that coming from a judge or jury. This is wrong, period! She also claims that Mr. Nifong damaged the lives of three "innocent" young men. How? They never spent one day in jail, they each received $7 million from Duke University in an out-of-court settlement for reasons unbeknownst to me, they are heroically depicted in books, there is an upcoming HBO movie about these wonderful lads, and individually, Collin Finnerty's celebrity moved a judge to expunge an assault charge from his record. Furthermore, they have all continued on with their lives, one graduating, the other two being offered reinstatement at Duke but deciding to enroll in other prestigious institutes of higher learning with lacrosse teams. Also, the families of these boys are currently seeking an additional $10 million from the cash-strapped city of Durham (which has already spent well more than a million dollars to defend). In the annals of North Carolina jurisprudence, there are many far more compelling instances of truly innocent people whose live have been severely damaged, and by and large, they are the disenfranchised, poor, and/or people of color.

One of the most outrageous statements made by Ms. Filan suggests that Mr. Nifong, in prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case, damaged the public's confidence in the criminal justice system (of North Carolina). Ms. Filan fails to place blame for the public's sour perception of the criminal justice system where it is due... not on Mike Nifong, but on actions of Prosecutors Hoke, Graves, Honeycutt, Brewer, Parker, Wolfe, Keith, Ford, Black, Hardin, McFadyen and a multitude of others. Hoke and Graves won a conviction by withholding exculpatory evidence which resulted in an innocent man being convicted of capital murder and spending more than nine years in jail. Bill Wolfe charged the teenager James Arthur Johnson who solved the Brittany Willis murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery with those crimes based solely on the word of the killer, who implicated Johnson only after investigators told him that Johnson "snitched" on him. After the killer recanted, Wolfe brought forward two "eyewitnesses," both with connections to the police department. These witnesses disappeared when media scrutiny became a factor. Johnson served 39 months in jail without a trial before charges were finally dropped by a special prosecutor. Michael Parker charged mentally retarded Floyd Brown with murder based on a confession which experts said Brown could not possibly made. Brown was held for fourteen years without a trial for the murder, and charges were reluctantly dismissed. Prosecutor Tom Ford tried to force Gregory Taylor to falsely implicate a black suspect for a murder. Ford threatened Taylor that if he did not cooperate, then he would charge Taylor with the crime (which is what he did). Without cause and no physical evidence linking Gregory Taylor to the crime, Ford won a conviction against him based on solely on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch and a prostitute. Their testimony was given in exchange for a decrease in their jail sentence, a fact which the prosecutor willfully withheld from Taylor's defense attorney. Prosecutors were so incensed with Theodore Jerry Williams for complaining about the District Attorney, that correction guards beat him up while in custody, his face pulverized and arm broken. They then charged Williams with assaulting a guard. When the case was dismissed because the prosecution destroyed material evidence that the defendant had requested, Attorney General Roy Cooper appealed. These are only a few of the cases that shed a disfavorable light on the North Carolina justice system. Not Mr. Nifong's actions in the Duke Lacrosse case.

Mr. Nifong's actions in prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case were well within the acceptable standards practiced by other prosecutors. He did not withhold evidence, as the defense attorneys had all DNA lab evidence no later than October 27, 2006, at a time when a court date had yet to be set. In addition, the DNA evidence Mr. Nifong is accused of "withholding" was not exculpatory, as the defense attorneys and media would have the public believe. Mr. Nifong did not lie to the court when he stated that "this is the first that I have heard of this situation." He was without a doubt referring to the first he had heard that the defense attorneys had accused him of withholding evidence. Chairman of the Disciplinary Hearing Commission F. Lane Williamson is no mind reader, and a reasonable person would not accept his interpretation of Mr. Nifong's statement over Nifong's own interpretation. The statement itself was not material and should never have been given the attention it was given, however, the State Bar was so desperate to find a reason to disbar Mr. Nifong that they grasped at all straws. Finally, pre-trial statements made by Mr. Nifong were benign, made prior to indictments being handed down, and were intended to encourage witnesses to come forward. The majority of pre-trial statements made to the media were done so by the attorneys of the Duke Lacrosse defendants, yet Ms. Filan wants to accuse Mr. Nifong of going "Hollywood" and trying the case in the press.

If Mr. Nifong was guilty of any wrongdoing in his prosecution of the Duke Lacrosse case you could not tell by reading Ms. Filan's article. Never once did she explain what he did that was deserving of disbarment. She is not alone, because law professors at Duke University School of Law are unable to explain why Mr. Nifong was disbarred. I asked more than two dozen of them, and they were even afraid to discuss what has become a taboo topic. Taboo because the attorneys, and individuals with a knowledge and understanding of the issues surrounding Mr. Nifong's disbarment, know that the actions by the North Carolina State Bar are selective and unjust. Had the Bar's disbarment of Mr. Nifong been justified, attorneys and law school professors would not be hesitant to enter into dialogue about it.

I have no problem with opinion pieces that are accurate and based on facts, however I take umbrage when such statements are based on lies, rumor, unsubstiated pronouncements, and baseless speculation. In her article "Nifong's punishment is extreme, appropriate," MSNBC Senior legal analyst Susan Filan not only does a disservice to her professions in the legal and media arenas, but an even greater disservice to the impressionable media consuming public. The article is a disgrace.

That said, I believe in fair play, and I would like to offer Ms. Filan the opportunity to respond on our blog site (www.justice4nifong.blogspot.com), our website (www.justice4nifong.com), or in any other venue or forum over which the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong has control. Any response would be published in its entirety without editing or direct rebuttal. Shortly after the posting of this blog, I will send by postal mail an invitation to Ms. Filan asking for a reply not only to issues covered in her article and this blog, but on any other related or unrelated subjects upon which she may wish to expound.

The Media determines who we vilify

Most Americans, especially those whose opinions are easily molded by the media, have an immense dislike towards Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. Yet when asked why, they are unable to give a cogent reason. Many people believe that Mr. Chavez is anti-American. That is not the case, for if he were, he most definitely would not be providing free heating oil to low income Americans to help keep them warm during the winter. According to an article that appeared in the News & Observer in January 8, 2009 edition, Hugo Chavez directly intervened with the Venezuelan government’s U.S. based oil subsidiary (Citgo) to assure the continued uninterrupted flow of this free oil to poor Americans (providing heating oil to 200,000 household in 23 states and 65 Native American tribes). The program to provide oil was threatened with the recent decline in oil prices.

Now an argument can be made that the administration of oilmen Bush-Cheney coveted Venezuelan oil fields, that Venezuela was next on the Bush administration’s to do list, and that Chavez was vilified in order to justify the need for a regime change (which would be to the advantage of the greedy oil companies in the United States). However, the U.S. government never got around to it after the might of the US military got bogged down in Iraq. As a result of the aggressive nature of the Bush administration towards Mr. Chavez, a case can be made that he retaliated with his colorful rhetoric about our chief executive. However these arguments are not published or aired by our media, and as a result, Mr. Chavez is still considered a pariah by the American public and treated like one by US government officials. It was sad, for example, that when RFK’s son, former U.S. Representative Joseph Kennedy, was asked if he personally spoke with Mr. Chavez, he danced around the question, stating, “I did what was necessary to keep this program (a Boston based non-profit to provide heating oil to American poor) going.” Mr. Kennedy was intimidated about any association with Mr. Chavez (regardless of how beneficial it is to the American people) and refused to answer the question directly.

Again, the case can be made that Venezuelan President Chavez has done more for the poor people in the United States than US President Bush. The Bush administration has, however, done a lot to bail out (with taxpayer dollars) greedy corporate CEO fat cats who have run their companies and the economy, of this nation and the world, into the ground. Yet, it is Mr. Chavez who is demonized by the American media and hated by the American people, many of whom benefit from his largess. The reason for this paradox is because the US media propagandizes in such a way that it molds the opinions of Americans who do not take the time or initiative to analyze or question what is spoon-fed to them by the media.

An example of vilification that is closer to home is best represented by the media-prosecution of former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong. The media both locally and nationally, including the the News & Observer, demonized Mr. Nifong to the extent that most people (who do not know him personally or who do not have a mind of their own) despise him, just like they hate Hugo Chavez. The media references Mr. Nifong unflatteringly and it secrets stories that are sympathetic toward or shed a positive light on Mr. Nifong. While doing so, the media downplays the egregious acts of misconduct, some of which are criminal, that are perpetrated by other North Carolina prosecutors. The majority of times, when articles about prosecutorial misconduct are made public, the names of those prosecutors guilty of malfeasance are not even mentioned.

There is the case of Theodore Jerry Williams, an inmate who filed a law suit against the District Attorney’s Office in Stanly County. For retaliation, he was transferred to Union County where he was maced and beaten up by sheriff deputies and then falsely charged with assaulting one of the officers (which they claim resulted in Mr. Williams’ injuries, which included a broken arm). Mr. Williams was facing fifteen years in prison as an habitual offender, if convicted of the “assault”charge against the officer. For a laugh, the District Attorney’s office then put up a poster showing two booking photographs of inmate Theodore Williams, one before the beating and one shortly thereafter. The caption read to the effect, “before and after he decided to sue the district attorney.” When Mr. Williams heard about the poster, he requested it in order to help with his defense. The prosecutors then removed all of the posters he had requested and destroyed them (critical and material evidence for Mr. Williams's defense). The trial court, upon hearing about the destruction of evidence by the prosecutors, dropped the assault charges against Mr. Williams.

Now, even though the Stanly prosecutors conspired with Union County officials to carry out their vendetta against Mr. Williams, assaulted Mr. Williams (including a broken arm), trumped up false charges against Mr. Williams which could net him fifteen years or more in jail, and destroyed material and crucial evidence needed for Mr. Williams’s defense, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper tried to appeal the trial court’s decision.

This is but another example of selective justice by Attorney General Roy Cooper and the North Carolina State Bar. It is a selective justice system that ignores the unjust actions and defends the criminal behavior of its prosecutors who follow the tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color.”

The media minimizes exposure to the public of stories about Mr. Williams, James Arthur Johnson, and other victims of the criminal justice system who are poor, disenfranchised, and of color. In the Duke Lacrosse case, the media portrayed the party-going lacrosse players (from families of wealth, status, and privilege) as saints, and demonized Mr. Nifong (a prosecutor with an exemplary record over 27 years who was diligently carrying out his professional duties in the Lacrosse case).

The media is, in large measure, responsible for the unjust persecution and prosecution of Mr. Nifong (including disbarment [the only prosecutor to be disbarred by the North Carolina State Bar since its inception], loss of his job as district attorney, 24 hour jail sentence, and an attempt by NC Attorney General Roy Cooper to have the US Department of Justice investigate Mr. Nifong for depriving the Duke lads of their civil rights). The media is also partially responsible for the three Duke Lacrosse defendants, 38 un-indicted Duke Lacrosse teammates, three separate un-indicted Duke lacrosse players, and the Duke lacrosse coach for filing lawsuits against the university and the cash-strapped city of Durham. And, the media is responsible for the overwhelming and unjust animus by the public against Mr. Nifong, one of the best public servants Durham will ever have.

It is time for people to start using their common sense in building opinions about individuals and events, rather than relying on the media to tell them what to think. This can be difficult, especially when the media elects to keep the public ignorant about stories or facets of certain stories that might enlighten the people and lead them to conclusions that are at variance with those championed by the media.

“Stormy Nifong era”?

The anti-Nifong biased media is at it again, with an entry in the “Up-and-comers in ’09” article in today’s News & Observer newspaper. Authored by staff writer Anne Blythe, it alludes to former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong’s tenure at that position as “the stormy days of the Mike Nifong era,” and she infers that as district attorney, Mr. Nifong’s approach was not “even-keeled.”

What constituted the “stormy days” of his era other than the media-propelled Duke Lacrosse case? The media, working with State Attorney General Roy Cooper, the North Carolina State Bar, Duke University, and families of the Duke Lacrosse case defendants, whipped up the furor that turned a zephyr into a hurricane. And it is not only to the detriment of Lady Justice, but to Duke University and the city of Durham itself. Duke, the State Bar, and the media try to blame Mr. Nifong for the slew of lawsuits currently pending against the city and the university, but they are at fault for undermining the work of a rare prosecutor with integrity who would not follow the directives of the powerful university or other state officials.

Duke University, by caving into the outrageous demands of the Lacrosse defendants and settling with them for multiple millions of dollars without putting up a fight, and the persecutorial and prosecutorial onslaught against Mr. Nifong by the state, itself, as well as the sympathetic media coverage of the three defendants, laid the groundwork for the legal turmoil that will envelop the Raleigh-Durham area for some time to come.

The carpetbagger families of the three Duke Lacrosse defendants have already cost the cash-strapped city of Durham more than a million dollars of taxpayer money in preparing a legal defense and the avaricious litigants are seeking to extract at least thirty million. Money that is desperately needed for Durham’s programs (including funds needed to improve the probation system).

According to staff writer Blythe, public scrutiny is on for the new Durham district attorney, Tracey Cline, presumably due to the Duke Lacrosse case. Well, how about some scrutiny for Wilson District Attorney Howard S. Boney, Jr. who’s prosecutorial missteps racially divided a city; held a hero in jail for 39 months; attempted to introduce two bogus eyewitnesses (both with connections to the Wilson police department) against an innocent man (James Arthur Johnson); worked with the family and friends of Brittany Willis to renege on the $20,000.00 reward with Mr. Johnson earned; conspired with Forsyth County District Attorney Thomas Keith to have Assistant District Attorney Belinda Foster (as a special prosecutor) drop charges of murder, kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery against Johnson (which they knew that they could not prove) and instead bring the charge of “accessory after the fact” against Johnson (for wiping fingerprints [which played no role in the conviction of the murderer] from the victim’s car); and is working with current private sector special prosecutor W. David McFadyen (at extra taxpayer expense) and Superior Court Judge Milton F. Fitch (who refused a defense motion for a change of venue and has expressed his wish to hear the case) to win a conviction against a young man who, is by all accounts, a person who had never been in trouble with the law, had no prior criminal record, and who was planning to attend college on a soccer scholarship. The label of being a convicted felon will follow Johnson (if convicted) the rest of his life, but the Wilson district attorney has no qualms about ruining the life of a young African American lad in order to protect his prosecutor from being disciplined by the State Bar for prosecutorial misconduct (something that will never happen).

The media, including the News & Observer, is doing its part to protect Wilson prosecutor Bill Wolfe, by keeping the public ignorant about crucial events taking place in Wilson regarding the case against Johnson. Instead, the media wants the public to place its attention on Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline, who I believe is the only African American district attorney in the state of North Carolina.

It looks like in 2009 the News & Observer will continue its course of supporting the current tenet of North Carolina’s justice system – “selective justice based on Class and Color,” by refusing to report on stories that are favorable to the only prosecutor to be disbarred by the NC State Bar, Mr. Nifong. Like most of the media, it wants to keep the public ignorant about misdeeds and malfeasants of other district attorneys by refusing to publish articles, such as the complaint filed against James “Jim” Hardin and Freda Black for withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense attorneys of novelist Michael Peterson, and activities occurring in Stanly County by District Attorney Michael Parker against defendant Theodore Jerry Williams.

Unfortunately, public scrutiny is, in large measure, determined by the media. The stories upon which the media chooses to focus are, very often, to the detriment of the public which it serves.