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

Prosecutor Garcia-Lamarca is desperate for plea deal with Crystal Mangum

Like many cases in which a prosecutor has absolutely no case against the defendant (the James Arthur Johnson case comes to mind), the prosecutor, instead of doing the right thing and dismissing all charges against the defendant, will more likely than not try to entice, cajole, force, or use any means necessary to make the defendant accept a plea deal. This strategy is most effective when the wrongfully accused defendant is tucked away safely behind bars, and a plea deal in exchange for imminent freedom looks mighty appetizing to the defendant, especially after spending many months or years behind bars. The prosecution finds the plea deal appealing because it means that he/she will not have to go to trial and risk facing embarrassment and ridicule for bringing a garbage case before the courts. More likely than not, in the majority of these cases, the prosecution is relying on a plea deal to close the case and doesn’t even bother to prepare to go to trial. This is what happened in the James Arthur Johnson case, and this is what the prosecution under Durham Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca is attempting to do to Crystal Mangum, the victim in the Duke Lacrosse case.

In the fiasco that was the James Arthur Johnson case, Wilson Prosecutor Bill Wolfe charged James Arthur Johnson, the young African American teen who turned over to police the name of the true killer of Wilson teen Brittany Willis, Kenneth Meeks (also an African American male). Clever Wilson investigators managed to get young Meeks to falsely implicate James Arthur Johnson in the crime by telling Meeks that his friend “snitched” on him. Prosecutors charged Johnson with crimes against Brittany Willis, which included murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery, based solely on the statements of the confessed killer who had earlier confided in Johnson about the murder only to later learn from police that it was Johnson who fingered him. There was no forensic evidence and no witness to link Johnson to the victim or the crime scene. The Wilson police theory was that Johnson robbed, kidnapped, raped, and killed Brittany Willis with Meeks as his accomplice, and then when he heard the offer of a $20,000.00 reward for information leading to an arrest in the crime, he went to police to turn in his partner in crime in order to collect the reward. Johnson was held in jail for a couple of years before Meeks, the killer, retracted his statement about Johnson’s involvement, explaining that he made the false accusation out of anger. With its sole witness recanting, did Prosecutor Wolfe dismiss charges against Johnson…? No! Instead, he conjured up two eyewitnesses, who both happened to have connections to the Wilson Police Department (one of whom was a retired Wilson police officer). Before Wolfe could use these false witnesses to convict Johnson, Dr. Rev. William Barber, president of the NAACP made his appearance, and with the media scrutiny he brought, Wolfe and Wilson District Attorney Howard S. Boney, Jr. decided to quickly and silently jettison their two latest eyewitnesses. It was then, without evidence, without witnesses, and without a case that the Wilson prosecution launched its efforts to obtain a plea deal with Johnson. As is typical in this situation, the prosecution proceeded at a snail’s pace and tried to reach a plea deal right up to the time the court date could no longer be delayed. Wolfe and Boney’s bluff failed, and when it came time for the trial to begin, the prosecution folded like an accordion. On the day of court, they announced that they would turn the case over to a special prosecutor.

Special Prosecutor Belinda Foster, an assistant district attorney from Forsyth County, was forced to take over prosecution of the Johnson case by her superior, District Attorney Tom Keith. She agreed to do so only on the condition that she not be required to try the case in court. D.A. Keith agreed, and it was made clear early on that her involvement would be limited. After a couple of months passed, to give people the impression that an investigation was being conducted by the special prosecutor and her diligent crew, Ms. Foster dropped the charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery against Johnson, and, as foreordained, she charged Johnson with “accessory after the fact” for wiping some fingerprints off the victim’s car long after the crime had taken place. Despite having served 39 months in jail on serious charges that were dismissed and now facing only an “accessory” charge, a high, but attainable, bail of $60,000.00 for Johnson was set by the judge. Shortly thereafter, he bonded out.

State prosecutors refused to touch the Johnson case with a twenty foot pole, so the Administrative Office of the Courts ultimately found a special prosecutor from the ranks of the lawyers in private practice. At additional cost to taxpayers, the new Special Prosecutor W. David McFadyen, who used to work as a prosecutor, pretended to conduct a lengthy and complete investigation into the Willis/Johnson case. Special Prosecutor McFadyen threatened Johnson with additional hard time in jail if he was to be convicted for wiping fingerprints off the car (an act which had absolutely no bearing or relevance on what justice transpired with respect to confessed murderer Meeks). With the judge refusing (without explanation) a defense motion for a change of venue from the town of Wilson (which had been racially divided by the prosecution and press), Johnson finally succumbed (not wanting to risk the possibility, however remote, of returning to jail) and pled guilty to “misprision of felony.” Misprision of felony is a rarely invoked charge used against someone who has knowledge of a crime but does not share it with authorities. Although Johnson pleaded guilty to the charge, he was actually not guilty of it because he did, in fact, voluntarily and without legal counsel in tow, tell police everything he knew about the crime. In getting this plea deal in exchange for time served, the prosecution proudly puffed out its chest because it had prevailed in legally justifying locking up James Arthur Johnson for 39 months for the crime he committed of waiting three days before coming to the police to tell them of his knowledge of the crimes against Brittany Willis. For solving the homicidal case, Johnson never received the $20,000 reward that was offered by the family and friends of Brittany Willis… the only thing he received was 39 months.

The way in which Prosecutors Wolfe and Boney kept an innocent James Arthur Johnson in jail for 39 months without a shred of credible evidence, is a text-book way of making a person serve a long sentence without being convicted of a crime. This is what Prosecutor Garcia-Lamarca had planned to do with Crystal Mangum, and she got off to a successful start. First serious charges were trumped up against Ms. Mangum, such as attempted first degree murder and arson. These were used to justify the hefty $1 million bail set by Magistrate B. Wakil. When Judge Claude Allen lowered the bail to $250,000.00, he set up a safety net by establishing the condition that if Ms. Mangum did bond out, she would be placed under electronic house arrest. This was a safeguard which the judge and prosecution team felt would not be needed. But when bail was unexpectedly made for Ms. Mangum by a benevolent and generous bail bondsman, her jail sentence was prematurely terminated after serving only several months behind bars. From initial plea offers made shortly after Ms. Mangum’s arrest, it is apparent that the prosecution would have settled for Ms. Mangum spending at least two years behind bars. It was undoubtedly a great disappointment when Mangum bonded out after only three months in the Durham County Detention Center. Once Ms. Mangum was released from strict custody and placed under electronic house arrest, prosecutors lost their main bargaining tool for acquiring a plea deal… incarceration behind bars. The prosecution’s focus turned immediately to trying to arrange a plea deal with Ms. Mangum, so shortly after her release from the detention center to house arrest, Garcia-Lamarca offered through the Public Defender the following plea deal: Admission of guilt to the following charges 1) first degree arson, 2) three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, 3) injury to personal property, and 4) resisting a public official, in exchange for a sentence of time served. Wisely, Ms. Mangum refused.

Now, I would not be surprised if the prosecution made the following offer on August 4, 2010, at Ms. Mangum’s hearing: Prosecution will dismiss the first degree arson charge with Ms. Mangum pleading guilty to the following charges 1) three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, 2) injury to personal property, and 3) resisting a public official, in exchange for time served. (Note, the charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor is based upon the arson count, so prosecutors may offer to dismiss that charge as well.)

Bottom line is that the prosecution is desperately fishing around for a plea deal. It is not preparing to take the case to trial, because like Prosecutor Bill Wolfe and Wilson D.A. Howard S. Boney, Assistant D.A. Angela Garcia-Lamarca has no case against Crystal Mangum. Furthermore, to proceed to trial would involve many members of the Durham Police Department committing perjury. And, if the police are willing to lie in their reports about Ms. Mangum putting clothes in a bathtub, it is not much of a stretch that they would, in fact, have the wherewithal to set the clothes on fire themselves… which is most likely what happened. How else would one explain the police closing the bathroom door on a bathtub with some clothes on fire and calling the fire department? No effort was made by police to even turn on the water in the bathtub. Police allowed smoke damage to accumulate in the apartment to which they most likely set on fire. By placing the midnight call, Durham police brought 25 members of the Durham Fire Department to Ms. Mangum’s apartment in order to put out a few clothes on fire in a bathtub. This just does not make sense. The sparse and vague timelines in the police and fire reports are contradictory, do not make sense and throw a lot of water on the prosecution’s purported story of what took place the night of February 17th.

What Prosecutor Garcia-Lamarca needs to do is stop the madness masquerading as a criminal case against Ms. Mangum… she can accomplish this by dismissing all charges against Ms. Mangum immediately. The prosecutor needs to stop wasting taxpayer money for unwarranted electronic monitoring, and monies being paid to a defense attorney on a case against Mangum that is totally trumped up.

You can bet that if Ms. Garcia-Lamarca had a valid and just case against Ms. Mangum, she would proceed posthaste to trial, and seek the maximum penalties possible. Instead, with only trumped up garbage against Ms. Mangum, Garcia-Lamarca dillydallies desperately trying to eek out a plea deal to any charge with Ms. Mangum. This is a pathetic demonstration of jurisprudence practiced in North Carolina, and is what makes the Tar Heel State the laughing stock of the country.

If the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong has anything to say about it, the unjust tragedy that befell James Arthur Johnson will not be revisited upon Crystal Mangum. Assistant D.A. Garcia-Lamarca needs to forget about trying to reach a plea deal with Ms. Mangum (any plea deal requires Ms. Mangum to admit to a crime that she did not commit), and either prepare her garbage case to go to trial (wasting taxpayer money in the process) or dismiss all charges against Ms. Mangum immediately. A plea deal in this case is not in the cards... it's not even on the table.

Lessons learned from James Arthur Johnson

James Arthur Johnson served a sentence of 39 months in jail. Because Special Prosecutor W. David McFadyen, Judge Milton Fitch and others applied sufficient pressure, Johnson accepted an Alford plea to a “misprision of felony” charge. Despite pleading guilty to the charge, Johnson was not technically or legally guilty of the charge. The misprision charge is rarely employed by the prosecution for a person who withholds his/her knowledge of a crime. James Arthur Johnson did not withhold knowledge of a crime because he was the one who told police the true identity of the person he believed to be responsible. The prosecutors were quick to point out that Mr. Johnson waited three days before going to the police with the evidence, but the charge of misprision of felony does not specify a time limit. Johnson didn’t wait three years, three months, or even three weeks before going to the police with his knowledge of the crime, yet he spent more than three years in jail because he did not go to the police within three hours or so of learning about the crime.

The plea deal in Johnson’s case is very chilling, because the misprision of felony can be leveled against anyone who does not report knowledge of a crime immediately. Most people want to at least think about the consequences to themselves and their families if they go to the police with information of a crime. As things stand with the James Arthur Johnson plea deal, as the clock ticks, people will be less inclined to come forward to help solve a crime out of fear of being incarcerated for misprision of felony… especially people of color and in the lower socio-economic strata.

Wilson Prosecutor Bill Wolfe had full knowledge that James Arthur Johnson was not involved in the crimes against Brittany Willis, but because the confessed killer was an African American male, Wolfe transferred his hostility of the killer to all African American men. Wolfe wanted to punish Johnson because he was an African American, not because he felt he had any involvement in the crime. And, Wolfe, along with Wilson District Attorney Howard S. Boney Jr. were able to obtain an unreachable bail and drag out pre-trial proceedings for 39 months before a trial could no longer be delayed. Wolfe never had a case against Johnson, as the only witness, the confessed killer, later admitted he implicated Johnson out of anger because he had “snitched” on him. That didn’t deter Wolfe, as he lined up two other “eyewitnesses,” both with connections with the Wilson Police Department. However, when Reverend William Barber of the NAACP took interest in the case, the increased scrutiny forced Wolfe to silently jettison his witnesses.

Up until the day of the trial, Wolfe tried to wrangle a plea deal out of Johnson, who had languished in jail more than three years. Johnson refused, and in calling the prosecution’s bluff, the Wolfe and Boney folded like an accordion and announced they were turning the case over to a special prosecutor so there would be no doubt about the fairness of the proceedings.

The truth is that Wolfe, after releasing his two phony witnesses, had no plan of taking his case to trial because he had no case. All his marbles were on Johnson agreeing to a plea deal, which, fortunately, did not happen. However, because Johnson had stated during his initial interview with police investigators that he had helped wipe fingerprints off the victim's car (an event that had no bearing on the confession of the admitted killer), Forsyth Prosecutor Belinda Foster was forced to charge Johnson with “accessory after the fact” while dropping charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery against him. It was the threat of being convicted on the “accessory” charge (though remote) and the possibility of being sentenced to more jail time, along with unbearable pressure from others that made Johnson accept the Alford plea. The Alford plea allows the defendant to maintain his/her innocence while forcing him/her to admit that the prosecution has enough evidence to prevail in obtaining a conviction.

Like James Arthur Johnson unjustly served a sentence of 39 months without being convicted of a crime, it was the intent of the Durham prosecution, under Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca, to have Crystal Gail Mangum serve a two year sentence… minimum. That was the first plea deal the prosecution made after Ms. Mangum’s arrest on charges which included felony attempted first degree murder, and felony first degree arson. The prosecution never had any intention of taking the case against Ms. Mangum to trial. Their intent was to follow the pattern of Bill Wolfe, which is: 1) levy a serious charge (felony attempted first degree murder); 2) use the charge to bolster a high bail ($ 1 million); 3) have the prosecution (which controls the pace of court proceedings) move at a snail’s pace; and 4) after sufficient time has been deemed to have been served, offer a plea deal in exchange for “time served.” This was the way things were supposed to go.

Unexpectedly, after Mangum had served 90 days behind bars, angelic bail bondsmen with courage, kindness, and generosity, satisfied the bond needed to release her from the Durham Detention Center, although a condition of her release was that she be placed under house arrest. The house arrest is the last vestige of leverage the prosecutors have on forcing Ms. Mangum to accept a plea deal, and so they offered it to Ms. Mangum in order to extricate themselves from the sticky mess that they had gotten into. The prosecution is not now, and has never been preparing to take this case to trial. It was a plea deal from the beginning, and the District Attorney’s office was counting on the other state employees from the Public Defender’s office, to encourage Ms. Mangum to accept a plea deal.

Again, unexpectedly, members of the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong enveloped Ms. Mangum in their protective arms, and encouraged her not to plead guilty for a crime that she did not commit. Ms. Mangum needs to be restored, as best as possible, to the same condition that she was on the day of her arrest: living independently and supporting her three children in an apartment, employed full-time, and taking a full load in a graduate program at NCCU where she is pursuing a Master’s Degree in psychology. The Durham Police Department and Durham District Attorney’s office have a duty to restore in Crystal and her children faith in law enforcement, so that when the need arises they can feel comfort in calling 9-1-1 instead of consternation.

James Arthur Johnson pleaded guilty to a crime he did not commit. We, members of the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong, do not want history to repeat in Crystal Mangum’s case.

Link follows to News & Observer article about Ms. Mangum and her attorney:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/07/08/570257/crystal-mangums-attorney-quits.html

“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.

The N & O news team - Part of the NC Attorney General's Office's team?

In today’s issue (Thursday, December 11, 2008) of the News & Observer, the newspaper had a nice column that featured its news team. Joseph Neff, a veteran investigative reporter was cited for his stories which helped lead to the exoneration of Alan Gell. There, however, was no mention of the fact that the prosecutors in that case, David Hoke (who is currently Assistant Director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts) and Debra Graves withheld exculpatory evidence from Gell’s defense team that proved that he could not have possibly committed the crime of murder for which he was charged. The article failed also to mention that Mr. Gell is currently back in jail serving a five year sentence for a case which barely made the limits for a statutory rape charge, after having served nearly ten years wrongly incarcerated for murder (half of it on death row). This sentence against Gell is nothing more than payback because after being exonerated for the murder conviction, he sued (unsuccessfully) the state. It seems that Mr. Neff is perfectly content to allow Mr. Gell to languish in jail because of retribution by the state.

Today’s column also mentioned that Mr. Neff’s five part series about the Duke Lacrosse case and the “prosecutorial misconduct of Mike Nifong” garnered honors by the NC Bar Association and the NC Press Association, and was a finalist for an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. I do not consider that much of an accomplishment. All that is required is to write or do something negative against Mr. Nifong and that will automatically qualify one for an award. The taxi cab driver who vouched that he had given Reid Seligman a ride home from the lacrosse party received a Heroes award (from the Reader’s Digest, I believe).

The person who deserves an award for being a hero is James Arthur Johnson, the African American young man who risked breaking the “no snitch” rule of the streets in order to turn over a violent criminal to the Wilson police. Instead, due to prosecutorial misconduct of Bill Wolfe, Johnson was incarcerated for 39 months on murder charges for which he was threatened with execution. The prosecution team, which had no case, used plan B to extricate themselves from their predicament. Plan B consisted of having an “independent” special prosecutor come in and drop the charges of murder, kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery, and then lodge a charge of “accessory after the fact” because Johnson had stated that while under duress he had wiped fingerprint off of the victim’s SUV.

The News & Observer has been purposely holding back coverage of what has recently transpired in the case. (Because the Administrative Office of the Courts had been unable to find a state salaried prosecutor willing to prosecute the frivolous “accessory” case against Johnson, Private Sector Special Prosecutor W. David McFadyen was hired at extra taxpayer expense to pursue this case.) The Brittany Willis murder case, which by consensus has been considered to have been terribly mismanaged by the Wilson police and prosecutors has racially divided the city (the confessed killer is an African American, and the teenage female victim is white). In November 2008, Johnson’s defense attorney requested a change of venue from the city of Wilson, and the private sector prosecutor was agreeable to the motion. However, Judge Milton F. Fitch, Jr., without giving any explanation, refused, stating that he wanted to keep the trial in Wilson, and that he also wanted to be the judge for the trial. His so-called remedy to give appearances of an unbiased jury was to bring in jurors selected from outside Wilson’s county. He initially agreed to have a jury selected from Wake County, and then he changed his mind and decided to have the jurors picked from Edgecombe County, a neighboring county. All of these actions are of major significance, are unjust, and do not bode well for the defendant or justice. The News & Observer’s position is to keep its readers ignorant about the state’s justice system malfeasance that is taking place in this case. To date they have refused to write about these recent developments.

Another issue in the Johnson case that warrants attention is the twenty thousand dollar ($20,000.00) reward that was offered by the family and friends of Brittany Willis for information leading to Ms. Willis’s murderer. James Johnson earned that reward because he turned in the murderer who later confessed to the crime. The killer, after learning from police investigators that Johnson had “snitched” on him, then implicated Johnson in the crime out of anger. The Wilson police even used the reward as a motive for Johnson coming forward to the police. The initial Wilson police version is as follows: James Johnson, with a friend, robs, kidnaps, and rapes Brittany Willis. James then kills her. Days later, when the $20,000 reward is offered by family and friends of Brittany Willis, James (who had never been in trouble with the police, had no criminal record, and was considering soccer athletic scholarships to college at the time) decided to accuse his friend of the crime in order to collect the reward. About four and a half years after Johnson gave information to the police that resulted in the arrest and conviction of the confessed perpetrator, Mr. Johnson has not been paid the reward that was offered.

Why? Is it possible that the prosecution team requested that the reward not be paid, for by doing so, it would be favorable to Johnson’s public perception, and make the prosecution against him more difficult? I asked reporters at the Wilson Times to look into the matter, but they refused. The News & Observer likewise refused to investigate or offer and editorial opinion about the matter. One News & Observer editor did tell me, however, that it was not against the law for a private citizen to offer a reward and then renege on it.

The bottom line is that the local media, especially the News & Observer is as selective in the stories that it publishes, as the Attorney General’s Office and state prosecutors are in their application of the law. The application of justice in North Carolina is selective, based on Class and Color, and that is why an attorney, of Mike Nifong’s stature, reputation, and 27 years of exemplary service to the state of North Carolina, has been disbarred (the only prosecutor to be disbarred by the NC State Bar since its inception), prosecuted, persecuted, and sentenced to jail. Selective justice is also why the state is going out of its way, at taxpayer expense, to protect Wilson prosecutor Bill Wolfe while vilifying the hero James Arthur Johnson. Selective justice is also why the North Carolina State Bar will not take any action on a complaint (filed with it on December 9, 2008) of prosecutorial misconduct against former Mike Petereson prosecutor Jame “Jim” E. Hardin, Jr. (currently serving as a Superior Court judge) and Durham prosecutor Freda Black for withholding exculpatory evidence from the defendant’s legal team (the existence of a possible murder weapon and tests its lab ran on it).

The media, by its selective coverage of news events and subjects of editorial it chooses to publish, is complicit in the injustice that continues to be administered in the state of North Carolina.

Crusade to protect Prosecutor Bill Wolfe takes giant leap forward

I just recently found out from a conversation with a friend that private sector prosecutor W. David McFadyen decided to move forward with the bogus "accessory after the fact" case against James Arthur Johnson in the Brittany Willis murder. This determination by McFadyen occurred two weeks ago, and normally, I would have been on top of the story because I would have read about it in the newspaper. Now, I’ve been a subscriber to the "News & Observer" for more than a year, and I do not recollect such an article appearing in the paper. Surely, it deserves some print, and unless it was buried deep in the paper, I do not believe the newspaper covered the story.

As is obvious, the only reason this case is being brought is to protect Wilson prosecutor Bill Wolfe from a complaint of prosecutorial misconduct (for the 39 month incarceration of James Johnson on charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery despite lack of physical evidence or probable cause). However, W. David McFadyen would like the public to believe that his extensive (more than eight months) investigation gives credibility to his findings for proceeding ahead with the trial against Mr. Johnson. Not only is paying for McFadyen’s services a waste of taxpayer money, but the trial itself will unnecessarily divert taxpayer dollars from providing services and programs to the state’s people and communities during these economically challenging times.

What I find particularly alarming, and a very ominous sign, is the fact that Wilson Superior Court Judge Milton Fitch Jr. refuses to change the venue for the trial. Wilson is a city that has been torn apart because of the actions of its police and prosecutors, especially Bill Wolfe. Judge Fitch said that he wanted to keep the trial in Wilson, but did not give a reason, according to the article posted by WRAL-TV. Instead, he wants a jury picked from Wake County and transferred to Wilson for the trial. Does he really believe that busing in a jury from Wake County will lend itself to a fairer proceeding? It is a cockamamie idea, which no unbiased arbiter would even suggest. What is obvious though is that Judge Fitch should not be the one presiding over this trial.

Whatever the outcome of the trial, private sector prosecutor W. David McFayden, like Special Prosecutor Belinda Foster before him, has done his job by deciding to take the flimsy case to trial. It bolsters Wolfe’s actions in holding James Johnson in jail for 39 months without a trial. And although the North Carolina State Bar had no intention of taking any action against Wolfe to begin with, it can now point to McFadyen’s actions and claim that Wolfe was indeed acting as a minister of justice when he incarcerated James Johnson and threatened him with a capital murder charge despite the lack of forensic evidence or probable cause.

This sordid exercise only reinforces the fact that prosecutors who abide by the state’s tenet of "selective justice based on Class and Color" will be protected to the fullest measure (even if it requires the use of taxpayer money) by the state’s Attorney General’s Office and the NC State Bar. Former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong, a proponent and practitioner of the principle of "equal justice for all," therefore will remain the only prosecutor to be disbarred or severely disciplined by the State Bar since its inception.