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Blog and Media Roundup - Sunday, March 16, 2014; News Roundup
Topic Started: Mar 16 2014, 05:37 AM (218 Views)
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Public records requests in NC government, universities drag on for months

By Joseph Neff
jneff@newsobserver.comMarch 15, 2014

Sunshine Week

This is Sunshine Week, when advocates of open government celebrate the value of freedom-of-information laws. Watch for more coverage through Wednesday.

Where records helped

Public records were instrumental in these N&O stories during the past year:

Lucrative no-bid contracts: The News & Observer obtained copies of high-dollar contracts awarded by Aldona Wos, secretary of heath and human services. Wos awarded one worth $312,000 a year to former State Auditor Les Merritt and another worth $310,000 to Joe Hauck, a vice president from the company owned by Wos’ husband.

Regulations not followed: State policy requires public officials to file memos justifying sole-source and personal-services contracts, such as those awarded to Merritt and Hauck. But in those cases and at least four others, DHHS attorney Kevin Howell wrote in response to a public records request: “No justification memorandum was located by agency personnel.”

Legal settlements: Public records requests revealed the amounts of settlement reached with Floyd Brown, the mentally disabled man jailed in a psychiatric hospital for 14 years based on a confession that his lawyers said was fabricated by an SBI agent and two county sheriff’s deputies. Anson County and its insurers paid $1.475 million, while the SBI and its insurers paid $7.85 million. The SBI and its insurers also paid $4.625 million to Greg Taylor, a Wake County man wrongfully imprisoned for 17 years before a three-judge panel declared him innocent.

Pay raises: Pay records routinely acquired by The News & Observer show that the manager of the troubled Medicaid claims payment system received a 25 percent raise in January. Angie Sligh had also made $237,500 in unauthorized overtime over the previous four years.

Failed contracts: Records showed the Department of Revenue amicably ended a software contract with a vendor despite earlier notifying the company that it had failed to meet the contract’s terms. The department agreed to a final payment of $5 million and promised not to say anything disparaging about the company, CGI Technologies and Solutions.

Tax breaks: Email showed how state Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger protected a tax break worth $400,000 to Alex Lee Inc., the Hickory-based company that owns Lowes Foods.

Questionable police conduct: Public records showed how police in the town of Hamlet had seized at least 25 vehicles in a series of questionable and off-the-books transactions. One detective ended up with a confiscated vehicle, while the police chief failed to account for $23,000 in revenue from selling vehicles.

Academic trouble: Correspondence showed a cozy relationship between UNC’s Academic Support Program for Student Athletes and Julius Nyang’oro, the professor at the center of UNC’s academic and athletic scandal. Correspondence also revealed the NCAA’s unwillingness to investigate and the efforts by faculty leader Jan Boxill to water down a faculty report.

Jacking up pensions: Pension data from the State Treasurer revealed how community college presidents were structuring their compensation to jack up their annual pensions by as much as $52,000. The records also showed high salaries for housing authority managers in Raleigh and Greensboro.

Excessive use of force by police: The News & Observer requested 2012 reports on the use of force by Durham police officers. The reports showed that the department reviewed 136 incidents and found five cases where officers violated policy by using excessive force.

Comp time: Pay sheets showed that Raleigh Housing Authority Director Steve Beam had been using more than 20 comp days a year, some of it accrued by logging additional hours during a typical workweek. Coupled with vacation and sick leave, Beam had been taking up to 11 weeks off per year. He has a side business as a card-trick magician.

Fancy meals: Expense records showed the Raleigh Housing Authority treated its board to annual Christmas dinners at Raleigh’s swanky Second Empire restaurant that included wine, beer and bourbon. The most recent bill came to $3,082, including tax and tip.

Rules don’t apply to all?

Last October, DHHS lawyer Kevin Howell sought to explain why Secretary Aldona Wos did not produce memos justifying sole-source and personal-services contracts. (The agency’s purchasing manual does not provide an exception.)

“The intent of the justification memorandum is for the divisions within DHHS to justify the need for personal services contracts to the Office of the Secretary. Since these personal service contracts were for the Office of the Secretary, no such justification was needed.”




North Carolina law is clear on when public officials should provide citizens access to public records: “as promptly as possible.”

But reporters at The News & Observer and other news outlets sometimes wait six months or more for requests about simple things such as which professor taught a UNC class in which room, or more complicated requests for records at the heart of the state’s $14 billion Medicaid program or the botched rollout of the state’s food stamp program, NC FAST.

The delays mean the public lacks timely insight into how public dollars are being spent and how public servants are fulfilling their duties.

Soon after taking office, Gov. Pat McCrory declared Medicaid “broken” and promised to reform the program. He hired an experienced Medicaid manager, Carol Steckel, as Medicaid director.

The governor made it clear that he wanted to move North Carolina’s Medicaid program to a managed care model, under which private insurance companies would manage parts or all of the program.

When Steckel abruptly resigned in September, The News & Observer requested access to Steckel’s work-related emails. WRAL separately requested all of Steckel’s emails that mentioned managed care.

Six months later, the department has yet to produce a single email.

There is no dispute that emails sent in the course of public business are public records. In fact, there’s a standard template for state Department of Health and Human Services emails: “Email correspondence to and from this address is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties by an authorized State official.”

Kevin Howell, a lawyer and point man for all records requests at DHHS, said the department is responding as quickly as possible. He cited two reasons for the delay: The requests are in a queue behind other requests, and staffers must read each email to make sure no confidential information is released.

“We do want to turn requests around as promptly as possible,” Howell said. “All records have to be reviewed individually to protect confidentiality.”

But others who have done Howell’s job said records requests should be filled in days or weeks, not six months or more.

“Good Lord no, that’s ridiculous,” said Debbie Crane, who worked for 19 years as a public information officer, the last eight at DHHS. “Email is a pretty easy request to deal with.”

When providing email for a public records request, state employees typically complained that there was confidential information mixed in their emails.

“You shouldn’t be putting a patient’s name or Social Security number in an email,” Crane said.

It does take time, Crane said. Somebody does have to read the emails, but that should take a matter of weeks, not months.

Crane said the longest lag time during her tenure was six weeks. Crane was fired from her job at DHHS in 2008 amid the fallout of a News & Observer series critical of mental health reforms under the administration of former Gov. Mike Easley.

More at DHHS

In August, WRAL reporter Tyler Dukes requested emails concerning NC FAST, a new software program intended to speed the handling of food stamps and other benefits. The program has been troubled from the outset. A backlog of applications grew as many county workers struggled with the new system.

The backlog grew so severe that the U.S. Department of Agriculture threatened to cut off $88 million a year in federal money that helps run the system.

Dukes requested the emails of NC FAST Director Anthony Vellucci. The department has not provided any email in seven months while the problems in the program have played out at legislative hearings and in the media.

“Responding in a timely way to the requests is crucial to holding this agency accountable,” Dukes said. “It’s difficult to do when we are waiting so long for this.”

Carolina Public Press, a news site based in Asheville, looked into DHHS’ investigation of Femcare, a local abortion clinic. DHHS suspended Femcare’s license two days after McCrory signed a controversial abortion bill into law.

The reporter, Jon Elliston, first requested the records Aug. 1. He said he spent several weeks negotiating the scope and cost of the request. He received some records Feb. 8 and the remainder a couple of weeks later.

“We did try to narrow the requests, and we had a protracted set of negotiations,” Elliston said. “Still, it did take a long time.”

There are 24 positions in the Office of Communications at DHHS, according to an Oct. 24 memo. One person, Howell, facilitates public records requests. Another person arranges interviews for reporters with agency personnel. The other positions are dedicated to public relations and marketing.

Withholding an audit

In September, officials at Elizabeth City State University launched an internal probe of long-distance international phone calling after The News & Observer disclosed an unusual pattern involving thousands of calls to Senegal.

The university refused to say who was leading that review, even though it is public record. In December, The N&O sought records about the review itself, including any memos or other correspondence.

A spokeswoman for the university, Kesha Williams, responded that the investigation “was not complete.” The newspaper requested any records that had been created. The university provided none.

One of the paper’s readers, John H. Hall Jr. of Nags Head, was also curious. He wrote several letters, with no result, and finally was directed to someone in the university’s legal department.

The week of Feb. 10, the university gave Hall a copy of an internal audit addressed to interim Chancellor Charles Becton. The audit detailed $140,000 of misspent state tax dollars, and a separate one showed that $6,000 in personal long-distance calls were made by an unidentified ECSU employee.

Hall, a 79-year-old retiree, mailed the audit to The News & Observer with a handwritten note that said he had received the report “after some effort.”

On March 5, the newspaper renewed its request for memos and correspondence about ECSU’s internal review. The response that day from Williams was succinct: “I received your request.”

On March 6, the paper sought the information again. The response was the same. That continued for days, until on March 10, the university sent the internal review by fax.

The internal review was dated Nov. 20.

Becton said he had not wanted the report released until it was “final.” It is well-settled law in North Carolina that draft reports and other working papers of government officials are public records that must be provided as promptly as possible.

Becton added in the interview that he had hoped to produce the document simultaneously with an ongoing state audit. That state audit was released Thursday.

Becton, a former judge on the state Court of Appeals, said he did not have any additional explanation for why the information was withheld for so long.

A nine-month wait

The News & Observer has requested many documents in reporting on the academic fraud and athletics scandal at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The school has provided public records promptly in some cases, but other requests have taken nearly a year to fill. In some cases, media outlets had to sue to get records. The N&O has filed one lawsuit and been part of a second in pursuit of other records.

On Nov. 11, the newspaper requested all university correspondence with the NCAA from the period of Aug. 1 through Nov. 9. Despite repeated requests, the university has not provided any correspondence.

On June 6, 2013, the newspaper requested basic information that is public for any course: the assigned classroom, class time and instructor of two classes in the African and Afro-American Studies department. Emails obtained through a separate public records request suggested those classes in 2005 and 2010 could be among those that were advertised as lecture courses but ended up as classes that didn’t meet and required only a paper.

Spokeswoman Karen Moon responded that neither course was contained in university investigative reports listing bogus classes. She provided no further information.

The News & Observer repeated the request, asking for the information regardless of whether the classes were referred to in any reports. Despite at least three requests in 2014, the university had not provided the information until Friday afternoon, more than nine months after the original request.

On Friday afternoon, Moon released information on the two professors and said the university was “unable to locate a class time or location for these courses.”

In the past, the university has blamed a personnel shortage for being slow with records requests.

UNC Board of Governors Chairman Peter Hans has said he is troubled by the lengthy process. He expressed concerns about other universities as well and said he is working on a proposal to bring before the board that would set standards for acknowledging the requests and providing an estimate for how long it would take to produce them.

“My sense is the legal process (for producing information) is more difficult than it appears, but it shouldn’t be this hard with the long gaps between requests and responses, and the uneven nature of responses from (UNC) institutions,” Hans said. Staff writers J. Andrew Curliss and Dan Kane contributed.

Neff: 919-829-4516

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/15/3702153/public-records-requests-drag-on.html#storylink=cpy
Edited by abb, Mar 16 2014, 05:41 AM.
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NCCU student plans lawsuit over odd arrest that kept him jailed for 24 days
By Jonathan M. Alexander
jalexander@newsobserver.comMarch 15, 2014 Updated 11 minutes ago

DURHAM — The doors of the jail cell slammed shut.

One bed. One toilet. A tiny window at the top of the wall.

Lewis Little, 20, said the clamping of the door when it closed shut still echoes in his mind. Several times he tried to push it open, but it wouldn’t budge.

He jumped up and grabbed the ledge of the window to pull himself up to peek outside, but his arms were not strong enough to hold him up for long.

“I was going crazy,” he said. “It was like slavery.”

Little was arrested in connection with a home invasion and placed under a nearly $1.5 million bail. The mass communications student at N.C. Central University had never been in jail before. He hadn’t even been arrested until the day he picked up the phone to call the police to do what he said he thought was the right thing to do.

He was released after 24 days for lack of evidence.

Police Deputy Chief Anthony Marsh said that once the witness’ statement began to show inconsistencies, “We took the appropriate steps to get this man out of jail.”

One summer night

On June 20, 2013, Little said he and five friends were heading to one of their houses to hang out. Taquan Lassiter, the driver and friend whose house they were going to, drove down a hill beside his house on Melbourne Street and saw a man lying face down in the street.

We are aware of that, the operator told Little. Police were on their way.

He hung up the phone. Little and his friends got out of the car and asked the man if he was OK.

The man, Michael Lee, was struggling to breathe. Little couldn’t see blood. Wheezing, the man tried to lift his head but couldn’t.

With sirens blasting, police cars arrived. They taped off the scene as neighbors gathered.

According to statements, Ronald Snipes Sr. told police that four intruders had broken into his house looking for his son, Ronald Snipes Jr. At least one had a gun. He told police that one of the intruders was a black man with dreadlocks, wearing black shorts with a red stripe down the side. He told officers that he saw him outside in the crowd and pointed to Little.

Brenda Snipes, the wife, told officers that she tried to run to the kitchen. The intruders held her at gunpoint. When her son came out of the back room, the intruders released her. She said she got on the floor and heard gunshots.

Lee, who was one of the intruders, was shot and died outside.

Little said a police officer walked out of the house and toward the crowd. Little stepped up to the front of the crowd because he was the one who had called the police.

“I was going to try to explain the situation, but before I knew it, he just turned me around and just arrested me, not saying anything,” Little said. “I asked him what was wrong and he said, ‘You’re just coming down to answer some questions.’”

At the precinct, after being handed a paper that listed his rights, he said he requested a lawyer. He said he has watched enough television shows to know not to talk to the police if you’re innocent.

Little said he asked what was going on, and officers said he was being charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, felony conspiracy, first-degree burglary and first-degree kidnapping – crimes he said he did not commit. With his bond set at $1,425,000, he knew there was no way he would get out anytime soon. His family was not rich.

“A million dollar bond? Come on now, it’s not like I was picking daisies in there,” Little said. “I was freaking out.”

“Point blank period, I was guilty before I was even innocent,” he added. “You can’t get me to say anything I did was wrong. I did nothing.”

What police say

The police say they, too, did nothing wrong.

Officers were investigating a murder and home invasion, Police Chief Jose Lopez said.

“(Investigators) got a description of one of the suspects from the victim as far as what he looked like and what he was wearing,” Lopez said.

“It was a specific description,” Marsh added. The description was a man with dreads and black shorts with a stripe down the middle.

The victim said he saw the suspect in the crowd and pointed to Little, who matched the description. He was wearing black shorts with a stripe down the middle and also wearing flip flops, which Lopez said was not typical dress.

Lopez said Little declined to speak to officers and requested a lawyer, and they arrested him based on probable cause.

Little said he declined to speak to officers out of fear that they might try to arrest him for a crime he did not commit.

“A lot was going through my head, but I kind of just knew at the end of the day that I didn’t do anything, so I didn’t think I had anything to worry about,” Little said.

Lopez said that if Little or his friends had given statements to officers, he might not have been arrested.

But Lassiter, the friend, said after speaking with Little’s attorney, Alexander Charns, that he and most of the friends in the car that night went to headquarters later that week and gave written statements to the investigator.

“We’ll get back to you,” Lassiter recalled the investigator saying.

Those statements are not part of the public record.

“What happened to Mr. Little was part of the judicial system, that he elected to invoke his rights and never asserted his innocence to us,” Lopez said. “And (he) never gave us information that through investigation would have cleared him that night. We have to go with the system that exists, and that system resulted in him being in jail for 24 days.”

Lopez said that it is not common that this happens, but it is not unheard of.

‘Like an animal’

Little appeared in court twice, chains around his ankles and arms.

“(The chains) made me feel like an animal,” Little said.

In court, his mother, Kesha Hester of Durham, listed his accomplishments and in an interview described how he watches his siblings when she is at work in the early morning hours.

“He gets them dressed and gets them ready for school,” she said. “He’s a good-hearted person.”

The judge banged the gavel.

“Send him back,” Little recalled the judge saying. “It doesn’t matter. We have to keep him in here.’”

“The judgment that he made, I was thinking, wow, that’s crazy. I was shocked.”

Friends describe Little as someone they look up to – a responsible college kid.

“He was a person everyone came to for advice,” Lassiter said. “I was mad because I knew he didn’t do it.”

Charns said he doesn’t understand why Little was arrested. His friends were at the scene, and they weren’t questioned.

“Mr. Little did what all good citizens should do but are often afraid to do,” Charns said. “He reported a crime. His reward was being charged with a serious felony offense.”

“Assistant DA Jim Dornfried and I had a number of discussions about the charges, including about the witnesses who were with Mr. Little that night,” he said. “Mr. Dornfried sorted through the evidence and took the ethical, honorable and necessary action. He dismissed the charges.”

Lopez said police still haven’t fully determined whether Little is innocent but are no longer investigating the incident.

“I believe he’s legally innocent,” Lopez said. “At least it has not been proven guilty.”

Dornfried defended the police.

“An eyewitness identified him,” he said. “If there was an eyewitness who pointed someone out as the suspect, and the police didn’t arrest him, then I’d have to question law enforcement.”

Dornfried said it’s not uncommon for someone to commit a crime and call the police to make it seem like they did not do it. And, in the case of the suspect being shot, “I wouldn’t be surprised if a cohort stayed behind to see if his buddy was OK.”

But Little said officers checked his phone and didn’t see a connection to Lee, the intruder who died.

After 24 days, police determined there were differences in the statement Ronald Snipe Sr. gave that night and the statements he gave later. Little was released in July.

Marsh said the police would have failed to do their job if they had not arrested Little after Snipes pointed to him.

“If I got locked up for something I didn’t do and I know I didn’t do it, I’d be pissed off too,” Marsh said.

“We don’t work to put the wrong person in jail,” he added. “We work very diligently to make sure the right people are properly identified, properly arrested and properly adjudicated. But we’re all human beings. Mistakes do happen.”

Lopez credited investigators for going to prosecutors.

“Quite frankly (investigators) could have continued based off what existed at that time,” Lopez said. “I’m pretty sure a grand jury would have indicted him for it.

“If we wanted to be malicious, and if it was about Mr. Lewis Little, he would be in jail right now awaiting trial, and you wouldn’t have a story.”

Ronald Snipes Sr. has since died. Efforts to reach Ronald Snipes Jr. have been unsuccessful.

In an interview, Brenda Snipes said the men were wearing masks and black outfits when they kicked her door down. She said she couldn’t tell what they looked like.

A tough time adjusting

The day Little was released, he was angry and felt he had been on a roller coaster. His attorney had told him he could be in jail for a year if the case went to trial.

He plans to sue the department. He feels he was racially profiled, that he was arrested because he was the nearest black male with dreadlocks.

“To me it just sounds like a whole bunch of excuses,” Little said. “It’s not right. It’s still my life, and I had to suffer for it.”

After his release, he had trouble getting a job – he applied to Lowe’s and Home Depot and could get only a seasonal position at UPS – because the charge is still on his record. He has returned to school, but adjusting has been tough. Classmates asked him what happened.

Little said he still suffers from that time he spent in jail.

“It’s taken so much out of me,” Little said. “I had my plan set out of what I wanted to be, and now I’ve lost a lot of ambition and confidence. I can never Google my name without my mugshot popping up.”

Alexander: 919-932-2008; Twitter: @jonmalexander1


Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/15/3705374/durham-college-student-plans-to.html#storylink=cpy
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Duke’s Wolf caps solid game with OT goal over UNC in lacrosse
From News ReleasesMarch 15, 2014

DURHAM — Fourth-ranked Duke went on a 4-1 run over the last 13 minutes of the game to earn a 9-8 overtime win over fifth-ranked North Carolina in front of 3,887 fans at Koskinen Stadium on Saturday.

Jordan Wolf scored his fourth goal of the game 1 minute, 26 seconds into overtime to lift the Blue Devils to victory.

The victory was the ninth for the Blue Devils (6-2, 1-1 ACC) in their last 10 regular season meetings with the Tar Heels.

Wolf played a role in five of Duke’s goals, spoiling an outstanding defensive effort by UNC (5-2, 0-2), which held the Blue Devils to single digits in goals for only the second time in their past 15 meetings. Conversely, UNC was held to single digits in goals for the first time in a little over a year, an 11-8 Duke win in Chapel Hill last year.



Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/15/3706428/dukes-wolf-caps-solid-game-with.html#storylink=cpy
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http://www.wralsportsfan.com/mlax-wolf-lifts-duke-over-north-carolina-in-ot-9-8/13482987/

MLAX: Wolf lifts DUke over North Carolina in OT, 9-8

Posted 7:58 p.m. yesterday

Senior attackman Jordan Wolf’s goal at the 2:34 mark of the first overtime period propelled No. 6 Duke to a 9-8 win over No. 4 North Carolina in ACC men’s lacrosse action Saturday afternoon at Koskinen Stadium.

“Christian Walsh came down and made a nice move,” said Wolf. “We’ve been playing together for a long time and have great chemistry and I knew he was going to throw it to me and set a pick. I attacked the ball, got to five-on-five, inside roll and stuck it fortunately.”

The Blue Devils improve to 6-2 overall and 1-1 in conference play while the Tar Heels fall to 5-2 overall and 0-2 in league action.

“I thought it was a terrific college athletic event,” said head coach John Danowski. “It was a great crowd, two teams playing really hard and fans cheering for both teams. I just thought it was everything that is good about our sport. I thought it was a great display for college lacrosse.”

Trailing 8-7 with less than two minutes remaining in the fourth period, Duke notched the equalizer when junior Kyle Keenan utilized a roll dodge on the right-hand side for his career-high third marker of the day at the 1:47 mark. The Blue Devils later had possession for the final 45 seconds of regulation, but the stingy Tar Heel defense did not surrender a shot attempt.

“I was just looking for the slide to come to me and I got my hands free. The slide came and I had the opportunity to shoot. That last [goal] the ball came back around and I dodged both ways a couple times and just let it fly.”
In overtime, Brendan Fowler won the faceoff, and following a Duke timeout, Wolf pushed the Blue Devils to their 17th win over North Carolina in the last 19 meetings. Fowler had won just six of his previous 18 faceoff battles with UNC’s Stephen Kelly, who took all 20 draws for the Tar Heels, winning 13.

Wolf’s overtime heroics capped a four-goal, one-assist performance for the Wynnewood, Pa., native, who now has career totals of 143 goals and 94 assists. Deemer Class and Case Matheis each had one goal and one assist while Matheis, Luke Duprey and Henry Lobb registered five ground balls apiece.
Both goalkeepers – North Carolina’s Kieran Burke and Duke’s Luke Aaron – were sensational all afternoon, both making 15 saves. Aaron posted five of his saves in the fourth period.

Two Tar Heels – Jimmy Bitter and Miachel Tagliaferri – carded three goals apiece while Joey Sankey had two tallies.

Saturday’s tilt featured five ties and three lead changes. Bitter’s third goal of the day with 1:33 left in the third quarter gave the Tar Heels a two-goal cushion at 7-5, but Class and Wolf had consecutive tallies at the 11:25 and 6:27 marks of the fourth period to knot the score. North Carolina then responded
with Tagliaferri’s third counter with 5:13 remaining.

Duke will travel to Furman Tuesday evening before hosting Syracuse next Sunday, March 23 at 12:30 p.m. The game will be televised by ESPNU.
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Quote:
 
NCCU student plans lawsuit over odd arrest that kept him jailed for 24 days
By Jonathan M. Alexander
jalexander@newsobserver.comMarch 15, 2014 Updated 11 minutes ago



“Point blank period, I was guilty before I was even innocent,” he added. “You can’t get me to say anything I did was wrong. I did nothing.”

--------------

The police say they, too, did nothing wrong.

-------

Officers were investigating a murder and home invasion, Police Chief Jose Lopez said.

“(Investigators) got a description of one of the suspects from the victim as far as what he looked like and what he was wearing,” Lopez said.

“It was a specific description,” Marsh added. The description was a man with dreads and black shorts with a stripe down the middle.

[What description did they have in the lax case?]


The victim said he saw the suspect in the crowd and pointed to Little, who matched the description. He was wearing black shorts with a stripe down the middle and also wearing flip flops, which Lopez said was not typical dress.

Lopez said Little declined to speak to officers and requested a lawyer, and they arrested him based on probable cause.

---------------------


Friends describe Little as someone they look up to – a responsible college kid.

[And the lax players?]



“If I got locked up for something I didn’t do and I know I didn’t do it, I’d be pissed off too,” Marsh said.

[See above.]


“We don’t work to put the wrong person in jail,” he added. “We work very diligently to make sure the right people are properly identified, properly arrested and properly adjudicated. But we’re all human beings. Mistakes do happen.”

[And in the lax case?]




After his release, he had trouble getting a job – he applied to Lowe’s and Home Depot and could get only a seasonal position at UPS – because the charge is still on his record. He has returned to school, but adjusting has been tough. Classmates asked him what happened.

Little said he still suffers from that time he spent in jail.

“It’s taken so much out of me,” Little said. “I had my plan set out of what I wanted to be, and now I’ve lost a lot of ambition and confidence. I can never Google my name without my mugshot popping up.”

[And the lax players?]

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Quasimodo
Mar 16 2014, 08:00 AM
Quote:
 
NCCU student plans lawsuit over odd arrest that kept him jailed for 24 days
By Jonathan M. Alexander
jalexander@newsobserver.comMarch 15, 2014 Updated 11 minutes ago



“Point blank period, I was guilty before I was even innocent,” he added. “You can’t get me to say anything I did was wrong. I did nothing.”

--------------

The police say they, too, did nothing wrong.

-------

Officers were investigating a murder and home invasion, Police Chief Jose Lopez said.

“(Investigators) got a description of one of the suspects from the victim as far as what he looked like and what he was wearing,” Lopez said.

“It was a specific description,” Marsh added. The description was a man with dreads and black shorts with a stripe down the middle.

[What description did they have in the lax case?]


The victim said he saw the suspect in the crowd and pointed to Little, who matched the description. He was wearing black shorts with a stripe down the middle and also wearing flip flops, which Lopez said was not typical dress.

Lopez said Little declined to speak to officers and requested a lawyer, and they arrested him based on probable cause.

---------------------


Friends describe Little as someone they look up to – a responsible college kid.

[And the lax players?]



“If I got locked up for something I didn’t do and I know I didn’t do it, I’d be pissed off too,” Marsh said.

[See above.]


“We don’t work to put the wrong person in jail,” he added. “We work very diligently to make sure the right people are properly identified, properly arrested and properly adjudicated. But we’re all human beings. Mistakes do happen.”

[And in the lax case?]




After his release, he had trouble getting a job – he applied to Lowe’s and Home Depot and could get only a seasonal position at UPS – because the charge is still on his record. He has returned to school, but adjusting has been tough. Classmates asked him what happened.

Little said he still suffers from that time he spent in jail.

“It’s taken so much out of me,” Little said. “I had my plan set out of what I wanted to be, and now I’ve lost a lot of ambition and confidence. I can never Google my name without my mugshot popping up.”

[And the lax players?]

Why is the word "diligent" used by people who constantly screw up? I deal with the Federal bureaucracy every day. The biggest slackers are always working "diligently."
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http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/03/15/4769033/did-medical-examiners-office-withhold.html#.UyYl9M46ud-

Did medical examiner’s office withhold murder evidence?
By Gavin Off
Published in: Local News

Timeline of events

May 8, 2011: Terrell Boykin, 19, and Rodriguez Harris, 23, were shot and killed in a Fayetteville-area mobile home park.

May 10: Dr. Clay Nichols, a state pathologist, performed an autopsy on Boykin. Afterward, morgue manager Kevin Gerity reported finding a bullet lying next to Nichols’ cutting board. Gerity gave the bullet to Nichols. But Nichols did not turn the bullet over to detectives.

July 28: Gerity spoke with N.C. Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Deborah Radisch, according to an email. He told Radisch he believed the Boykin autopsy report was inaccurate and that evidence was mishandled.

Aug. 17: The medical examiner’s office closed Boykin’s case. The autopsy report said, “No bullet is recovered.”

Sept. 9: Gerity reiterated his concerns in a letter to Radisch and Dr. Lou Turner, a top official with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

October, 2013: A tipster reportedly told the SBI that evidence had been mishandled. During the investigation, Nichols gave the bullet to SBI investigators.

Nov. 5: Nichols lost his job as the state's Deputy Chief Medical Examiner.

Nov. 15: Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall said the SBI investigation did not prove a crime occurred.

December: Gerity retired.

Today: The murders of Boykin and Harris remain unsolved.

Source: N.C. medical examiner data, emails and autopsy reports


Sunshine Week

This is Sunshine Week, when advocates of open government celebrate the value of freedom-of-information laws. Watch for more coverage this week. This story relied on an Observer request for emails made four months ago. Only after the Observer threatened legal action in late February did the state release the public documents.


Notes from the medical examiner

In his 2011 autopsy report, Dr. Clay Nichols, a former state pathologist, notes the existence of a bullet fragment in the head of Terrell Boykin. Handwritten notes refer to exit and entrance wounds as well as the word “abrasion.”


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A dispute in the state medical examiner’s office over a bullet fragment could lie at the heart of an unsolved murder.

For more than two years, the bullet remained tucked away in a desk at the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, while detectives near Fayetteville searched fruitlessly to find who killed 19-year-old Terrell Boykin.

Like any mystery, this one raises many questions, but the most important is this: Why didn’t officials, including N.C. Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Deborah Radisch, tell detectives about possible evidence in a double homicide?

It was only after a tipster notified the State Bureau of Investigation late last year that the bullet finally reached detectives. They are trying to match it to guns or shell casings in hopes of closing the Cumberland County sheriff’s only unsolved double-murder.

After the SBI probe, a prosecutor ruled that no one in the medical examiner’s office committed a crime involving possible evidence. But the pathologist who performed Boykin’s autopsy and the technician who said he discovered the bullet – and prodded his bosses for months to investigate it – no longer work there .

To unravel the story behind what happened, the Observer requested emails about the case four months ago. The state, which first argued they were confidential personnel records, provided them on March 3.

The office’s turmoil over the bullet follows other concerns, including heavy autopsy caseloads and a 40-day wait for the completion of blood tests after two people died last year in a Boone hotel. The tests revealed carbon monoxide poisoning, but the information was not made public until after an 11-year-old boy died in the same room.

A misplaced bullet?

Boykin and his childhood friend, Rodriguez Harris, 23, were shot and killed around 4 a.m. May 8, 2011, during a gun battle at a mobile home park near Fayetteville. Detectives questioned several people but made no arrests. They appealed to the public for help.

Two days after the shooting, Dr. Clay Nichols, 59, performed Boykin’s autopsy in the state lab in Chapel Hill. The medical examiner’s main office has since moved to Raleigh.

Nichols, who joined the department that year, was one of the state’s busiest pathologists. In 2012, he conducted more than 400 autopsies – 60 percent more than the nationally recommended standard.

According to his autopsy report, a bullet entered the left side of Boykin’s skull. Nichols described the wound as “perforating,” meaning the bullet or part of it passed through Boykin’s head.

“No bullet is recovered,” wrote Nichols on Boykin’s report.

But technician Kevin Gerity, who cleaned the morgue after the autopsy, later wrote that he found a bullet lying near Nichols’ cutting board. He said the bullet “appeared to be the same piece of metal” visible in an X-ray taken of Boykin’s head.

Gerity, a 21-year veteran of the office, said he put the bullet in a plastic evidence bag and gave it to Nichols.

He later complained to Radisch that the autopsy report was wrong. Four months after the autopsy, Gerity felt strong enough to put his concerns in writing.

Gerity, 57, declined to be interviewed. His account of events is outlined in the September 2011 letter to Radisch and Dr. Lou Turner, the state’s deputy chief of epidemiology.

Gerity said he believed a mistake was made – and nothing was done to correct it.

“I feel our office has an obligation to be as thorough as possible in performing autopsies, as well as being as accurate as possible in the reports we release,” Gerity wrote. “Releasing a report that we know is inaccurate, not only puts me in a precarious position personally, but also puts this entire office in jeopardy.”

In an interview last week, Nichols defended his handling of the bullet fragment. He said Gerity broke the chain of custody by collecting the evidence himself. Nichols said he couldn’t be certain the fragment came from Boykin’s body.

Gerity should have called him into the autopsy room to gather the bullet, said Nichols, acknowledging that the medical examiner’s office did not have written protocols for such situations.

“A fragment was delivered. Not labeled, not sealed, not identified. It was done without my supervision,” Nichols said. “I can’t turn over evidence that I can’t attest came from that person.”

The discovery of the bullet came on a slow day for the medical examiner’s main office. Boykin’s body was one of two autopsied at the state lab that day, data show. The second involved the natural death of a 54-year-old woman.

SBI tipster

It’s unclear what – if anything – Radisch did to address Gerity’s concerns in 2011.

The same day she received his letter, she emailed Nichols: “So, he’s been waiting for you to do something, and is armed with the attached (letter) … So, I will need to speak with you and learn what happened.”

Nichols, the state’s deputy chief medical examiner at the time, said he never saw Gerity’s letter and did not recall meeting with Radisch about the case.

If the chief medical examiner doesn’t discuss such a case with a pathologist, “that’s a problem,” said Dr. Gregory Hess, chief medical examiner in Pima County, Ariz.

Two years passed before a tipster told the SBI that evidence in the case was mishandled. Nichols gave the bullet to state investigators and it was finally turned over to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

Lt. Bobby Reyes said he was surprised to receive the evidence so late. He said law enforcement experts have since compared the bullet fragment to ones from other cases in an attempt to catch Boykin’s killer.

Reyes declined to say whether any evidence matched the bullet, though he said the murder case remains open.

Said Billy West, Cumberland County’s district attorney: “My concern was that if there was any evidence that could shed light on this unsolved case, that we have it. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t get it from the beginning.”

Pathologist’s departure

Nichols, who earned more than $192,000 annually, lost his job in November during the SBI investigation. Gerity retired a month later.

State officials will not say why either left, contending the reasons for their departures don’t fall under North Carolina open records laws.

A state spokesman said Gerity’s letter “reveals only one side of this situation.”

“As a result of the DHHS personnel investigation in this matter, appropriate personnel action was taken and protocols within the Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) have been strengthened and are being incorporated into new written policies and procedures,” said Kevin Howell, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services.

In a recent interview, Radisch said the office is understaffed but state pathologists are not overworked “to the point of making serious errors.” She declined to answer specific questions about the bullet fragment, including whether she investigated Gerity’s complaints in 2011 and why no one alerted detectives.

Radisch, who earns $217,000 annually, joined the medical examiner’s office in the 1980s and had been chief for a year when the controversy emerged.

Nichols is now a contract pathologist for East Carolina University, where the medical examiner’s office sends some of its cases to be autopsied.

Nichols said he’s not certain why he was forced out. His last job evaluation was excellent, he said. But he suggested the Boykin case may have played a role.

“You can’t ignore the timeline,” Nichols said.

Jim Woodall, the Orange County district attorney who reviewed the SBI’s findings late last year, said no one at the medical examiner’s office altered, destroyed or stole evidence connected to Boykin’s case. Such actions could be considered crimes.

But Woodall said the case raised questions about how the medical examiner’s office documented evidence, adding that it was incumbent on DHHS to review the process.

Wrong to ‘sit on evidence’?

Two pathologists interviewed by the Observer said they would have turned the bullet fragment over to authorities if they thought there was any potential it could be used as evidence in a criminal case.

“To sit on evidence seems wrong if you think it is from this body,” said Dr. Victor Weedn, a forensic pathologist and professor at George Washington University.

Dr. Greg Davis, professor of pathology at the University of Kentucky, said: “If it were my case, I would have photographed (the bullet), thanked the technician and called the detective and said, ‘This may or may not be of value, but you probably should come get it.’ ”

If there were questions about where the bullet came from, DNA testing might have helped answer them, said Gregory D. Lee, a California criminal justice consultant and retired supervisory special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

As a detective, Lee said, “It would irritate me to no end” to receive a bullet after such a long delay. “You just pissed away two and a half years.”

Reporters Ames Alexander and Elizabeth Leland contributed.
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MikeKell
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“What happened to Mr. Little was part of the judicial system, that he elected to invoke his rights and never asserted his innocence to us,” Lopez said. “And (he) never gave us information that through investigation would have cleared him that night. We have to go with the system that exists, and that system resulted in him being in jail for 24 days.”

this is chilling. If you do not waive your rights, we will simply lock you up for 24 days!!!
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MikeKell
Mar 16 2014, 09:02 PM
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“What happened to Mr. Little was part of the judicial system, that he elected to invoke his rights and never asserted his innocence to us,” Lopez said. “And (he) never gave us information that through investigation would have cleared him that night. We have to go with the system that exists, and that system resulted in him being in jail for 24 days.”

this is chilling. If you do not waive your rights, we will simply lock you up for 24 days!!!
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I don't think that's how it's supposed to work.


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