- Pages:
- 1
- 2
| Blog and Media Roundup - Wednesday, March 10, 2010; News Roundup | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 10 2010, 05:30 AM (870 Views) | |
| abb | Mar 10 2010, 06:10 AM Post #16 |
|
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/03/10/379242/carrying-on-in-her-footsteps.html Published Wed, Mar 10, 2010 02:00 AM Modified Wed, Mar 10, 2010 12:00 AM Carrying on in her footsteps As an early-twentysomething, the concept of two years - one-tenth of life as you know it - seems massive and infinite. When you actually live it, two years past can feel like just yesterday. It was yesterday, then, that I picked up a copy of our college newspaper to find an article, boxed in red, about an unidentified woman found dead a mile from campus, wearing sweatpants and tennis shoes, with blond locks hanging past her shoulders. And yesterday that the woman remained faceless; yesterday still when our voices of reason told us it was a homeless person who had been wandering around late at night in the sinewy, dark roads off Franklin Street. And yesterday when we finally learned that this stranger was our dear friend Eve Carson. It was two years ago, this yesterday when our world was violently and at once ripped apart. Each one of the last 700-plus days has seen an immeasurable number of people struggling with what once was a relatively easy task: getting by. But looking back, it's clear that, with each of these cycles of 24 hours that have come to make up our recent past, the ending to that phrase would change ever so slightly, as if coming to terms with this most senseless of losses was a sort of canonization. Getting by after our small town was rocked with such terror and violence. Getting by after enduring such bottomless sorrow. Getting by after realizing that the e-mails, phone calls, messages and whispers that once came from that bright spot in your life could now be traced back only to air. Getting by because there's nowhere you can get without moving forward. I have to say we've gotten pretty far, and these thousands of Eve's peers - who just yesterday were paralyzed by the news of her death - are now boldly facing the day in her honor. There is the alumnus from the University of Georgia, in Eve's home of Athens, Ga., who has undertaken a cross-country bike ride for charity; there's the recent UNC graduate who has devoted himself to teaching underprivileged children in Durham, the hometown of Eve's alleged murderers. There are her college roommates, and countless others, who have found themselves everywhere from South Korea to New York to California, preaching the gospel of how good this life is. Not least of which is the once-unknown Anoop Desai, who let her inspiration take him to Hollywood as he snagged a coveted spot in the top ranks of "American Idol," and just a year ago sounded her memory on national television. There is, now, a garden, a 5K race, a scholarship - and too soon there will be students at UNC whose only knowledge of her comes from these monuments. There are papers floating down the formerly stale annals of the state legislature that are addressing the ineptitude of the probation system, the need for a crackdown on gun violence and the ever-living struggle of ensuring a fair trial. And then there are the papers that lie in my lap, and there's a pen that takes more deliberate strokes these days. As a journalist, I have found myself cursing my profession as it sensationalized her story with the gruesome details of her death - choosing to neglect the large part of an audience that was, and for a long time would be, reeling from her absence. Words - here, grisly, slain, shoulder, hip, head, final, fatal - that dissect our unchangeable pasts, I learned, should be traded in for those that move each moment forward. No story's subject is inhuman. Because there are still days, no matter your loss, when you forget that yesterday is gone, and your lungs sink in with a pain that can't possibly be biological: a heaviness that still finds and catches up with you, takes the wind out of you, and brings you to your knees. But then a better memory comes along: Bob Carson, Eve's father, giving voice to his own optimism for our generation, and reminding us that we have miles to go, and missions to keep. Two years has proven more than enough time to learn to be brave in our ambition. It is still for her, our undaunted perseverance. Kayla Tausche graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2008. She works for the Financial Times Group. |
![]() |
|
| abb | Mar 10 2010, 06:17 AM Post #17 |
|
http://www.wisconsinrapidstribune.com/article/20100310/WRT06/3100312 Our View: Concrete steps needed to end campus rape March 10, 2010 The problem of rape on college campuses is so big and so distressing that it's hard to know where to start. But the nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Reporting has provided in-depth reporting that at least provides a starting point. What the Center's investigation found is that we can know -- both by hard data and common sense -- that many, many incidents of sexual assault on college campuses go unreported. There are four different reports that track the numbers of sexual assault on campuses within the University of Wisconsin System -- a report to the FBI, to the Department of Education, to campus crime authorities and to the UW System's annual report. These four reports offer wildly divergent results -- for the Madison campus, the 2008 numbers varied between one and 44. National research suggests that statistically, on a campus such as UW-Madison's that has 21,600 women, there are something like 750 rapes or attempted rapes each year. That shouldn't be taken as a hard-and-fast number. What's important is the huge gap between even the highest number of reported rapes and that estimate. Making sure that crimes are reported is one important step toward finding a solution to these criminal acts. But to do that, it's necessary to disentangle a hugely complicated, discouragingly large number of factors that contribute to incidences of rape on college campuses: # The culture of alcohol on campus. It isn't so much that alcohol turns men into rapists. Rather, it's that drinking might impair women's judgment. It cause them to question their own recollection, or their own culpability in the crime that was committed against them. # Fuzzy definitions of rape. There persists a false view that it isn't "rape" if it's someone you know, or if the woman was OK with some sexual contact, or if both parties are drinking. # A culture of silence among students who look the other way or don't get involved when someone they know is on either side of a sexual assault. # A culture that habitually treats women like objects. # A lack of education from parents to their kids that no means no, that you're allowed to stop a sexual encounter at any time. # A remaining stigma around rape that makes people not want to report it, not want to define what happened to them as rape or who fear that authorities won't believe them if they come forward. There have been high-profile cases of false rape accusations, for example in 2006 when a woman falsely accused members of the Duke lacrosse team. This is a crime, and no one should do it. But raising this topic is also just a way of changing the subject -- a way of not dealing with the central issue of rape that goes unreported or unpunished, or both. Sexual assault is a hideous problem. What's especially disturbing is that, on campus, it usually doesn't take the form of a random assailant attacking a random victim. Most of the time, rape takes a less "obvious" form. That means it's woven more deeply into the fabric of our culture than we might like to admit. It's time that we take the steps that will get rid of it. |
![]() |
|
| abb | Mar 10 2010, 06:20 AM Post #18 |
|
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2010/03/09/ben-roethlisberger-questioned-in-sexual-assault-again-some-accusers-lie-but-fewer-than-you-think.aspx Ben Roethlisberger Questioned in Sexual Assault (Again): Some Accusers Lie, but Fewer Than You Think Tuesday, March 09, 2010 5:00 PM By Raina Kelley Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is in (alleged) trouble again. For the second time in two years, he’s being investigated for sexual assault, though at this point the facts are still unclear and no charges have been filed. (In 2009 a hotel employee sued the football star for sexual assault and battery, false imprisonment, and infliction of emotional distress over an alleged 2008 encounter. Roethlisberger denied those claims; that suit is ongoing). In a statement released yesterday, Roethlisberger's lawyer said his client was "completely innocent of any crime." But is it just me or is every “scandal” involving professional athletes nowadays handled with an appalling moral relativism—adultery gets lumped in with sexual assault gets lumped in with steroid use? And with the possible exception of murder, all bad behavior is categorized under "scandal." Sports columnists get carpal tunnel bemoaning the loss of our role models and checking the temperature of the sponsors. But what bothers me in cases such as this is the now-mandatory doubting of the victim’s character and possible motivations. Are fake rape charges so rampant that even mainstream media outlets must be sure to warn against them? In a report for CBS's Early Show, former prosecutor John Q. Kelly said: "Well, sure. You've got a lot of different things that can happen in these situations. First of all, look no further than the [false rape allegations against the] Duke lacrosse team, what happened to them. So you can't jump to conclusions. But you might have a woman who overreacted; she might have been rejected by Roethlisberger and she's getting even. Attention-seeking. Consensual activity that she was embarrassed about afterwards. Or maybe she's looking for a payday. We've seen them all play out in the past." (Editor's note: Is there any other type of crime where past accusations of bad behavior are used to discredit the accuser? Roethlisberger's agent responded to the charges by saying, "Obviously, given the prior accusation against Ben, we are skeptical of motive," which pretty much redefines chutzpah. If a man were accused of shooting his neighbor, and then a year later a different neighbor ended up with a gunshot wound, no one would accuse the second victim of trying to get on the gunshot-wound gravy train—K.D.) Advertisement I could understand this kind of caveat if what happened at Duke in 2006 were the tip of the iceberg, not an aberration in a year when the FBI determined that 92,455 forcible rapes had occurred—a number most agree is too low due to underreporting. Rape shield laws, which prevent using an accuser's sexual history against her, have been in place for more than a decade. Still, sexual assault is still too easily seen as a crime in which the accuser is probably lying. The facts, of course, tell a different story. There isn’t an epidemic of women lying about sexual assault, as Emily Bazelon and Rachael Larimore over at Slate.com prove beautifully. Bazelon and Larimore conclude that “if police and juries are influenced by false reports, especially high-profile instances of false charges, like the Duke lacrosse case or the Hofstra case, why wouldn't those reports influence victims, too? Up to 60 percent of rapes go unreported. The Hofstra story will only make more women wonder if the police will believe them.” Which means that the real scourge is our society’s seemingly knee-jerk and public prosecution of rape victims. Let’s remember that when the Roethlisberger “scandal” kicks into overdrive. |
![]() |
|
| abb | Mar 10 2010, 06:20 AM Post #19 |
|
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2010/03/09/ben-roethlisberger-questioned-in-sexual-assault-again-some-accusers-lie-but-fewer-than-you-think.aspx Posted By: PierceHarlan (March 9, 2010 at 6:37 PM) I run the world's leading site dedicated to giving voice to persons falsely accused of rape, The False Rape Society, and your post is breathtakiningly insensitve to the falsely accused. Apparently you are under the mistaken notion that in order to raise awareness about rape and to lend credibility to rape accusers, you need to denigrate the victimization of the falsely accused by declaring false rape claims a myth. The fact is, you can, and should, abhor both rape and false rerporting without resorting to knee jerk distortions of indisputable facts. For most rape claims, we honestly don't know what happened. We would have to evaluate the evidence in a case-by-case basis to know, and nobody does that. We know that about 15 percent of these claims end in conviction and we can be reasonably certain most of these were actual rapes despite the fact that some men and boys are wrongly convicted. We know that anywhere from 8 to 50 percent are "false," not just unfounded, depending on the study. Most fall in the ambiguous gray where we just don't know what happened. It is fair to assert that more rapes are committed than lead to conviction and that more false claims occur than we can say with certainty. But rape/false rape claims do not lend themselves to certainty. Whatever the number, every impartial, objective study shows false rape claims are a significant problem. As reported by "False Rape Allegations" by Eugene Kanin, Archives of Sexual Behavior Feb 1994 v23 n1 p81(12), Professor Kanin’s landmark study of a mid-size Midwestern city over the course of nine years found that 41 percent of all rape claims were not just false but recanted. The percentage of false claims was likely higher. Kanin also studied the police records of two unnamed large state universities and found that in three years, 50 percent of the 64 rapes reported to campus police were determined to be false.” Kanin was a feminist icon, widely cited for his studies on male aggression, but after people like me started citing this landmark study, he became a nitwit, incapable of doing simple research. Go figure. See also, E. Greer, The Truth Behind Legal Dominance Feminism's 'Two Percent False Rape Claim' Figure, 33 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 947, a scholarly law review article that traced the two percent false rape canard to its untrustworthy source. Yet that two percent lie is still cited by paid sexual assault counselors. In addition, a massive Air Force study in 1985 studied 556 rape allegations. It found that 27% of the accusers recanted, and an independent evaluation revealed a false accusation rate of 60%. McDowell, Charles P., Ph.D. “False Allegations.” Forensic Science Digest, (publication of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations), Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 1985), p. 64. See also, "Until Proven Innocent," the widely praised (praised even by the New York Times, which the book skewers -- as well as almost every other major U.S. news source) and painstaking study of the Duke Lacrosse non-rape case. Authors Stuart Taylor and Professor K.C. Johnson explain that the exact number of false claims is elusive but "[t]he standard assertion by feminists that only 2 percent" or sexual assault claims "are false, which traces to Susan Brownmiller's 1975 book 'Against Our Will,' is without empirical foundation and belied by a wealth of empirical data. These data suggest that at least 9 percent and probably closer to half" of all sexual assault claims "are false . . . ." (Page 374.) And I could go into much more detail with other and smaller studies and anecdotal evidence from police on the front lines, etc. but that's enough. You assert that the "Hofstra story will only make more women wonder if the police will believe them. Which means that the real scourge is our society’s seemingly knee-jerk and public prosecution of rape victims." With all due respect, the real scourge is that people don't want to convict innocent men and boys for crimes they didn't commit. Hofstra reminded people that this can happen. Hofstra was awful but my site reports on false claims every single day of the week, often worse. They never get the publicity Hofstra and Duke got. Some of strongest supporters of my site are rape victims. They loathe and despise false accusers. If you really want to help rape victims, you will work to eradicate the false accusers instead of putting your head in the sand and pretending they are a myth. They are hurting rape victims' credibility while well-intentioned rape advocates tell people, "look the other way, nothing to see here." Does that in any manner diminish the awfulness of rape? Absolutely not. The point is, we can all work to combat both rape and false reporting without slinking into divisive gender politics or the ideological trivialization of false reporting just because its primary victims are men. |
![]() |
|
| Quasimodo | Mar 10 2010, 09:31 AM Post #20 |
|
So it really is possible to charge an officer (or member of a DA's office) with misprison of felony... interesting... |
![]() |
|
| Quasimodo | Mar 10 2010, 09:40 AM Post #21 |
|
What a relief that nothing like this could ever happen in the Durham traffic court, of course... |
![]() |
|
| Quasimodo | Mar 10 2010, 09:57 AM Post #22 |
|
Ruminations... If someone 'flashed' a gun at me ( 'pointed'), I would be very concerned, would consider that assault, and within an inch of being an attempt to kill me. It would be such a serious threat that in law I would be legally justified in killing the 'flasher' in presumed self-defense. What this sentence (or non-sentence) says to me is that robbing someone with a gun is not taken as a serious offense in Durham, likely because it is so prevalent there as to be considered "ordinary". If it's that easy to rob someone with a gun in Durham, why shouldn't everyone give it a try--the possible rewards are worth the low risk of two months in jail and a fine if caught. Since no one was injured or killed, we'll just let the perp go. If a Duke student were to point a gun at someone in Durham and rob them, would the sentence be suspended because it was a first offense? Is Durham going to apologize because some of its citizens assaulted some Duke students and put them in fear for their lives? Questions... |
![]() |
|
| Quasimodo | Mar 10 2010, 10:06 AM Post #23 |
|
Which Judge ever said anything like this during the lax case? Stephens? Titus? Smith? Hudson? Why not? |
![]() |
|
| abb | Mar 10 2010, 12:50 PM Post #24 |
|
http://www.technicianonline.com/viewpoint/join-the-team-before-it-s-too-late-1.2186559 Join the team, before it’s too late By Technician's Editorial Board | Published: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Updated: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 The Facts: Technician is looking down the business end of the barrel and is in serious need of student involvement. After losing its editor in a policy row at the beginning of the semester, the newspaper needs leaders. Our Opinion: The paper needs your help, regardless of age or experience. Without student support, the paper could cease publication at the end of the semester. The Student Media Board of Directors elected six new student leaders Tuesday to direct news organizations on campus next year. WKNC, Agromeck, Windhover, Wolf TV, the Nubian Message and Student Media’s business office will receive new, dynamic visionaries who will enable the free flow of information on campus in the next year and lead those organizations into a bright future. Technician was not as lucky. The University’s 90-year-old student newspaper did not hire an editor in chief and could shut its doors in a few weeks without students’ help. After losing its editor earlier this semester in a policy dispute, the institution has been essentially leaderless. Today’s paper was only in the stand because of what the staff would describe as a printing miracle. The state of the media is bleak. Students should not be so disillusioned as to think that the News & Observer and Technician will print in their traditional forms in 20 — or even 10 — years from now. Nonetheless, their mission is important. If you value keeping a system of checks and balances on Student Government and the University, the newspaper is one of students’ only allies. Even if you just want to read the recap of the weekend games or do the daily Sudoku, it won’t be here unless students get involved. This isn’t a cry of desperation or a pity plea. A student newspaper’s mission is to work behind the scenes and provide a service to students. But Technician won’t be able to continue that work without an infusion of people who care about their University and want students to be informed. As students’ sounding board and principle campus-media outlet, the paper is a valuable resource for students. Its value is in its people, though; without vibrant leaders for the future, the newspaper will cease publication. If you enjoy complaining about your campus newspaper and wish it ill, that wish may come true in a few short weeks — honestly, it may already be too late. But if you see some value in student journalism and believe students should have a voice and advocate on campus, contact the staff about helping — even if it’s just a comment or suggestion. Regardless of year, major or experience, Technician has a place for you. A student newspaper is only as good as the community makes it; without student involvement, reader or otherwise, Technician’s days may be running short. |
![]() |
|
| abb | Mar 10 2010, 03:27 PM Post #25 |
|
http://www.freep.com/article/20100310/NEWS01/100310002/1318/Monica-Conyers-gets-37-months-in-prison-in-Synagro-bribery-scandal Posted: March 10, 2010 | Updated: 3:20 p.m. today Monica Conyers gets 37 months in prison in Synagro bribery scandal BY BEN SCHMITT and JOE SWICKARD FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS Former Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers was sentenced today to 37 months and two years supervised probation and no fine in the Synagro bribery scandal that rocked the city of Detroit. The 37 months is the top of the sentencing guidelines recommended by the probation department. She has 10 days to appeal; otherwise, she'll start serving on July 1. Judge Avern Cohn said that Conyers’ conduct in office “fell woefully short” of the standard expected of public servants, and that she violated basic standards of conduct going back to the book of Exodus. He said the sentence of 37 months was in line with other public officials who have fallen afoul of the law, and her sentence is greater than other defendants because her conduct was “more egregious.” She was still agitated after the sentencing as family and friends and court officials tried to calm her. “I’m walking out the front door, and I’m appealing this case.” She also said “I don’t want to go out the back.” She repeatedly said she wanted to appeal the case as court security officers cleared the courtroom and eventually the hallway. Outside, her attorney Steve Fishman sidestepped questions of whether he was still her lawyer, saying, “the case is over,” adding “I might wind up a witness” in the matter of her trying to withdrew her plea. Asked if she can withdraw her plea Fishman said, “That’s a good question.” Asked for his reaction to her courtroom scene, Fishman said, “Write what you saw, write what you heard.” Asked if he knew Conyers would react as she did, he said, “Did it look like I did?” As security officers were clearing the courtroom, Conyers was seated at what was usually the prosecution’s table, with others trying to calm her. People were patting her hair and shoulders and urging her to collect herself. She does not have to report to prison until at least July 1. Conyers pleaded guilty last summer to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery stemming from her November 2007 tie-breaking Detroit City Council vote in favor of the controversial Synagro Technologies sludge contract. Before the sentencing was announced Wednesday, a strange series of events transpired, highlighted by Conyers' request to withdraw her guilty plea. She was screaming that she had her own tapes that would exonerate her before the sentence was announced. She also yelled, “What about my children? They did nothing to cause this!” before the sentence was announced. “I would like to withdraw my plea. … I shouldn’t go to jail for something I didn’t do,” she said. She told Judge Avern Cohn that he should read the report from a doctor, where she was sent by the court, and how susceptible she was to badgering. She repeated that this was a doctor whom she saw at the direction of the court. She then repeated: “I’m just not going to jail for something I did not do.” Cohn said he was satisfied that the guilty plea was voluntary and knowingly given. Earlier, her attorney Steven Fishman had clashed with the judge over sentencing guidelines. Conyers also said she knew there was pressure on Cohn to make an example of her and Fishman said the media has “banged on Ms. Conyers like a pinata.” Fishman said the media was gathered in the courtroom “like Madame DeFarge around the guillotine." He referred to the character from Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities," who knitted while the heads rolled. Fishman said there is corruption and ongoing investigations, “but she should not be a poster child for all that.” Conyers said there are things on the wiretaps that will exonerate her. Earlier, there were about 60 spectators and family members in the court. Conyers came into court in black suit with white piping, wearing dark glasses, which she took off before the sentencing began. A couple dozen more stood outside the courtroom. Conyers poked her head out of a jury room to say hello to friends and family about 25 minutes before the sentencing. "I just wanted to say hi," Conyers said, wearing sunglasses and blowing kisses. "Hey, we love you," a woman responded from the courtroom. At 1:30 p.m. about 30 people waited outside U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn's courtroom before the hearing began. Detroiter Joyce Steele showed up to catch a glimpse of the action. "I just wanted to see the sentencing with my own two eyes," she said. "It's certainly a crime to use an elected office as a self-serving tool." Prosecutors charge she violated public trust Federal prosecutors say Conyers violated the ultimate public trust and want her to pay with “substantial” prison time. After her guilty plea to the bribery count, many of her other alleged transgressions played out in wiretapped phone recordings during the recent trial of her former chief of staff Sam Riddle that ended with a hung jury. Among the most explosive evidence came during testimony of Greektown entrepreneur Jim Papas. In a July 2007 letter shown to jurors during Riddle’s trial, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Monica’s husband, supported a controversial Papas-operated, hazardous-waste injection well in Romulus that he previously opposed. Papas testified he paid Riddle $10,000 in July 2007 after Monica Conyers showed him a letter from her husband supporting the well. Papas said Monica Conyers told him: "I helped you, now you need to help me." He testified that she wanted him to pay Riddle. "OK, I'll give you the damn money," Papas said he responded. Papas also he first paid Riddle $10,000 in 2006 as a favor to Monica Conyers because he didn’t want to make enemies. He said Riddle never did any consulting work for him. "I wouldn't have paid Sam if it wasn't for her asking me to do that," Papas testified. Papas was never charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing. Federal prosecutors have also previously said John Conyers, who has declined to comment on the matter, did nothing wrong. During Riddle’s trial, Detroit City Councilman Ken Cockrel Jr. testified about Conyers' flip-flop position on the Synagro deal. The councilman told jurors that Conyers initially was vocal against the $1.2-billion contract, but then voted in favor of it Nov. 20, 2007. Cockrel said the move was odd because of her public stance against it. He then explained Conyers' public fights with him, including the one in which she called him "Shrek, "as "one-sided." Monica Conyers took at least $6,000 in bribes from businessman Rayford Jackson for her Synagro vote. Jackson worked as a consultant to Synagro and is serving five years in prison for a guilty plea in connection with the deal. Prosecutors argued in a recent court filing that Riddle’s trial revealed she had a hand in at least $69,500 in bribery and extortion payments in various schemes beyond the Synagro case. "Her abuse of her office for self-enrichment was a betrayal of her fiduciary duty to the citizens and pensioners of the city who entrusted their taxpayer dollars and retirement money to her," the prosecutors said. "Given the important position of public trust she violated, a substantial sentence is warranted." Contact BEN SCHMITT: bcschmitt@freepress.com. |
![]() |
|
| abb | Mar 10 2010, 05:11 PM Post #26 |
|
http://www.roxboro-courier.com/articles/2010/03/10/news/doc4b9700ba8e97f593550495.txt Judge: Redacted portion of affidavit ‘could ruin [Brewer’s] reputation’ By TIM CHANDLER Courier-Times Editor tchandler@roxboro-courier.com Published: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 5:15 AM CST MONROE — “I think folks have the right to know what he seized.” Special Superior Court Judge Gary Trawick spoke those words Monday regarding items gathered on Feb. 23 by a State Bureau of Investigation agent when a search warrant was executed at former District Attorney Joel Brewer’s office. The SBI, at the earlier direction of Trawick, began an investigation of “matters involving” Brewer late last year. Trawick ruled Monday afternoon in the Union County Courthouse to unseal details of the search warrant and a portion of an affidavit from SBI Special Agent W.R. Meyers concerning his investigation. Brewer was not present at the Monday hearing. Trawick did rule that two paragraphs in Meyers’ affidavit would be redacted before the information was filed in the Person County Courthouse. Those two paragraphs, however, would also become public record, Trawick said, if criminal charges are filed against Brewer in the case in the future. “…If a true bill is returned by a grand jury or criminal charges by any other means are brought against Joel Brewer arising out [of] the allegations contained in the second and third paragraphs of said affidavit, then the seal shall, within 48 hours of the institution of said charges, be broken and the complete contents of the affidavit made known,” Trawick wrote in his order Monday. Trawick said he “tried to provide a method” for the search warrant information to be unsealed. “The public has a right to know,” Trawick said Monday. The judge also noted that no charges had been filed against Brewer to date. He went on to say that if the two redacted paragraphs were made public now and charges were never filed, “it could ruin a man’s reputation.” The North Carolina Attorney General’s office is now overseeing the investigation of Brewer. Senior Deputy Attorney General James Coman said he was “satisfied” with Trawick’s ruling Monday, but did not rule out a possible appeal of the decision. Coman also noted that Monday’s ruling would be “null and void” and the entire search warrant information would become public record if charges were filed against Brewer. When arguing for the search warrant information to remain sealed, Daniel pointed out that Brewer “is not charged.” He went on to say that if it were unsealed some of the information that would be made public “would be devastating to say the least,” especially if the allegations “do not pan out or result in charges.” Daniel also said that the affidavit in the search warrant contained language that “could very well be prejudicial, detrimental and inflammatory.” Daniel said there were also other persons named in the affidavit and that “their interest has to be taken into consideration.” Coman countered by saying that all persons who have been interviewed in the investigation were made aware that should charges be brought against Brewer, they would likely have to testify in a trial. Coman added that the attorney general’s office did not believe unsealing the search warrant would “impede, harm or cause any problem with the investigation.” Coman noted that at the time the search warrant was issued Brewer “was still a public official.” He added that since that was the case, it was “even more important for the court to hold this matter open for public inspection.” According to Coman, the only person who is “going to be embarrassed by the filing of this,” was Brewer and that he wanted to be “treated special” because he “held a public office.” In an earlier interview, Roxboro attorney James Ramsey, who is also representing Brewer, was quoted as saying the ongoing investigation was “not nearly as serious as the media has made it out to be, and I think, when it washes out, people are going to be surprised at how minor it is.” “My contention is if these words are accurate, what’s all the to-do about?’ Coman asked. “…They have told the public there’s nothing to it.” For more on this story, see the Wednesday, March 10, edition |
![]() |
|
| abb | Mar 10 2010, 05:12 PM Post #27 |
|
http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/6626734/article-Perdue-names-Long-to-fill-out-DA-term-for-Person--Caswell-?instance=2_breaking_news Perdue names Long to fill out DA term for Person, Caswell 03.10.10 - 08:46 am RALEIGH - Gov. Bev Perdue today appointed former Superior Court Judge James M. Long to serve as acting district attorney in Person and Caswell counties. Long will complete the current term of Joel Brewer who retired March 1 and is being investigated by the State Bureau of Investigation. “Judge Long will give the people of Person and Caswell counties the leadership and experience needed in an acting district attorney,” Perdue said. “I appreciate his willingness to serve.” Judge Long served as a recorder’s court judge for Caswell County from 1964-1970 and as superior court judge from 1970-1994. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar and his law degree from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill School of Law. |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · DUKE LACROSSE - Liestoppers · Next Topic » |
- Pages:
- 1
- 2







7:14 PM Jul 10