IAPE Evidence Blog

The Inter­na­tional Her­ald Tri­bune
BYLINE: ROBBIE BROWN

Raleigh, NC

Inno­cence inquiry panel in North Car­olina faults evi­dence and testimony

Act­ing at the rec­om­men­da­tion of a spe­cial state inno­cence com­mis­sion — the only one of its kind in the United States — a panel of North Car­olina judges has ruled that a man was wrong­fully con­victed of mur­der­ing a pros­ti­tute in 1991 and freed him after 16 years in prison.

The three-judge panel found ”clear and con­vinc­ing evi­dence” Wednes­day that the man, Gre­gory F. Tay­lor, was inno­cent and had been con­victed based on flawed evi­dence and unre­li­able testimony.

It was the first case won by the com­mis­sion, which was estab­lished in 2006 after a wave of embar­rass­ing wrong­ful con­vic­tions in North Carolina.

Cel­e­brat­ing with friends and fam­ily over a shrimp salad at a cafe in down­town Raleigh, Mr. Tay­lor said he was still in shock after ”6,149 days in prison.”

”This morn­ing, I was lay­ing in a jail cell with a crazy per­son bang­ing on the wall next to me,” he said. ”Now I’m sit­ting at a fancy Ital­ian restau­rant talk­ing on a cellphone.”

After the ver­dict, the Wake County dis­trict attor­ney, C. Colon Willoughby Jr., apol­o­gized to Mr. Taylor.

”I told him I’m very sorry he was con­victed,” Mr. Willoughby told The Asso­ci­ated Press. ”I wish we had had all of this evi­dence in 1991.”

The eight-member North Car­olina Inno­cence Inquiry Com­mis­sion con­sid­ers claims of inno­cence from con­victs or any­one else with per­ti­nent infor­ma­tion. It has reviewed hun­dreds of claims by pris­on­ers and brought only three to a hear­ing. If the com­mis­sion agrees that a claim has merit, it refers cases to a three-judge panel, which has hap­pened only once except for Mr. Taylor’s case, and the argu­ment in the other case was rejected.

In most U.S. states, con­vic­tions are usu­ally over­turned only by gov­er­nors and par­don boards, or occa­sion­ally by judi­cial review. Inmate advo­cates used the rul­ing for Mr. Tay­lor to renew their call for other states to cre­ate com­mis­sions to inves­ti­gate claims of inno­cence, even years after ordi­nary statutes of lim­i­ta­tion have expired.

”North Carolina’s com­mis­sion is an impor­tant model for the adju­di­ca­tion of inno­cence claims,” said Barry C. Scheck, direc­tor of the Inno­cence Project in New York. ”In the Amer­i­can court sys­tem, there are nor­mally pro­ce­dural bars that get in the way of lit­i­gat­ing whether some­one is inno­cent or not.”

Much atten­tion in Amer­ica has been focused on using DNA to over­turn wrong­ful con­vic­tions, said Stephen B. Bright, direc­tor of the South­ern Cen­ter for Human Rights in Atlanta. But 90 per­cent of crim­i­nal cases, like Mr. Taylor’s, do not involve any DNA evidence.

Mr. Tay­lor, 47, has always main­tained that he did not mur­der Jacquetta Thomas, whose bat­tered body was dis­cov­ered in a cul-de-sac in Raleigh. He tes­ti­fied that he found the body while tak­ing drugs with a friend but did not report it to the police.

Defense lawyers argued that pros­e­cu­tors mis­rep­re­sented evi­dence against Mr. Tay­lor, who was sen­tenced to life in prison in 1993. They said that stains on his truck turned out to not have been human blood, and that wit­nesses were later proved to have described sce­nar­ios that could not have happened.

- — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — -
Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org

The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Car­olina)
BYLINE: THOMASI MCDONALD; Staff Writer

Cary, NC

Police this sum­mer seized hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars worth of appli­ances, win­dows and other build­ing sup­plies from a Selma man’s prop­erty when it appeared that some of the goods had been stolen from Cary.

Six months later, Cary police still have not charged Clifton Ray Moore with any thefts, but they have shipped most of the seized items to Florida to be sold at an auc­tion next week because Moore can’t prove they’re his.

“We told Mr. Moore, ‘You show us the doc­u­men­ta­tion show­ing that you are the right­ful owner of the prop­erty, and you can have it back,’” said Cary Police Capt. Michael Williams. “He’s had since Aug. 6 to pro­duce those receipts.”

Moore, 61, ques­tions why he has to prove the mate­ri­als seized from his prop­erty are his. He won­ders why the bur­den isn’t on the police to prove they’re stolen.

“I just feel done wrong,” Moore said. “They can come into your house and take what they need.”

North Car­olina law allows the gov­ern­ment to seize prop­erty under civil law if it can con­vince a judge that the prop­erty was obtained through crim­i­nal activ­ity. Williams said the police will seek a court order autho­riz­ing the auc­tion before it takes place next week.

“All we’ve done at this point is move it from one loca­tion to another in prepa­ra­tion to sell it,” Williams said. “If we go before a judge and he says no, then Mr. Moore can get his stuff back.”

Williams said earn­ings from auc­tion­ing the build­ing sup­plies, val­ued at about $250,000, would go to Wake County schools.

Cary police say the items were stolen even though no one has claimed the prop­erty. Williams said the items were in the imme­di­ate vicin­ity of oth­ers that were stolen. He said some of the prop­erty looked as if it had been installed and then removed.

He said police “did a lot of pub­lic­ity” con­cern­ing the prop­erty and he doesn’t know why no one came for­ward to claim it.

It was July when the John­ston County Sheriff’s Office accused Moore, who uses a wheel­chair, of mas­ter­mind­ing a theft ring that for years ripped off con­struc­tion sites of every­thing from dou­ble doors to heavy-gauge stainless-steel kitchen sinks.

John­ston sheriff’s inves­ti­ga­tors car­ried an arrest war­rant charg­ing Moore with traf­fick­ing pre­scrip­tion drugs when they went to his home, which dou­bles as his business.

There they dis­cov­ered a cache of home build­ing sup­plies that appeared to have been stolen from sites around John­ston County, Cary, Apex and from out of state. The sup­plies filled two tractor-trailers. The sheriff’s office con­tacted Cary police, who obtained a search war­rant to recover some of the property.

The sheriff’s office charged Moore with pos­ses­sion of stolen goods, and he is await­ing trial on that charge.

But Moore says the items seized by Cary police belong to him. How­ever, his lawyer, Jim Lawrence of Smith­field, said late last week that he had not yet seen the receipts and invoices needed to retrieve his client’s property.

“Con­ver­sa­tions have been going on between myself and the town of Cary,” Lawrence said. “I want to get to the bot­tom of why some of this stuff can’t be released to him.”

Police did return a tractor-trailer filled with doors and win­dows to a man who had stored them in Moore’s buildings.

Police said the man pro­duced receipts for the property.

But last week, hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars worth of other sup­plies were loaded onto two trucks headed to the offices of www.propertyroom.com, a Florida com­pany that auc­tions off items seized by police depart­ments across the country.

thomasi.mcdonald@newsobserver.com or 919 – 829-4533

- — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — -
Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org

Winston-Salem Jour­nal (North Car­olina)
BYLINE: Scott Hol­li­field, The McDow­ell News

Wayne County, NC

The state sold a giant chicken and, unfor­tu­nately, I didn’t buy it.

This wasn’t a liv­ing, breath­ing giant chicken, the prod­uct of some clan­des­tine agriculture-department exper­i­ment to pro­duce Buf­falo wings the size of a two-person canoe, which, in my opin­ion, would be a wise use of research dol­lars. It was a 6 1/2-foot-tall replica chicken, part of what was described as a “menagerie of fiber­glass ani­mals” declared sur­plus by the N.C. State Fair and sold by the Sur­plus Prop­erty Agency.

“We had quite a bit of bid­ding for these pieces, so it was fun to finally get to open the bids and see who bought them,” Robert Rid­dle, the surplus-property offi­cer, said in a news release that, after the fact, only poured salt — per­haps even sur­plus DOT salt — in the wounds of those of us who would love to have a giant chicken and had absolutely no idea the state was sell­ing one.

I’m a solid cit­i­zen. I pay my taxes some­times. I vote when it’s not rain­ing. So it seems that when a giant sur­plus chicken is hauled into a ware­house in Raleigh to be auc­tioned off to the high­est bid­der, some­one on the state pay­roll would say, “Who would really like a giant chicken? I bet that guy up toward the moun­tains who writes way too much about mon­keys, early-to mid-‘70s Burt Reynolds movies, Cousin Junior and dog snot would put that sucker in his front yard. Let’s give him a holler.”

But no. The Wayne County Live­stock Devel­op­ment Asso­ci­a­tion, a nefar­i­ous orga­ni­za­tion that must have the inside track on sur­plus fiber­glass poul­try sales (I am for­mally request­ing a grand-jury inves­ti­ga­tion) bought the giant chicken for $259. Had I known about the auc­tion, I would have bid $259.50, thereby con­tribut­ing more money to the state’s cof­fers and per­haps sav­ing a teacher’s job in these uncer­tain eco­nomic times.

Won­der­ing what other trea­sures the state was will­ing to part with, I clicked on over to the Sur­plus Prop­erty Agency Web site to view its cur­rent list­ing of items clas­si­fied as “sur­plus prop­erty, seized & unclaimed.” I couldn’t exactly fig­ure out what was sur­plus, what was seized and what was unclaimed. That would take some real report­ing and, as a colum­nist, I try to leave the real report­ing to the guy who was laid off last week. But I fig­ured the Honda Rebel motor­cy­cle was seized while the lot of mis­cel­la­neous mid-‘80s Ford bus parts was sur­plus. Nearly all of it could have been unclaimed.

There was a selec­tion of jew­elry — a petite Figaro neck­lace; heart-shaped post ear­rings; a gold-colored pen­dant with a heart design; a silver-colored bracelet with a gold-colored horse-heart dec­o­ra­tion — that was either seized or found under a bed in the Governor’s Man­sion after the last election.

There were plenty of vehi­cles and proof that state work­ers would make unsuc­cess­ful used-car sales­men if this actual descrip­tion is any indi­ca­tion of their per­sua­sive tech­niques: “1992 Ford Truck…MUST BE TOWED, A/C, seats dam­aged, wind­shield chipped, no spare tire, trim on door dam­aged, has tool box on back, dash dam­aged, minor rust, paint scratched, peel­ing, faded.”

But I bet with an adjust­ment or two she’ll run like a scalded dog.

Coun­try music bands may want to check out the 2002 Thomas Bus, per­fect for a cross-country tour: “Needs two new bat­ter­ies, will not start, w/toilet, secu­rity screen, A/C not work­ing, wind­shield dam­aged, elec­tri­cal prob­lems, gauges not work­ing prop­erly … no spare tire, no antenna, minor rust, paint scratched, peel­ing, faded, (and to make sure we under­stood) bat­ter­ies dead.”

It’s a dang shame Buck Owens isn’t still around.

There were file cab­i­nets, tele­phones, cafe­te­ria benches, copiers, print­ers, hos­pi­tal beds, exer­cise equip­ment and a 43-year-old Bald­win con­cert piano encased in a chest­nut frame.

There was not another giant chicken.

Treat her well, Wayne County Live­stock Devel­op­ment Asso­ci­a­tion, treat her well.

Scott Hol­li­field is edi­tor and gen­eral man­ager of The McDow­ell News. Con­tact him at P.O. Box 610, Mar­ion, N.C. 28752 or e-mail rhollifield@mcdowellnews.com

- — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — -
Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org