Archive for the 'North Carolina' Category
Judges free victim of wrongful conviction in ’91;
February 19, 2010The 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.
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International Association for Property and Evidence
“Law Enforcement Serving the Needs of Law Enforcement“
www.IAPE.org
Cops seize property, then ask for receipt
January 28, 2010The 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
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International Association for Property and Evidence
“Law Enforcement Serving the Needs of Law Enforcement“
www.IAPE.org
RATS! Could’ve had a giant chicken
January 25, 2010Winston-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
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International Association for Property and Evidence
“Law Enforcement Serving the Needs of Law Enforcement“
www.IAPE.org