NC State Bar: A Force from the Dark Side

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Plea deals should be for the guilty

UPDATE ON SUPER-FLOG

Work is continuing on the flog... The reason the flog was initially damaged was due to my haste in finishing it.  As a result of cutting a few corners I managed to damage the document.  So I will cautiously proceed to complete it as soon as possible.  I am hoping to have it posted no later than next Sunday, January 13th.

Word count:  1,824

 There’s an exclusive front page news article in the December 27, 2012 issue of The Carolinian titled “Pardon sought for Johnson.”  In it, editor Cash Michaels begins with this paragraph:  “An ‘appropriate pardon’ is being sought for James A. Johnson, a young Wilson County African American man who, in 2004, told police about the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a 16 year-old girl by a friend of his, but was then arrested, charged and jailed over three years for the crime.”

According to the newspaper, NCCU law professor Irving Joyner presented the petition seeking an “appropriate pardon” before outgoing Governor Bev Perdue on December 14, 2012 – with less than a month left in office and with her simultaneously considering a pardon of innocence for the Wilmington Ten.

To recap the Johnson tragedy:  In 2004, 16 year-old Wilson County African American Kenneth Meeks kidnapped Caucasian 17 year-old Brittany Willis from a shopping mall, took her to an isolated spot where he raped her, and then shot her to death.  Meeks then confided what he had done with James Arthur Johnson, an 18 year-old African American who he had met only months earlier.  Johnson was a good student who shared the love of soccer with Brittany Willis, and had even received a soccer scholarship offer to attend college.  Johnson accompanied Meeks in the victim’s stolen vehicle to the killing field where he witnessed firsthand Meeks’ gruesome handiwork. 

During the next couple of days Johnson silently complied with the “no-snitch” laws of the street about the tragedy which by this time had grown to a major statewide news story.  The family and friends of Brittany Willis even offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator.  Johnson then informed his father about his encounter with Meeks days earlier, at which time he was escorted be him to the police station sans attorney for the purpose of assisting with the criminal investigation.  Johnson named Meeks as the culprit at which time Wilson police knew the identity of their man.  Meeks was arrested and brought in for questioning.  Justifiable anger over the senseless murder of a young Wilson teen by the African American resulted in a transference of that anger towards African Americans in general… and the appetite by police to incarcerate as many black men as possible.  Somewhere during the interview with investigators Johnson admitted that he had wiped his fingerprints off the victim’s car… and the police knew they could charge him at least with “accessory after the fact.”  But they wanted more, so the interrogators went to Meeks and told him, “Your friend snitched on you.”  This evoked the anticipated response from the young Meeks, who feeling angered by betrayal, implicated Johnson as an active participant in the crime.  Police, without forensic evidence and relying on the words of Meeks alone, arrested Johnson and charged him with murder.  The official police story was that both Johnson and Meeks committed the crimes against Willis, and then Johnson turned over to police his partner in crime in order to collect the $20,000 reward. 

More than a year later, Meeks recanted… after which time prosecutors came up with two eyewitnesses (both with connections to the Wilson Police Department – one being a retired police officer).  These eyewitnesses were quickly jettisoned once the NAACP and Rev. Dr. William Barber, with the accompanying media scrutiny, became involved.  Trial was delayed for more than two years, and as it approached, the prosecutor Bill Wolfe began offering plea deals.  Johnson called Wolfe’s bluff, which led to the Wilson prosecutor backing down and referring the case to a special prosecutor.  Forsythe County assistant D.A. Belinda Foster was forced by District Attorney Tom Keith to take the assignment as special prosecutor, and she relented only on the condition that she not be forced to prosecute.  In a preordained charade, Foster dismissed the murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery charges against Johnson and then charged him with “accessory after the fact”… this despite the fact that it was Johnson who was responsible for the case being solved.

Johnson instead of being heralded as a hero for solving the crimes against Brittany and being embraced by the Willis family, was vilified in the mainstream media and the State which led to a racial divide in the Wilson County.  After a lengthy search, a special prosecutor (W. David McFadyen) was found who was willing to waste taxpayer dollars in pursuing the baseless accessory charge against Johnson.  Professor Joyner was one of the attorneys representing Johnson against the special prosecutor’s rinky-dink charge. Although Johnson had been free on bond for several months to await trial, he was once again inundated by prosecutors to accept a plea deal.  This time, possibly on advice from his counsel, Johnson accepted the plea deal which resulted in his pleading guilty to misprision of felony in exchange for time served.  (Misprision of felony is a rarely used charge for someone who has knowledge of a crime and withholds it from authorities.  However, the crime for which Johnson pled guilty was exactly what he did not do, as he did go to authorities with his knowledge of the crimes by Meeks.)

An appropriate pardon?  According to Joyner, Johnson’s unjust 39 month stint in jail for solving the Willis murder has dogged him like a shadow on cloudless autumn afternoon.  He has been unable to obtain or hold down a job once his past comes to light before his employers.  Even though Johnson has left the state in hopes of leaving behind his personal nightmare, it follows him… and it continues to destroy his life.  It appears that Professor Joyner’s answer to the injustice against Johnson rested with some sort of pardon from Governor Bev Perdue.  Because of his plea deal, a pardon of innocence seems to be off the table… and Joyner never fully described what an “appropriate pardon” would be.

In my opinion, Johnson would not be in his current predicament and would not be requiring a pardon if he would have stood trial for the trumped up accessory charge.  My feeling is that Johnson was advised by his legal counsel to give serious consideration to the plea offer.  The special prosecutor was desperate to obtain a plea deal as he did not want to prosecute the frivolous case against Johnson despite having the backing of a supportive media.  Had I been an advisor in Johnson’s circle, I definitely would have advised against accepting any plea deal… I would have recommended that he accept nothing less than complete exoneration with dismissal of all charges related to that horrific incident.

The plea deal might be a good deal for the guilty, but it should not be a consideration for the innocent.  All too often in the state of North Carolina, prosecutors charge and arrest innocent individuals (usually disenfranchised, indigent, and people of color), and after they serve a significant time of incarceration, hold out a plea deal as the only realistic means of gaining their freedom.  Once an innocent person accepts a plea deal, then they automatically release the State from civil liability for malicious prosecution, and they give up any rights they may have for compensation and other forms of restorative justice.

Plea deal for Mangum?  Durham prosecutor Charlene Coggins-Franks, aware that the grand conspiracy against Crystal Mangum has been exposed, is now desperately desirous of a plea deal with Mangum in order to extricate itself from the position in which it now finds itself.  Despite the mainstream media’s cooperation in keeping the fraudulence of Medical Examiner Clay Nichols’ autopsy report quiet, concealing the esophageal intubation of Daye as being the direct cause of his brain death, and hiding the malevolent and malicious vendetta prosecution by the State, the Durham District Attorney’s Office and its staff know that they are not going to be able to carry out their initial goal of convicting Mangum with a life sentence.  The Durham D.A. team could not even convict Mangum of arson when she was represented with a featherweight defense in the 2010 trumped up case… so it knows that it stands no chance to prevail now that the extent of their conspiracy has been exposed.  Even with the defense expert witness refusing to put a report in writing, the defense attorneys withholding exculpatory evidence from her, and Mangum representing herself, prosecutors have come to the realization that they cannot prevail at trial, and that their only hope is to strike a plea deal with Mangum… and then leave it up to the media to spin the story to Mangum’s detriment (something with which it is very experienced).

If a plea deal is offered to Mangum, I would advise her not to accept it, because like James Arthur Johnson, the ill-effects will follow her for the rest of her life… only with a tenfold greater intensity.  It will be something, as in Johnson’s case, that no pardon could possibly remedy. 

Fact is that Crystal Mangum was a domestic violence victim of an intoxicated Reginald Daye (who had physically beaten her approximately one week prior to the self-defense stabbing).  On that fateful April 2011 morning, Daye repeatedly punched her in the face and head, pulled out her hair, spit on her, and broke down the door when she sought refuge from him there.  Then, after bringing in steak knives from the kitchen he proceeded to throw them at her, and in his final action against her, Daye placed his hands on her throat and began strangling her.  It was at this point that Mangum grabbed a knife within reach and stabbed Daye once… causing him to relent in his attack and allow her to make an escape.

I submit that after undergoing such a terrorizing ordeal Crystal Mangum should not have been charged and arrested for acting in self-defense and that she should not have to accept a plea deal in order to be released from an incarceration with no foreseeable end.  As of the date of this blog posting, Ms. Mangum has served 646 days in jail, and a court date has yet to be assigned.  Part of this lengthy incarceration is to force her to accept a plea deal and that is why her case has moved through the courts at a glacial pace… with inactivity on the prosecution and defense side.  Even Mangum’s attempts to file motions in representing herself have been delayed without cause.

Bottom line is that Crystal Mangum will prevail, as long as she stays strong and doesn’t give in to the slick deals by the prosecution.  I am sure that if James Arthur Johnson had it to do over again, he would not have accepted a plea deal and would have fought for his innocence.  A plea deal might be a good thing for the guilty, but it is a raw deal for the innocent.          nn

A prosecution in desperate need of a plea deal

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Here is the deal that Duke Lacrosse victim/accuser Crystal Mangum’s attorney recently suggested that she accept: plead guilty to assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury in exchange for a sentence of time served. Her attorney, H. Wood Vann, also informed her that she has a weak case, implying that if she did not accept the plea deal that she could be expected to be convicted of the first degree murder charge in Reginald Daye’s death.

Mr. Vann presented this plea deal during one of his rare visits to the Durham County Detention Center to see Ms. Mangum. In the other two previous visits he tried to discourage her from giving an interview to the Discovery Channel and to The News & Observer. In his attempts to have her accept the plea deal, he warned that if she did not agree to take it, her next court date would be in April 2013… seven months away. In other words, he threatened her with being forced to sit idly in jail another seven months while he did nothing… as he had done since taking over her defense nearly four months ago.

These recommendations from her defense attorney came despite the fact that he has continued to withhold vital prosecution discovery and other evidence from her. Crystal Mangum has never seen any of the prosecution photographs depicting injuries to her and Reginald Daye and the state of the apartment, including clumps of her hair and the bathroom door kicked off its hinges. Ms. Mangum has never seen the report from the forensic pathologist who reviewed the allegedly fraudulent autopsy report of April 14, 2011 by Dr. Clay Nichols and other documents about Daye’s death. Finally, Ms. Mangum never saw the mysterious yearlong SBI report that was rumored to be about the entry and trajectory of Daye’s stab wound. Ms. Mangum has repeatedly asked Mr. Vann to see these pieces of evidence, and he has continually refused to turn copies over to her for viewing. Yet, he expects her to accept his word that she has a weak defense in light of the fact that photographs, interviews, Daye’s condition and past history, and common sense strongly supports that she acted in self-defense when she stabbed him.

The reason Mr. Vann is trying to persuade Ms. Mangum to accept a plea deal is because he is trying to assist a desperate prosecution in extricating itself from a situation in which it finds itself in serious civil liability, namely malicious prosecution and wrongful incarceration. It is evident that the prosecution of Ms. Mangum was vendetta driven as payback for her role in the Duke Lacrosse case which occurred five years earlier. The simple fact of the matter is that the prosecution has absolutely no case against Mangum, and her attorney is well aware of this… but then, again, he is in collusion with her prosecutors.

The criminal case against Mangum is not unlike that of the bogus case against James Arthur Johnson in which the African American young man solved the heinous Wilson murder-kidnapping-rape-armed robbery of Wilson teen Brittany Willis. Without physical, forensic, eyewitness, or any other credible evidence against Johnson, he was held in jail for more than three years as the trial neared. Wilson prosecutors attempted to line up two “eyewitnesses,” both with ties to the Wilson Police Department, but withdrew once the NAACP became involved and brought media scrutiny to the case. Prosecutor Bill Wolfe tried his best to bluff Johnson into accepting a plea deal, and finally, when the day of the trial arrived, the prosecution backed down and referred their case to a “special prosecutor.” Belinda Foster, the special prosecutor from Forsyth County, was forced to accept the role by her superior District Attorney Thomas Keith, but she did so under the prearranged condition that she not be forced to prosecute the case. Under the pretense of investigating the case, Ms. Foster waited a few months, then per plans already decided upon, she dismissed all of the serious felony charges against Johnson and filed a charge against him of “accessory after the fact.” Instead of being hailed as a hero by the community, receiving a reward, and being endeared by the victim’s family for going against the “no-snitch” law of the streets, and identifying the true killer who had days earlier confided his criminal acts to him, Johnson was incarcerated for thirty nine months, ended up with a criminal record, was disparaged in the media, and was deprived of the $20,000 reward that was offered by the family and friends of Brittany Willis.

Like the Johnson case, Prosecutor Charlene Coggins-Franks has no intention of taking the case against Mangum to trial because there is no case. If she even attempted to do so, she would literally be laughed out of the courthouse. The only thing a trial would accomplish, even if the defense was handled by an inept turncoat attorney, would be to draw attention to the bogus autopsy report and uncover the truth about Daye’s death… which is that it was caused by a medical mistake with a botched intubation by staff at Duke University Hospital. Initially, the prosecution goal may have been to saddle Ms. Mangum with a conviction and lengthy prison sentence under a silently conducted trial, but since the involvement by Mangum’s supporters, the prosecution is now frantically trying to wiggle out of its predicament with a plea deal.

Unfortunately for Coggins-Franks and her staff, their ace in the hole, defense attorney Woody Vann has been exposed as one whose allegiance is traitorously aligned with the prosecution… they are acting in lockstep and depending upon him to deliver the goods – a plea deal of assault with a deadly weapon for time served. But it’s not going to work this time, at least if the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong has anything to say about it.

Racial prejudice is prevalent in the criminal justice system in North Carolina, and it is a common practice for innocent African Americans to be arrested, held on a high bail, and forced to essentially serve a sentence while waiting to go to trial. Often, these innocents accept a plea deal as a way of getting out of jail… pleading to a lesser crime in exchange for time served. On a few rare occasions, the defendants are merely released without comment… such as what happened to Carletta Patrice Alston. She was arrested and charged with the murder of her stepfather, and was held in jail for a year. When Prosecutor Tom Ford (of the Gregory Taylor case) was unable to manufacture a case against her, she was released.

It is obvious to a reasonable person with full knowledge of the facts that something is wrong with the prosecution’s case when a person indicted on a first degree murder charge is offered a deal by prosecutors to plead guilty to assault with a deadly weapon in exchange for a sentence of time served… less than a year and a half. Prosecutors purposely charged Ms. Mangum with a crime with knowledge that she was innocent, and they are now attempting to remove themselves from the fiasco by forcing her to allow the placement on her record that she is a felon guilty of assault with a deadly weapon.

This is the sort of thing that puts the North Carolina justice system in disrepute… not the prosecutorial actions of former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong, and not the passionately animated judicial complaints of former Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline.

There is no doubt that in the criminal case against Crystal Mangum that she is up against a prosecution that is the antithesis of a “minister of justice,” and which is up to its eyeballs in a conspiracy with the Orange County medical examiner, defense attorneys representing Ms. Mangum, the mainstream media, and the enablers – the NAACP, ACLU, North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence (enablers being other civil rights organizations, and politicians who are able to make a difference, but stand idly by and say and do nothing). The only ones fighting for justice for Ms. Mangum are her supporters, including the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong… and regrettably, they are the objects of disparagement and ridicule by the media-types.

The Durham prosecution needs to act responsibly and do the right thing by unconditionally dismissing all criminal charges against Crystal Mangum and releasing her from custody. The charade has been exposed for what it is with the only criminals coming from the prosecution side. Lady Justice makes these demands so that the principles of restorative justice can take place and the innocent mother of three can put her life back together as best as is possible. 

Durham Prosecutors: “Oops!” Charges dropped against two in the Durham cult murder case

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On Tuesday, June 12, 2012, Durham prosecutors dismissed charges of “accessory after the fact” against Sheilda Evelyn Harris and Sheila Falisha Moses, the mother and sister respectively of Peter Lucas Moses Jr. The day before, Peter Moses pled guilty to the murders of four year-old Jadon Higganbothan and Antoinetta Yvonne McCoy, in her late twenties. Sheilda Harris and Sheila Moses were amongst a group of six people other than Peter Moses who were charged with murder shortly after the bodies of the two victims were discovered a year ago around June 8, 2011.

The reasons the Durham prosecutors had for dismissing the charges against Peter Moses’ mother and sister are unknown to media, and not having access to prosecution discovery, I can supply no reason either, other than the fact that evidence for bringing the charges never existed in the first place. A year ago, when the two were arrested, Sheilda Harris and Sheila Moses were charged with murder and ordered to be held without bail. However, some time during the interval, the charge used to hold them behind bars was changed to “accessory after the fact.”

What is bothersome regarding the others who are charged with “accessory after the fact” in the cult murder case is the probability that much of the prosecutor’s case will rely on testimony from Peter Lucas Moses, who entered into a plea deal to spare him from the death penalty. Surely such testimony from a confessed murderer in cooperation with prosecutors lacks credibility from the git-go.

Dismissal of the accessory charge against them was not of insignificant consequence as both of them in essence served a one year term for committing no crime. In dropping the charges, the Durham prosecutors are admitting to mistakenly arresting and incarcerating Sheilda Harris and Sheila Moses… holding them in jail custody for more than a year… and subjecting them to scorn, shame, and ridicule by media reports spreading their names and faces across the state. Dropping the charges against them will not restore the lost year of their lives, which the prosecutors were all to eager and unapologetically to take from them… neither will it remove the emotional and physical scars they suffered as a result of their unjust incarceration… nor will it cleanse their reputations that have been smeared by the reckless charges and arrests.

The problem with mass arrests and incarcerations based on “accessory after the fact” charges is that it tends to entrap many innocent people who are related to the criminal perpetrator, as in this case, or have a brief interaction with a suspect after the commission of the crime. Prosecutors use the accessory charge to place individuals in jail who are not suspected of taking part in the defining criminal act… they are often implicated solely for their contact with the criminal, not matter how innocent or trivial.

The accessory after the fact charge is too frequently abused by North Carolina prosecutors, often to incarcerate innocent African Americans. This is the charged that was brought by Special Prosecutor Belinda Foster against James Arthur Johnson of Wilson, NC, when prosecutor Bill Wolfe’s bluff was called in his failed attempt to get Johnson to take a plea deal after serving 39 months for murder, rape, and kidnapping charges he obviously did not commit. What is particularly tragic about Johnson’s case is that he provided information which solved the heinous crimes against Brittany Willis. Instead of receiving, from the family and friends of the victim, thanks and the $20,000 reward he earned for going to the police with information that cracked the case open, all Johnson received was more than three years in jail and a criminal record.

However, it is not a rarity in North Carolina for innocent blacks to be arrested and held in jail for lengthy periods of time without there being credible evidence of their being charged. Carletta Alston of Knightdale was recently arrested and charged with the murder of her stepfather. She was imprisoned for a year before the charges against her were dropped. Wake County Prosecutor Tom Ford (who prosecuted an innocent man Gregory Taylor) was evidently unable to find someone to give perjured testimony against Ms. Alston.

The entire North Carolina justice system mentality that approves charging and arresting African Americans first then coming up with credible evidence later, is what nearly led to my arrest at Duke University in April 2010. It was not enough that Duke harassed, humiliated and intimidated me just for being a supporter of Mike Nifong, but it had no compunction about tossing me in jail because I am an African American… fortunately crossing paths with Duke Law Professor James Coleman prevented that.

There is another case in Durham County Prosecutor’s docket that should be immediately dismissed. The murder and larceny charges against Crystal Mangum, the victim/accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case, lack credible evidence and are based on bogus and fraudulent documents… all part of a vendetta prosecution for payback because of her role in the Duke Lacrosse case.

Prosecutor Charlene Coggins-Franks conspired with her predecessor on the case, Kelly Gauger, and medical examiner Clay Nichols to trump up the murder charge against Mangum. Governor Bev Perdue and the Durham district attorney she appointed, Leon Stanback, are aware of the injustice in the charges against Mangum and are in position to rectify them… however, by remaining silent, they are conspirators after the fact.

The fiasco surrounding the charges against Mangum would not be happening if Mike Nifong were the Durham district attorney. Mr. Nifong was a prosecutor of highest integrity who was professionally represented a paragon of a “minister of justice.” Prosecutors and politicians who allow innocent people to remain incarcerated for political reasons are lacking in integrity and morals.

Crystal Mangum has been incarcerated 441 days as of today… a victim of domestic abuse who stabbed Reginald Daye in self defense… a non-fatal stab wound to Daye, who died after elective removal from life support due to an unrelated botched medical procedure by Duke University Hospital staff… a victim of a trumped up larceny charge for cashier’s checks given to her by Daye; cashier’s checks she could not convert for her use; cashier’s checks which Daye retained value of despite lacking physical possession of the paper documents.

It is past time for the state to drop charges against Mangum and release her from jail so that she can reunite with her three young children who have suffered because of her absence in their lives. By dropping charges against Sheilda Harris and Sheila Moses, the state has shown its proficiency in destroying lives of innocent people by taking away years of their liberty. If the state has an ounce of compassion, humanity, ethics, or sense of true justice, it would immediately drop the bogus charges against Crystal Mangum and release her from custody.

Durham prosecutors need to face the fact that Mangum’s freedom is inevitable, and it needs to cut its losses by doing the right thing now, rather than later. 

Conspiracy in the charges against Crystal Mangum

(Link at end of the blog article)

There is no doubt in my mind that the flimsiness of the prosecution’s charges of first degree murder and larceny against Crystal Mangum, the Duke Lacrosse victim/accuser, that are associated with the death of Reginald Daye requires the collusion of both prosecution and defense attorneys in order to move forward. I believe that Chris Shella has allowed his client to sit in jail for more than a year with no end in sight because he is working with prosecutor Kelly Gauger to in effect have Crystal Mangum serve a sentence without even going to trial.

To date she has served one year… and for what? On April 3, 2011, Ms. Mangum was beaten by Reginald Daye, and in self defense she stabbed him with a small knife… once. Daye only sustained internal injuries to the splenic flexure of his colon and a small lesion to his spleen. On the third postoperative day, Daye, who was also fighting delirium tremens, was having respiratory difficulty and a decision was made to make diagnostic tests that required oral contrast. After the contrast was introduced through a naso-gastric tube (a tube that runs from the nose to the stomach), Daye had some emesis. In order to protect his airway and to administer high concentrations of oxygen, the decision was made to intubate Daye. Unfortunately the intubation tube was placed in the pharynx instead of the airway, and as a result oxygen was prevented from entering his lungs, and subsequently his bloodstream became oxygen deficient. The brain cells, which are extremely sensitive to oxygen deprivation, died quickly, whereas the cardiac heart cells responded to the decreased oxygen level by going into cardiac arrest. With the arrest, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was begun and at this time the endotracheal tube which had been mis-positioned was removed, and another one re-inserted… however this tube was properly positioned. With the tube in the airway, oxygen flowed into the lungs once again and the blood received oxygen. The cardiac cells recovered with the fresh flow of oxygenated blood, but the brain cells had already died and could not be revived… accounting for Daye’s comatose state. After a week on life support, Daye’s family consented for the life support measures to be removed, and subsequently and as a proximal result, Daye died.

Daye’s death was due to his removal from life support. Daye’s brain death was due to medical staff error in placement of an endotracheal tube.

Recently I visited with Crystal Mangum at the Durham Detention Center in Durham, NC. She told me the following about the cashier’s check for which she was charged with two counts of larceny:
1. prior to Sunday, April 3, 2011, Reginald Daye purchased two cashier’s checks totaling $700 to pay for the rent of his apartment that he was sharing with Crystal and her children;
2. both cashier’s checks were made out to the apartment rental company and both had Reginald Daye listed as the remitter;
3. prior to Sunday, April 3, 2011, Mr. Daye gave both of the cashier’s checks to Crystal with the understanding that she would drop them off at the rental office on Monday, April 4, 2011… this arrangement necessary because Daye was scheduled to leave for work that day at six in the morning and would be returning home after five in the late afternoon. In other words, he would be at work during the office hours of the rental agency;
4. prior to Sunday, April 3, 2011, Ms. Mangum put both cashier’s checks in her purse for safekeeping;
5. late in the evening of Saturday, April 2, 2011, Daye and Mangum got into an argument about personal relationship issues. At no time was the argument about finances or money;
6. in the early hours of Sunday, April 3, 2011, the argument between Reginald Daye and Crystal Mangum turned physical, with him dragging her by her hair and punching her in the face;
7. in self-defense, she stabbed him once in the torso with a small kitchen knife, grabbed her purse (which contained the cashier’s checks), and quickly left the premises;
8. hours later, when police found Crystal Mangum at her aunt’s residence, she was taken into custody and the two cashier’s checks that were in her purse were confiscated;
9. despite the fact that: (a) both checks were given to Ms. Mangum by Reginald Daye; (b) their argument had nothing to do with money issues; and (c) due to the way the cashier’s checks were filled out, Ms. Mangum could not convert them to money for her own personal use, Durham prosecutor Kelly Gauger proceeded to charge Crystal Mangum with two counts of larceny… one for each cashier’s check.

Both criminal charges against Crystal Mangum are seriously flawed and any attorney worth his salt would have filed a motion immediately to have both charges dismissed. The murder charge should be dismissed because (1) Ms. Mangum acted in self-defense; (2) the autopsy reports were criminally fraudulent themselves; (3) Daye’s brain death was caused by error in endotracheal tube placement by Duke University Hospital staff and not related to the stab wound; and (4) Daye was electively removed from life-support with the consent of his family.

Regarding the larceny charge, it should be dismissed because both cashier’s checks were given to Mangum by Daye, and because they were useless to her as she could not convert them for her own use.

Other than the extreme weakness of the charges against Ms. Mangum, other issues suggestion collusion between the two parties is that no action has taken place on the prosecutor’s side, and there is nothing in play on the Court calendar in the foreseeable future. This reinforces my contention that prosecution’s plan is to have Ms. Mangum serve a sentence of as many years as possible without even being taken to trial (similar to the prosecution strategy used in the James Arthur Johnson case).

That Crystal’s defense attorney Chris Shella has not filed any motions on her behalf also speaks of his culpability in this nefarious scheme. Why has he not filed for the dismissal of these merit-less charges? She’s sat in jail for more than a year, and during that time, Crystal told me, Mr. Shella has been to visit her three or four times, and that the visits last from five to ten minutes. She said that even though she has requested since May 2011 to see all prosecutorial discovery, he has withheld much from her, including photographs.

That is why Ms. Mangum was desperately seeking assistance and asked me to help her with motions to have the charges dropped. In communicating through intermediaries, I asked her to send me the discovery so I could help her draft the motions, as she had no access to a law library, internet or laptop. She sent me the discovery and signed the documents, and because she was being held in jail and could not be allowed to walk to the courthouse to file the motions herself, I filed them on her behalf.

I strongly believe that Chris Shella was furious because the motions were filed, and that went against his agenda to keep Crystal Mangum isolated with no legal activity. Like the prosecutor, Mr. Shella wanted Ms. Mangum to quietly serve out her jail sentence of several years, and when time for trial could no longer be pushed back, force her to accept a stringent plea deal.

Now Chris Shella is seeking retribution against me by asking the North Carolina State Bar to investigate me for violating laws against practicing law without a license. But which is the bigger crime? Trying to help a young mother who has been vilified by the media and who is being falsely held in jail on bogus charges, or being party to a conspiracy to hold that innocent mother in jail, away from her three children? I submit the North Carolina State Bar should be directing its attention towards Chris Shella and Kelly Gauger, not me.


Click on the link below to access a directory to documents that support the fact that the Autopsy Examination Report, upon which the murder charge against Ms. Mangum is based, is false.
http://www.justice4nifong.com/legal/cgm/mddirec.htm

Black NC legislators bemoan GOP treatment

In a January 8, 2012 article in The News & Observer by John Frank titled “Black legislators blast GOP leadership,” African American legislators, led by North Carolina Democratic state Senator Floyd McKissick, Jr. roundly criticized the treatment of African Americans by the Republican controlled General Assembly. The head of the Legislative Black Caucus, McKissick made his discontent known shortly after the state Senate overrode Governor Bev Perdue’s veto of Republican backed changes in the state’s Racial Justice Act.

McKissick accused Republicans of disempowering black leaders, such as the head of the General Assembly’s Fiscal Research Division, and he chided the party for its disrespectful treatment of African American state employees. Senator McKissick concluded that the Republicans had shown “an overall disinterest and lack of respect for black people in North Carolina.” He then posed the rhetorical question, “When are they going to stop attacking black North Carolinians and focus on job creation and getting this economy moving?”

The answer to that question is simple… they are never going to stop attacking black North Carolinians – at least not as long as they see no reason not to do so. The Legislative Black Caucus has the potential to rein in the GOP’s acts of discrimination and disrespect but it lacks the courage to do anything about it. Republicans are aware of the silence of the black legislators as the criminal justice system tosses minorities into jail at an alarming rate and without probable cause, in many instances. Civil rights organizations such as the state’s NAACP and, to a lesser extent, the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, have failed to raise any objection to the mistreatment of the state’s justice system when dealing with Crystal Mangum (the Duke Lacrosse victim/accuser), Erick Daniels and Shawn Massey (wrongfully incarcerated for more than seven and twelve years respectively, but denied a pardon), James Arthur Johnson (heroically solved the heinous murder of Wilson teen Brittany Willis, and was rewarded with 39 months in jail and not the advertised $20,000 reward which he earned), Carletta Patrice Alston (held in jail without cause for twelve months before being released), and other innocent African Americans caught up in the swath of the Prison Industrial Complex with its insatiable appetite for minority inmates.

I have personally tried to solicit involvement in these causes of injustice by Senator McKissick, and state Representatives Mickey Michaux and Larry Hall, all of Durham County, but my endeavors have met with no success… and it seems as though the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong is fighting these wars against injustice alone. McKissick, Michaux, and Hall should all at least be actively advocating for their Durham constituents Crystal Mangum and Erick Daniels. But, like the NAACP, these politicians have all remained as silent as dormice.

Injustice against Ms. Mangum is especially egregious and is a prime example of vendetta justice at its worst… payback, if you will, for her role in the Duke Lacrosse case wherein she accused three Duke lacrosse athletes (from families of wealth, power, and privilege) of sexual assault which stemmed from a 2006 beer-guzzling, stripper-ogling party. The 2010 arrest of Mangum on a slew of trumped up charges, including felony first degree arson, was an obvious miscarriage of justice as Crystal Mangum was the victim of physical domestic abuse that February night in 2010. The prosecution by Prosecutor Angela Garcia-Lamarca perversely determined that Crystal’s ex-boyfriend abuser was an innocent victim who needed protection from the person whose face he had repeatedly battered with his fists, Ms. Mangum. McKissick and the Black Caucus remained silent.

Mangum now faces first degree murder charges in the April 13, 2011 death of Reginald Daye despite the fact that the stab wound she inflicted on April 3, 2011, had absolutely nothing to do with the deep coma into which he lapsed on the third postoperative day… and had nothing to do with the Duke University Hospital medical staff electively removing Daye from life support, which was the proximate cause of death. Major discrepancies exist in two autopsy reports on Reginald Daye which has neither sparked the interest of the media nor Black Caucus members. As with the bogus charges of 2010, the Black Caucus remains silent while Crystal Mangum now languishes in jail due to a vindictive and unforgiving criminal justice system.

Erick Daniels, who was released on appeal by Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson while seeking a new trial, was arrested at the age of fourteen and spent more than seven years behind bars before he tasted freedom. Despite his seven years of wrongful incarceration on an armed robbery conviction that hinged solely on the victim’s photo identification based on the shape of his eyebrows in a middle school yearbook, the Governor’s Office of Executive Clemency denied his request for a pardon so that he can be compensated for his many years of unjust imprisonment. I have appealed numerous times to Governor Bev Perdue asking her to reverse the clemency panel’s denial and grant Mr. Daniels a pardon. My attempts to enlist politicians, especially members of the Black Caucus with ties to Durham County, have been fruitless.

It is unreasonable to expect GOP leaders to show respect towards the African American community or African Americans in general if its African American political leaders show no interest in the plight of their constituents themselves… as is evident in these criminal justice cases. As long as Senator McKissick and his fellow Black Caucus members remain silent enablers of a biased criminal justice system, they can expect the Republicans in power to continue to treat African Americans dismissively with disdain.

Black Caucus members shouldn’t just sit in their comfortable plush seats and complain about the GOP’s show of disrespect… they need to do something about it. A good start to positively turn things around in the North Carolina General Assembly with regards to treatment by the Republican leadership would be for Senator McKissick and other Black Caucus members to summon the courage to take a stand against the state’s vendetta prosecution of Crystal Mangum by demanding to know why she is being charged with first degree murder in the death of Reginald Daye. 

More of Wake County Prosecutor Tom Ford’s handiwork…

To access flog, click on the link below:

http://www.justice4nifong.com/direc/flog/flog4.html


In the Saturday, June 04, 2011 edition of The News & Observer newspaper, an article titled “Accused stepdaughter wants her life back” by staff writer Thomasi McDonald chronicled yet another chapter in the malfeasance and misdeeds of Wake County prosecutor Tom Ford.

The name “Tom Ford” probably does not sound familiar to most but it should, as Ford was the prosecutor in the botched murder investigation of Jacquetta Thomas that unfolded nearly two decades ago. As is it’s PAPEN Policy (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong), The News & Observer article never once mentioned the Gregory Taylor case or linked Tom Ford to it. It was Gregory Flynt Taylor who Prosecutor Ford saddled with that homicide… but he did so only because Taylor, who is white, would not give perjured testimony in order to convict Johnny Beck, the African American designated suspect who was Ford’s primary target.

In 1993, Taylor was convicted by the use of perjured testimony, a specialty of Prosecutor Ford, and with some hocus-pocus forensics which manipulated evidence to favor the prosecution’s scenario. In Taylor’s case, a stain on the bumper of his car was misleadingly determined to be human blood… which, in fact, it was not.

Prosecutor Ford won a life sentence against Greg Taylor because Taylor refused to implicate another innocent man with perjured testimony.

Returning to the story about the accused stepdaughter… Carletta Alston was charged in June 17, 2009 with the death of her stepfather Michael Donnell Smith. Smith, standing in his Knightdale driveway, was shot in the face during the early morning hours as he prepared to drive to work. His wife Phyllis and stepdaughter Carletta were inside the house when they heard the gunfire.

Afraid to venture outside to investigate, they placed a hysterical 9-1-1 call. Police arrived later and conducted an investigation that produced a stack of letters between the murdered victim Smith, who was also a co-pastor at a church and another woman. The correspondence pointed towards a romantic relationship between the two. Michael Smith’s wife Phyllis, denied knowledge of any affair until it was brought to her attention by the police.

Two days following the murder of Michael Donnell Smith, June 6, 2009, Wake deputies first interviewed Carletta Alston. They could not determine a motive for her to commit the murder. According to the newspaper article, police focused on the stepdaughter Carletta because her account of the shooting differed with other witnesses… specifically, police stated that the time Carletta Alston gave for hearing the shot was significantly later than the time given by neighbors.

Police did not state how much different, but surely a record of the 9-1-1 call would narrow down the timeline. Allegedly gunpowder residue was found somewhere on Alston’s nightgown, but not on her hands, or the hands of her mother. And, as Alston’s attorney, Karl Knudsen of Raleigh stated regarding gunpowder residue, “There’s always the possibility of contamination.”

Based upon Alston’s version of the time at which she heard the gunshot differing with the time given by the neighbors and the forensic report that gunpowder residue was found on Alston’s nightgown… exactly where it was never stated… Carletta Alston was charged with the murder of her stepfather Michael Donnell Smith. Police and prosecutors did not even have a motive in arresting Alston.

What is truly absurd is the statement made by Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby which fundamentally stated that there was reason enough to arrest Carletta Alston, there was reason enough for a grand jury to indict Carletta Alston for the murder of Michael Donnell Smith, but that they didn’t have a strong enough case to take it to court. Tea Party conservatives and birthers may believe this line spewed by the Wake County D.A., but Jedi mind-tricks have no affect on me and others with strong logical minds and a modicum of common sense.

Put another way, if the prosecutors did not have a strong enough case to take to court, then Alston should not have been indicted. And, if prosecutors did not have a strong enough case to indict Alston, she should have never been arrested. It’s as simple as that. To aver otherwise is what makes North Carolina justice the laughing stock of the country.

So Carletta Alston upon being arrested lost the two jobs that she held at nursing homes, and she languished in jail at costly taxpayer expense for a year. When she was unexpectedly released from custody without explanation, she had in essence served a one year sentence for not committing a crime… courtesy of prosecutor Tom Ford and the state’s selective justice system based on Class and Color.

The North Carolina justice system is one in which the well-heeled, powerful, privileged, and connected are given “rare deals.” Most of these deals substitute a small fine in place of serving jail time. Those who are disenfranchised, indigent, and people of color are dumped onto the scrap heap of despair and injustice, left to fend for themselves after losing years of their lives and their self dignity to an uncaring, inhumane, and unsympathetic system.

What happened to Carletta Alston is not an isolated incident. The following are but a smattering of examples:

James Arthur Johnson was charged with the murder, rape, kidnapping and armed robbery of Brittany Willis by Wilson County prosecutor Bill Wolfe. Despite lacking credible evidence Johnson, who solved the crimes against Willis, served a 39 month sentence before being forced to agree to an Alford plea deal for a misprision of felony. A misprision of felony charge is applied to person who has knowledge of a crime but does not go to authorities with it. Even this charge did not fit the plea deal which Johnson accepted.

Not only that, but friends and family of Brittany Willis offered a $20,000 reward upon which they reneged after Johnson identified the perpetrator of the crimes against Willis. The media has kept quiet about this.


Judge Osmond Smith III sentenced 15 year-old Erick Daniels to confinement for ten to fourteen years after he was convicted of an armed robbery in which prosecutor Freda Black offered not a shred of credible evidence. The victim of the robbery picked out the young boy’s photograph from a middle school year book based solely on the shape of his eyebrows.

Although he has been proclaimed “innocent” by a judge, the governor and her Office of Executive Clemency has refused to issue a pardon to Erick Daniels who is struggling to get a job with a false felony conviction on his record.

Crystal Gail Mangum, who was the victim and accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case, had charges trumped up against her in February 2010 after police were called to her apartment by her children out of fear for their mother’s safety. Crystal had been repeatedly punched in the face by her ex-boyfriend after she made an insulting comment.

When the responding police realized the identity of Crystal, they dropped attention from Crystal’s abuser and focused on her instead. In order to have Mangum convicted of a crime that would carry serious jail time, the Durham Police, the only ones with the motive, means, and opportunity, set fire to clothing in the bathtub, claimed it was arson, and attributed it to Crystal.

With a slew of other bogus charges, initial bail was set at $1 million. Like Carletta Alston, Crystal Mangum lost her job… but in addition lost her apartment, many of her belongings, custody of her children, was dropped from graduate school classes in which she was enrolled, and she lost her independence.

Crystal spent three months in jail before a $100,000 bail was unexpectedly satisfied by a benevolent bail bondsman. Even though her attorney, Mani Dexter, put up an almost non-existent feather-weight defense, Mangum was not convicted of the most serious arson charge, and was sentenced to time served on other frivolous charges for which she was convicted.

The system of selective justice based on Class and Color thrives in North Carolina because civil rights groups, politicians, and community leaders allow it. They remain silent while the vulnerable individuals, who look to and depend upon them for protection, are mashed under the uncaring heel of those in positions of power in the justice system.

The NAACP, under leadership of Dr. Rev. William Barber II, remained silent as a dormouse. Where was his voice, or that of the NAACP, when Carletta Alston was thrown into the slammer because her recollection of events differed from others about the time at which a gun was fired? State senators and representatives in Wake County have also remained silent when their constituent Carletta Alston languished in jail at taxpayer expense despite the fact that prosecutor Tom Ford had not built a case against her.

Clergymen throughout the state may deliver fiery sermons to their flock from within the confines of their houses of worship, but when it comes to speaking out publicly against the injustice against the very people they serve , then it is as though they have suddenly lost their voices.

Because of the deafening silence amongst community and civil rights leaders, prosecutors like Tom Ford are emboldened and have no compunction against tossing the disenfranchised, poor, and people of color in jail in order to close a case. So what if innocent people are serving time behind bars while the real culprits run free? Who cares?

And, Tom Ford can count on the media coddling up to him, in conjunction with the media’s PAPEN Policy. Duke Lacrosse Prosecutor Mike Nifong in doing his job within acceptable standards, was vilified and butchered by the media… but not so with the Greg Taylor Prosecutor Tom Ford.

Even though the Greg Taylor case received plenty of media press, the prosecutor of the case Tom Ford was rarely mentioned. SBI lab agent Duane Deaver was the designated scapegoat for the case. Well known defense attorney Joseph Cheshire, in defending Greg Taylor, was lenient when discussing the prosecutor who snatched seventeen years of his client’s best years from him. No disparaging words about Ford were uttered from Cheshire’s lips… even referring to Ford as a capable opponent. Cheshire saved his criticism for Mike Nifong only.

In fact, that was Cheshire’s strategy in the Duke Lacrosse case. Not to defend the defendants, but to attack Nifong, the prosecutor who was too independent and would not yield to the tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color.” So with the media in tow, the Duke Lacrosse defense set out to destroy Mike Nifong, which was culminated with his disbarment, making him the only prosecutor to be disbarred by the North Carolina State Bar since its inception in 1933.

I have to hand it to The News & Observer for even having the gumption to mention Tom Ford’s name in the article. However, even in doing so, it attempted to mislead. Take the passage “Knudsen also noted that the prosecutor handling the case, Tom Ford, has a reputation for being very thorough and willing to do everything he can with the available evidence.” Ford exhibited his talents with evidence in the Greg Taylor case when he turned a bumper stain into human blood, and when he took a negative scent from a tracking hound and with a little abracadabra turned it into a positive one.

Then the article tried to define Tom Ford as a dedicated prosecutor by stating, “But he backed away from taking Alston to trial.”

“He came to the conclusion that it was not a case they wanted to move forward with,” Knudsen said.

I have not a problem with that decision, but why did it take twelve months for Tom Ford to come to the conclusion that he did not, and never did have a case against Carletta Alston? Twelve months while Ms. Alston served time without being convicted of a crime. The fact of the matter is, as was previously stated, that Carletta Alston should never have been arrested and charged with the crime.

Thanks to Tom Ford’s handiwork, the state of North Carolina owes Carletta Alston. As Ms. Alston struggles to find work and deal with other problems related to her unjust incarceration, the state needs to step in and help make her whole… as much as is humanly possible. That is what true justice demands and that is what we, as Tar Heelians, should demand. 

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

Prosecutorial discretion follows Class and Color

In North Carolina, prosecutors are given wide leeway when it comes to how to proceed with a case. Without exception, the defendant’s class and color takes overriding consideration when the prosecutors determine the degree of lengths to take prosecuting. Naturally, the powerful, well-heeled, and privileged defendants will be treated with the most leniency, often with the prosecution not even seeking jail time. The poor, disenfranchised, and people of color, on the other hand, will usually be subjected to the harshest terms available (most always including jail time), and then some. There are numerous examples I could cite, but I will mention but a couple below.

Former North Carolina Governor Mike Easley.
Bill Kenerly, a Rowan County district attorney for twenty years, was appointed to be the special prosecutor in the felony case against Mr. Easley which included charges that he violated campaign disclosure laws and other campaign laws. As The News & Observer pointed out, Easley received may questionable gifts, but prosecutor Kenerly did not charge him with any. The gifts, for which Easley did not face charges, included:
(1) Discount of $137,000 on a waterfront lot in a posh coastal development (after Easley granted environmental permits to the developer of the subdivision);
(2) Waiver of $50,000 in monthly dues at an exclusive golf country club over an eight year period (after the governor got a state official to drop objections to the club siphoning millions of gallons of water from a nearby creek during the 2002 drought);
(3) 88% pay increase to an annual salary of $170,000 in 2008 for Governor Easley’s wife for a job created for her at North Carolina State University;
(4) Free use of an SUV by Governor Easley’s son for six years.

Of the numerous free personal flights worth close to $88,000 which the governor failed to disclose, special prosecutor Kenerly decided to focus on only one October 2006 helicopter flight valued at $1,600. In fact, this was the sole felony charge to which Easley pled guilty in the negotiations Kenerly made with Easley’s attorney Joseph B. Cheshire V. The prosecutor also worked to see that the Alford plea agreement involved no jail time for the former governor, that all other state and federal charges and investigations would be dropped, and that Easley would pay only $153 in court costs and a $1,000 fine… less than the value of the 2006 helicopter flight.

Although, according to Katherine Jean, General Counsel for the North Carolina State Bar, attorneys convicted of a felony are typically disbarred, it appears that the Bar is not rushing forward to do so. The unregulated State Bar has unbridled discretion and as has been its history, it will bend over backwards to protect its prosecutors… except for the one who did not follow the state’s tenet of selective justice based on Class and Color (former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong).

So, it appears that Mike Easley has gotten off easy… and he did. He won’t even be deprived of his voting rights as he was never physically incarcerated for the felony crime with which he was convicted… yet another loophole for society’s upper echelon who happen to run afoul of the law. There was public outrage at the leniency of Easley’s plea deal which was worked out with prosecutor Kenerly (much of it tamped down by the media). Kenerly was aware that he let Easley off the hook, and he acknowledged it. But he also defended his actions by stating, “I didn’t want to make a Mike Nifong mistake.” In other words, he did not want to prosecute a powerful and privileged defendant against the wishes of the Powers-That-Be. Therefore, he pulled all of his punches with respect to the prosecution of Easley.

As was so accurately pointed out by Mr. Kenerly, Mike Nifong’s professional mistake was to prosecute the Duke Lacrosse defendants according to the principle of “equal justice for all.” In other words, to prosecute them as he would anyone else under the circumstances without regard to their societal class, financial status, or skin color. Bill Kenerly learned his lesson well as the example set by the unmerciful and demonic persecution of Mr. Nifong dissuaded him from prosecuting Mr. Easley in the same manner as defendants from the lower rungs of society’s totem pole. The “Mike Nifong mistake” is an act which requires the courage to do the right thing in the face of unforeseen and potentially devastating consequences. Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket made the Mike Nifong mistake, in going against the wishes of England’s King Henry II, and he paid the ultimate price.

Larry Phillips and John June.
The News & Observer article of January 7, 2011 failed to name the prosecutors who reached a plea agreement with Larry Phillips and John June. Both men were convicted on two counts of obtaining property by false pretense. The men were accused of falsifying sales records and invoices to evade paying taxes on cigarettes and tobacco products that they sold in 2005. Defense attorneys stated that the defendants were acting on bad legal advice and were under the assumption that what they were doing (falsifying records in order to gain unfair windfall profits) was within the bounds of the law. Under the Alford plea agreement the defendants reached with the prosecutors, both men agreed to pay a total of $6.5 million in restitution and fines. In exchange they would avoid prison time and be placed on unsupervised probation for 18 months.

Perspective.
As the two aforementioned cases clearly show, prosecutorial discretion is the big gun in the state’s arsenal of dispensing disparate justice. NC prosecutors approach high echelon criminals with kid gloves seeking an Alford plea and a fine. Rarely is anyone from this criminal class sentenced to jail time. When it comes to the poor, disenfranchised and people of color, NC prosecutors come down hard with an iron fist. For example, the alleged fraud committed by Heather Holley pales in comparison with the large-scale multi-million dollar tax-fraud scheme cooked up by Phillips and June… yet it is Ms. Holley who is jailed on $5 million bail.

Any perceived connection to be on the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case will guarantee the harshest of treatment by the prosecutor. Crystal Mangum, the victim in the Duke Lacrosse case, was targeted by police and prosecutors, who with the cooperation of the Durham Fire Department and judges tossed Crystal Mangum in jail on trumped up charges. The February 2010 criminal charges against Mangum resulted when her children, concerned for her safety after an ex-boyfriend initiated a physical confrontation by repeatedly punching her in the face, called 9-1-1. When police recognized the connection Ms. Mangum had to the Duke Lacrosse case, they dismissed their domestic violence investigation involving Mangum’s ex, and set about literally cooking up an arson charge and concocting an attempted first degree murder charge because she allegedly “lunged” in the direction of the man who had just used his fist to bash in her face. Mangum was initially placed under a $1 million bail, and it was the Durham prosecution’s intent to allow her to languish in jail for two or three years before forcing her to accept a plea deal for time served (a tactic effectively used by Bill Wolfe against defendant James Arthur Johnson). This plan was undermined when a bail bondsman, compelled by his conscience to act against this overwhelming injustice, bonded her out when bail was reduced to $100,000.

Bottom line.
Prosecutors will treat the caviar-class criminals lightly, and seek a minimal fine and possibly some restitution in lieu of a jail sentence regardless of the amount of the money stolen or defrauded. When it comes to defendants considered to be disposable by society, prosecutors invariably go to extremes with prosecution seeking the harshest of jail sentences. There is no way on earth that a North Carolina prosecutor will make a “Mike Nifong mistake.” Just ask Bill Kenerly.


Provided below is a link to the latest installment of “The MisAdventures of Super-Duper Cooper”… Part 2 of 17. Be sure to follow the commentary at the end.

LINK: http://justice4nifong.com/direc/sdcDirec/sdcEpv/sdc103.htm

Comments in conclusion about the shameful “so-called” arson case against Crystal Mangum

On Friday, December 17, 2010, a twelve member jury in a Durham criminal courtroom mercifully put an end to yet another legal fiasco hosted by the State of North Carolina. The trial against Crystal Mangum for felony arson and a spate of misdemeanors, culminated a ten month legal process which began amid much fanfare in the media. As is often the case, the media gave little in the way of attention with regards to the conclusion. And this is not to say that the prosecution lost, for they were actually big winners in the verdict delivered on Friday. Because Ms. Mangum was not convicted of the most serious charge, she escaped the probability of more time behind bars, but she was the big loser in this shameful episode of Tar Heel juris prudence.

Make no mistake about it… the case against Crystal Mangum is unlike any other case involving domestic violence in the state’s history. Actions by the first responders to the 911 call made by Crystal’s children, rulings by the magistrate and judges involved in the case, the prosecution’s charges, and the featherweight defense put forth on Ms. Mangum’s behalf were all part of a grand scheme of retribution against individuals who had any part in prosecuting the case against the Duke Lacrosse defendants. Anyone with a scintilla of common sense knows that Crystal Mangum’s case was not handled like similar such cases, and they also know why… Crystal Mangum was the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case (or as labeled by the media, “false accuser”).

The power that the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants hold within the state is embarrassingly immense. Nationally, these families of wealth, status, and privilege have always exerted tremendous sway on the media (the main conduit being through former CBS News executive Rae Forker Evans – mother of Duke Lacrosse defendant Dave Evans), and they used it effectively against Ms. Mangum.

There is no doubt about the vindictive nature of the Carpetbagger families against anyone they perceived to have had a hand in the prosecution which stemmed from an incident in which their sons attended a beer-guzzling, stripper ogling party held in a Buchanan Street house on Duke property in March 2006. The Carpetbagger Jihad against former prosecutor Mike Nifong et al. was officially unleashed during a “60 Minutes” interview in which Ms. Evans promised that “he (Mike Nifong) would pay every day for the rest of his life” (for essentially having the audacity to do his job which happened to include charging their party-going boys with a sexual assault). The city of Durham, the state of North Carolina, and the media enthusiastically embraced this call for vengeance, and pursued, with relish, the destruction of Crystal Mangum, Mike Nifong, and others. And with regards to Ms. Mangum, they were successful, but not quite to the degree in which they had hoped or envisioned.

The arrest and slew of serious charges against Ms. Mangum were made for the purpose of justifying a high bail. Believing that the likelihood of Mangum bonding out was nil, it was the intent of the prosecution to drag out its case over several years while Ms. Mangum languished in jail awaiting trial. (This was the same successful strategy employed by prosecutor Bill Wolfe against defendant James Arthur Johnson who was incarcerated for 39 months before the case against him came to trial.) As in the Johnson case, after Mangum had served a couple of years in jail the prosecutors planned to offer her a plea deal to confess to a felony in exchange for “time served,” the threat being that she could face many more years in jail if convicted. After serving 88 days in the Durham Detention Center a benevolent and generous bail bondsman placed bond which resulted in Ms. Mangum being transferred to house arrest. With Mangum no longer incarcerated, and with prosecutors losing their major bargaining chip to reach a plea deal, they decided to move ahead with the flimsy case against her. Although the prosecutor would have liked to have kept Mangum locked up for two or three years, they realized that they would have to settle for three months. Their goal was now to seek a resolution that would place them and their agents in he best possible light and free of any subsequent civil legal entanglements.

With the three month incarceration following her February 17, 2010 arrest, severe personal damage was sustained by Ms. Mangum. Prior to her arrest Ms. Mangum worked full time, she had custody of her three children, she was enrolled as a graduate student at North Carolina Central University in the Masters program, she rented an apartment for her family, she had amassed personal property for herself and her children, she was able to help take care of her parents, and she was a financially independent individual in society, attempting to put her past Duke Lacrosse history behind her. The aforementioned she lost due to her arrest and three month incarceration, although Judge Abraham Jones did reinstate for Ms. Mangum the custody of her children.

I am of the opinion that the police, most likely Officer Tyler, started the fire in the bathtub, not Crystal or her ex-boyfriend. Police, prosecutors, lab technicians, investigators have often gone afoul of the law in order to win a conviction. In the James Arthur Johnson case, for example, the prosecutor planned to introduce two eyewitnesses to the crime after his main witness retracted his initial statement implicating Johnson. The two “so-called eyewitnesses” both had connections with the police department, and prosecutors discarded this strategy once the NAACP brought media attention to the case. In the Floyd Brown case, prosecutors came up with an alleged verbatim confession from a man who mental health experts testified was too retarded to have made. In the Gregory Taylor case prosecutor Tom Ford used perjured testimony procured through plea deals to convict an innocent man of murder. For the police to set blaze to clothes in a bathtub in a controlled setting in order to concoct a serious felony charge is not much of a stretch.

Why do I believe that police set the fire? The following reasons are but a few:
(1) Police made no attempt to put out the fire. All that was required was to turn on water in the bathtub. That is what you, me, or anyone possessing a modicum of commons sense and sanity would naturally do.
(2) Police had the opportunity to stage the fire after Officer Tyler ordered everyone out of the house because he “smelled smoke.” That is most likely when the fire was set.
(3) With the large number of police on scene, no one saw the bathtub fire actually being set, and police cannot provide a sensible narrative about what transpired from the time they arrived to when the fire was allegedly discovered.
(4) Police and prosecutors sought the most serious charge, first degree arson, when conditions did not merit it... the structure suffered on flame damage.
(5) Police, firemen, and prosecutors did not provide a list of clothing articles which allegedly filled the bathtub or the number of articles damaged by the fire. Are we to presume that a boyfriend who occasionally spends the night at the apartment has a bathtub full amount of clothing there?
(6) The fire report contains no documentation that there was any structural flame damage, only smoke damage to the building (i.e. the box for flame damage to the structure was not checked). I was told that some fire reports which I requested were confidential and I was denied access to them. Those fire reports which were delivered to me were vague. One fire report also exaggerated by stating that the fire department responded to what police described as a “structure fire with a subject trapped.” I believe that the firemen were misled by Officer Tyler.
(7) Although I was not present at the trial, it is my understanding that Judge Jones declared at the beginning of the trial that he would not allow the Durham Police Department to be put on trial. Why even make such a statement unless he had reason to believe the likelihood that the police had a hand in the fire and/or other misconduct?
(8) Police, especially Officer Tyler, realized when they arrived on a call to the residence of Crystal Mangum that they had an opportunity to somehow ensnare her into the criminal justice system. They seized upon the opportunity to the extent that they completely ignored the domestic complaint which triggered the 911 call. In other words, they ignored the fact that Crystal Mangum was repeatedly struck in the face by her ex-boyfriend and that her ex-boyfriend initiated the physical contact (he was never charged.) The media, as well as agencies and groups against domestic violence, kept silent regarding this.

The above are but a few of the glaring reasons why I believe police set the fire and why I have serious doubts as to Ms. Mangum’s involvement in it. And I am not alone in my beliefs. Media-types are aware that the charges against Ms. Mangum were bogus and directly related to a stealth vendetta strategy spawned by the Carpetbagger Jihad. That is why after the initial charges were made and subsequent stories about the case (especially the trial) were muted. For example, if you go to wral.com, the online site of CBS affiliate WRAL – TV 5, you will find a plethora of articles about Mangum’s arrest and events leading up to the trial, but no coverage about the trial itself, or the outcome. I understand that the shameful case made by prosecutors against Mangum was such an embarrassment that the media did all it could to shield it from the public. Coverage by the media was purposely sparse to keep from affording the public a chance to glimpse the cockamamie case against Mangum. And what coverage there was about the trial focused in large part on defining Ms. Mangum as the “False Duke Lacrosse Accuser” (what a way to assure that Ms. Mangum receives a fair trial). Many of the stories, including those by Associated Press, continue to mislead the readers by stating that the Duke Lacrosse defendants were declared innocent. (As I have written for some time, this is misleading because the defendants were not found legally innocent. Roy Cooper, the Attorney General had no authority and was overreaching when he declared the boys innocent. Cooper did so at the urging of defense attorney Joe Cheshire’s underling Brad Bannon… and of course the media has latched onto it for the purpose of repeatedly stating that the boys were “declared to be innocent.”) What the media (including the Associated Press) consistently uses when it drags Mike Nifong into any conversation about the Duke Lacrosse case, is that the North Carolina State Bar convicted him of twenty ethical charges. What charges?… the media doesn’t even name one. Furthermore the average person on the street can not only name one so-called ethical charge against Mike Nifong, they can not even give a reason for Mr. Nifong’s disbarment. And remember that although the media persistently talks about Mike Nifong’s disbarment, they never inform the public that Mike Nifong is the only prosecutor to be disbarred by the State Bar since its inception in 1933. Keep in mind that the people in the media are extremely intelligent. When it comes to Mike Nifong and the Duke Lacrosse case the media aim is to keep the people ignorant… and they have been able to mislead those in the public who are not savvy to their ways of bending, molding, fabricating, spinning and distorting the truth.

Regarding the defense of Ms. Mangum, there is no doubt in my mind that the public defender initially assigned to the case was working more to achieve an outcome that was most favorable to the prosecution. After all, they are both state employees. I believe that the goal of Mangum’s public defender was to have her plead guilty to a felony arson charge in exchange for a sentence of “time served.” At least, by going to trial represented by a private defense attorney, Mani Dexter, Ms. Mangum now has only misdemeanor charges on her record. The major problem that I have with the defense was that (to my knowledge) there was no attempt to obtain a change of venue. As I blogged earlier, this is one case that screamed for it… just like the case against James Arthur Johnson should have had a change of venue from the media inspired racially divided city of Wilson. The judge in the Johnson case denied the motion for venue change, and I am apt to believe that the same would have happened had Mani Dexter, Mangum’s attorney, sought one. I believe that Ms. Dexter’s defense was hampered significantly by rulings from the bench… rulings which may have thwarted an aggressive defense. But I feel that she could have more effectively challenged the misdemeanor charges. Instead of calling one witness, I believe that she should have called several, including Mangum’s ex-boyfriend, and Mangum’s older children. She should have thoroughly investigated and brought before the court the alleged “injured property” (clothing and alleged damage to the car). The defense of Ms. Mangum was featherweight, but the prosecution’s case against her had the weight of straw. A dedicated, determined, competent defense held in a court out of Duke University’s sphere of influence would have trounced the prosecution’s case and resulted in an acquittal on all charges, I strongly believe.

The Durham based jury did its duty by convicting Ms. Mangum on all of the misdemeanor charges against her, even though the charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor convolutedly relied on a guilty finding in the arson charge… a charge with which Mangum was not convicted. In other words, what is the jury’s basis for finding Crystal Mangum guilty of contributing to the delinquency of her children? Even Judge Jones did not find the charge credible as he reinstated custody to Ms. Mangum of her children. Although the jury deadlocked on the most serious arson charge, it delivered for the prosecution by convicting her on the misdemeanor charges. With those convictions, the police, firemen, prosecutors, and the state are absolved from any future civil prosecution for wrongful incarceration or civil rights violations.

Now Durham County prosecutor Mark McCullough, whose passionate courtroom oratory about his concerns for Ms. Mangum’s children’s safety when the fire was allegedly started, coyly stated to the press that he will take a month to consider re-trying Crystal Mangum in the future. I fail to see McCullough’s concern for Ms. Mangum’s children by a continued attempt to put the mother of the children they love in jail for years based on trumped up charges. Alas, the Carpetbagger Jihad has no consideration for children other than their own and those of the higher social class. Take this to the bank. McCullough’s bravado about considering to re-try Crystal Mangum is empty. There are a number of reasons why. First and foremost, doing so would risk exposing wrongdoing and misconduct by the Durham Police Department. Secondly, even in a Duke University dominated city, a conviction against the “false Duke Lacrosse accuser” could not be reach… in fact, the jurors polled nine to three in favor of acquittal on the charge. And third, the media is not supportive of the prospect of lingering coverage of a bogus charge which they know is based solely on Mangum’s role in the Duke Lacrosse case. A factor which I would not expect to entertain McCullough’s consideration is the tremendous expense and waste of taxpayer money in re-trying Ms. Mangum. If he thought he had a reasonable chance of prevailing at a second trial, expense would not be an obstacle, and the public, which would be unaware of the waste of their taxpayer dollars in doing so, would not object. But, this is all moot, as there will be no re-trial.

Finally, with regards to Jackie Wagstaff, I believe that her utterance of “this is ridiculous” was not intended to travel any further than to the individual seated next to her and to whom she was addressing. However, her emotional investment in the case inadvertently and unintentionally resulted in her blurting out the comment at a decibel level higher than intended. I believe the judge’s ten day sentence was extreme, especially with it lasting over the holidays, and I am hopeful that he will take the initiative to drastically reduce it. 24 hours housed in the jail is more than enough to make a point. (And was what I perceive to be the severity of her sentence due to Wagstaff’s position with regards to the Duke Lacrosse case?)

My final major conclusions:
(1) Ms. Mangum is fortunate to be freed at the conclusion of this trial;
(2) the charges and prosecution against Ms. Mangum were due to her role in the Duke Lacrosse case;
(3) the arson case against Ms. Mangum was bogus, and the fire most likely was started by Officer Tyler;
(4) the defense should have filed a motion for a change of venue, which would have most likely resulted in a trial held on a more level playing field;
(5) the media’s coverage was typically biased for anything related to Mike Nifong and Duke Lacrosse case; and
(6) the prosecution is satisfied with the trial’s outcome and will not risk a re-trial.

The one important thing to take away from this trial is that discrimination from all quarters exist against individuals who are supporters of Mike Nifong and/or whose opinions are not favorable and sympathetic towards the Duke Lacrosse defendants. It behooves people who fall into this category to be aware of this when they encounter a situation which might attract attention or authorities. Examples are Crystal Mangum’s treatment at the February 17, 2010 incident, and Ms. Wagstaff’s severe contempt of court punishment. From my own experience, I can attest to the discrimination and my near-arrest on the Duke University campus which was appalling. The Carpetbagger Jihad influence weighs heavily in North Carolina and throughout the United States, and that is truly shameful.