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Erick Daniels case
Topic Started: Sep 19 2008, 08:05 AM (4,573 Views)
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They better take a look at the Peterson case again..What color was that OWL?.....
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Michael
Sep 23 2008, 10:55 AM
They better take a look at the Peterson case again..What color was that OWL?.....
Didn't Freida Black prosecute Peterson? The same one who Framed Erick Daniels?
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http://blogs.newsobserver.com/editor/the-daniels-case-four-years-later

The Daniels case four years later
Submitted by danbarkin on 09/23/2008 - 07:33
Tags: The Editors' Blog

When Erick Daniels was set free by Judge Orlando Hudson Friday, I thought about the phone call I got one Sunday morning nearly four years ago. Linda Williams, one of my fellow senior editors, was calling from out of town.

I was at home in Clayton reading the Sunday papers and looking forward to an uneventful day of watching football and raking leaves.


Linda had just gotten word that one of our reporters, Demorris Lee, had been arrested and could I see about getting him out of the Wake lockup. Arrested? For what? Demorris was one of the most solid citizens in the newsroom.

Here was what landed Demorris in the back of a police cruiser. He had been working on the Erick Daniels story, trying to determine whether the Durham teenager had been wrongly convicted of being one of the bandits who entered the home of Ruth A. Brown and robbed her at gunpoint.

Brown, a property room technician with the Durham Police Department, identified the 14-year-old Daniels as one of the perps in a 2001 trial, and he was sent away for 10 years. There were lots of questions about the case - Daniels claimed he was innocent -- and Lee began writing about it in 2001. There were things that didn't add up.

In the course of his reporting, he placed several calls to Brown to talk to her about the case, leaving messages on her answering machine. That's part of the reporting process, getting all sides of a story.

In response, Brown went to a Durham magistrate and filed a harrassment complaint against Lee. The magistrate, amazingly enough, signed an arrest warrant. And, presto, Demorris was busted.

So that Sunday morning, after I got off the phone with Linda, I called the executive editor, at the time Melanie Sill, and we both converged on downtown Raleigh to see what we could do about springing Demorris. Fortunately, by the time we got there, he had been released without bail on a promise to appear for a court hearing in Durham.

Of course, by Sunday afternoon, it was clear that this case against Demorris was going exactly nowhere. One of reporters, who was writing a story on the arrest, called Judge Hudson for comment, since he's the one who appointed the magistrate who thought putting Demorris in the slammer was a good idea. Judge Hudson allowed that in his experience, Demorris was an excellent reporter.

The prosecutor, Jim Hardin at the time, got the charge tossed out, and Hudson put the word out to the magistrates that in the future, if someone wanted to put a reporter behind bars for doing things in the normal course of his or her job, like calling someone for a comment, could they please, please check with a supervisor first.

Demorris, incidentally, is a reporter now at the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.
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Quasimodo

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When Erick Daniels was set free by Judge Orlando Hudson Friday, I thought about the phone call I got one Sunday morning nearly four years ago. Linda Williams, one of my fellow senior editors, was calling from out of town


Funny then that the N&O was so trusting of the judges and the DA when the lax case started.

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Of course, by Sunday afternoon, it was clear that this case against Demorris was going exactly nowhere.


And it was clear by April 10, 2006, that the lax case shouldn't have been going anywhere.

Demorris Lee certainly knows Durham :

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

Victim unlikely to testify in rape case
The News & Observer - January 29, 2002
Author: Demorris Lee, Staff Writer

DURHAM -- Assistant District Attorney Tracey Cline told a Durham Superior Court judge on Monday that she plans to proceed with a rape charge against a man despite the victim's inability to testify.

Leon B. Brown ,
25, of 2710 Davie Drive faces charges of first-degree rape, first-degree burglary, assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injuries, and kidnapping in connection with a March 2001 attack on a woman.

(snip)

Cline said she believes she has enough evidence to gain convictions on all the charges.

The victim was in court Monday, with a court domestic violence counselor at her side. She was trembling.

[I think we could have expected something like this from Crystal. ]

(snip)

Brown 's attorney, Doug Simons, asked Stephens to allow him to mention the fact that a second defendant in the case, James D. Williams, received immunity for pointing out his client.

"All the charges against him were dismissed, and he was allowed to plead down the drug charges," Simons said.

Williams initially was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to sell and deliver, possession of crack cocaine, possession of drug paraphernalia and failure to appear in court for a previous marijuana charge.

He pleaded guilty to possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor, Simons said.

Cline said Williams told Brown to rob the woman, not to rape her. She said Williams did give the state information that led to Brown 's arrest.

[Not believed by the jury...But this suggests IMHO how easily a case can be manufactured against a totally innocent party, whose DNA was not found on the rape victim, while the DNA of someone else was.

If this travesty of a case had been investigated thoroughly, the lacrosse case fraud could never have been perpetrated so easily.

But the N&O, which had a reporter involved in covering the Leon Brown case, should have known better than to take the statements of a Durham DA at face value.

IMHO, they will willful abettors of the fraud.]

"He was only promised that he will not be prosecuted as it relates to this case," Cline said.

(snip)
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http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A265448

POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 24, 2008:

Finally free

Wrongly convicted of robbery, Erick Daniels served seven years before he was exonerated

By Mosi Secret

Last Friday afternoon, Erick Daniels walked out of the Durham County Jail into the sunshine, threw up his arms and screamed, "I'm free."

At 22, Daniels went home for the first time since eighth grade.

About four hours earlier, Durham Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson had declared Daniels innocent, wrongly convicted of robbing a police department employee, for which he had been sentenced to 10 to 14 years in prison. In his ruling, Hudson admonished local police and prosecutors for their shoddy investigative work, which, along with other botched cases, has tarnished the reputation of the Durham justice system.



Click for larger image • Daniels with his lawyer
Photo by Derek Anderson
After seven years and several unsuccessful appeals, Daniels did not expect to go free that day. Hudson had granted Daniels, who was in the Warren County Correctional Institute, a hearing to determine whether he should have a new jury trial. Dismissing the charges was an option, albeit an unlikely one.

But armed with a new strategy, Daniels' attorney, Carlos Mahoney, spent nearly two days dismantling the shaky evidence presented at the original trial. He unveiled new evidence that showed Daniels was innocent, and further demonstrated that Daniels' original attorney, Robert Harris, had not represented him effectively. A 2007 investigation by the Indy, "Stolen youth," supported Daniels' claims of innocence, revealed flaws in the original trial and uncovered new evidence in the case.

Daniels had so much faith in Mahoney that he rejected a last-ditch plea agreement offered by Durham County Prosecutor Mitch Garrell that would have freed him. Under the terms, Daniels would have denied his involvement in the crime but acknowledged the existence of incriminating evidence, in exchange for time served. However, Daniels would have forever been branded a felon.

"I didn't do it," Daniels said later in an interview. "Worst-case scenario, I serve three more years. I knew I could do three more years. I said, 'Let's see if I can make it to trial.'"

In the end, there was no trial. Hudson was convinced that Daniels should be exonerated.

"I would order a new trial if I were satisfied that this defendant committed this crime and the state could prove it," Hudson told the court. "I have no confidence the defendant committed these charges."



Click for larger image • Denise Spivey holds onto her sister, Karen Daniel, during the judge's ruling.
Photo by Derek Anderson
When Daniels entered the courtroom Thursday morning, his wrists and ankles shackled, it was the first time he had been in the Durham County Courthouse since his conviction in 2001. At the original trial, Freda Black, then an assistant district attorney, built her case on the testimony of the victim, Ruth Brown. Brown, a police department employee, had picked Daniels' face from among 105 photos in a junior high yearbook based on, she said, the shape of his eyebrows.

Brown testified that Daniels was one of two masked gunmen who walked into her home and stole a purse containing thousands of dollars in cash. However, there was no physical evidence. At the time of his conviction, Daniels tried to escape after the guilty verdict was announced, and screamed "Mommy" as deputies escorted him away.

Seven years later, Daniels, with a close-cropped beard and mustache, is no longer a boy. And Mahoney was nothing like his original lawyer at trial. In a carefully worded opening statement, Mahoney asked Hudson to grant Daniels a new trial, not dismiss the charges, because that's what he thought the evidence would support. But there were surprises in the testimony that followed.

Mahoney thought his strongest argument was that Harris provided ineffective counsel to Daniels at the original trial. Almost everything Harris had done was on the record, in the trial transcript and in appeals documents, so Mahoney directed the court to Harris' numerous legal errors.



Click for larger image • Daniel's former defense attorney, Robert Harris, testifies that his representation of Daniels was flawed.
Photo by Derek Anderson
For example, Harris had allowed Daniels' juvenile record—a marijuana possession conviction—into evidence, which is not allowed.

"You're aware that juvenile adjudications are not admissible under the laws of evidence?" Mahoney asked Harris, who was on the stand.

"Yes."

"Did you object?" Mahoney asked.

"No."

That was only the beginning. For more than an hour, grilled by Mahoney, Harris testified that his representation of Daniels was flawed. Combined, the errors painted a false picture of Daniels as a violent delinquent capable of anything.

But the bombshell landed when Mahoney sought to prove the second claim of his appeal: There was new evidence proving Daniels' innocence.

Harris had represented another man, Samuel Strong, who, shortly after Daniels was convicted, confessed to Harris that he'd robbed Brown. But Harris never confirmed Strong's confession, citing attorney-client privilege. The allegation had never been entered into evidence.

Shortly before last week's hearing, Harris and his attorney, Ralph Frasier, filed a last-minute motion to quash Harris' subpoena, citing attorney-client privilege, a legal move that, if successful, would have released Harris from his obligation to testify about Strong's confession. Hudson overruled the motion.



Click for larger image • Embrace in the Courtroom
Photo by Derek Anderson
"Attorney-client privilege is sacred—there is no question about that," Hudson said later. "The bottom line is the interest of justice. I felt like he had information that was pertinent to whether Mr. Daniels was going to finish his sentence."

Mahoney asked Harris under oath if he had received information that could exonerate Daniels. Hudson ordered Harris to answer.

"Yes," Harris said. "I encouraged the source of that information to come forward. I encouraged him to get an attorney. The information I had was that Sam Strong committed this robbery and Freda Black knew about it."

Mahoney addressed the circumstantial evidence linking Strong to the robbery. Strong was best friends with Daniels' codefendant, Khalid Abdallah. Strong and Abdallah had committed a string of armed robberies together.

Mahoney also introduced a document showing that Strong is 5-feet-4-inches tall, has light skin and wore his hair in cornrow braids. At 145 pounds, he had a slight build. That fits Brown's description of the first gunman to enter her home—the gunman she swore was Daniels.

Moreover, Brown testified at trial that the first gunman attacked her with a silver .22 revolver. Mahoney introduced evidence that Strong was later arrested with a silver revolver in his possession. Strong is in federal prison on bank robbery charges.

Black took the stand and testified that she knew about Strong's involvement in the crime, which Hudson would rule was tantamount to withholding exculpatory evidence—the third claim in Mahoney's appeal.

"Some time after his conviction, somebody came to me and said there's somebody that was in federal prison that confessed to robbing Ruth," she said. Yet, she tried to justify her withholding of the evidence. "I wasn't given a name. If you show me a notarized affidavit, I will look into getting the case reopened. I didn't consider it evidence because I never saw it in writing."

Garrell attempted to minimize the weight of the new evidence about Strong, arguing that it had not been considered by a jury. He also tried to poke holes in Mahoney's arguments about ineffective counsel. "Attorneys are not required to make all decisions right," Garrell said. "They are required to meet the standard of effective assistance of counsel"—a standard, he argued, that Harris had met despite the legal missteps.

[image-7]Garrell also asked Black if anything happened at trial that led her to believe Harris' representation fell outside a broad definition of effective assistance.

"I thought he did a very good job," she replied.

Garrell asked Hudson to only consider one of Mahoney's claims—that Harris provided ineffective assistance.

Instead, Hudson strongly rebuked Durham police and prosecutors. "People are starting to question in Durham the degree to which the prosecutor's office and the police department are tracking down cases where there are leads for other people in the crime. That's a serious problem when the court has to deal with it. If you don't turn over these leads and find out what's under them, sometimes they lead to the wrong people. I don't want that to be a problem in the Durham Police Department or in the prosecutor's office."

With those words, people in the courtroom began to cry, as they sensed where Hudson was going.

Garrell argued that the new evidence about Strong should be presented in front of a jury and subject to cross-examination, but Hudson broke in again.

"That newly discovered evidence is really supplemental evidence that shows Daniels did not commit this crime and someone else did. Erick Daniels did not look anything like the person Ruth Brown describes. Sam Strong did. The description fits perfectly."

The sobs grew louder. Daniels buried his head in his arms, as if he could not bear to watch.

"Unfortunately for the state," Hudson continued, "Ms. Black had nothing in this case except for the identification based on a sixth-grade yearbook. My finding is going to be that Mr. Mahoney has proven his case. He prevails on every single ground."

Hudson ordered Daniels' release. People in the courtroom erupted, shouting. Still shackled, Daniels leaned over the railing and hugged his family.

After the trial, Garrell relayed the news of Hudson's judgment to Brown, who did not attend the second day of the proceedings. "She was not pleased with this, but whether pleased right now or not, at least there would be no continuing controversy," Garrell said later.



Click for larger image • Erick Daniels and his sister, Erika, embrace as he leaves the Durham County Jail a free man.
Photo by Derek Anderson
Brown had agreed to the plea agreement. "The plea was something I had thought about as I reviewed the materials," Garrell said. "The recognition on my part and the district attorney's office was that it was not a trial that did not have problems. I wouldn't offer it if I didn't think it was the right result. Given what's happened, it's clear he made the right decision."

Former prosecutor Black stood by her conviction. "Twelve people found him guilty," she said. "I don't like questioning the jury's verdict. But I don't think I'm in a position to question Hudson's decision."

For now, Daniels' legal battles are over. "At this point it's premature to talk about continuing legal actions," Mahoney said about the possibility of pursuing compensation for Daniels' wrongful conviction. "The most important thing is for Erick to get adjusted to his new life and get back in touch with his family."

It took the Department of Correction and the county jail several hours to process Daniels' release. He left the jail defiantly, pushing past television cameras and reporters, holding his jacket over his face until he climbed into his sister's car. He went home to a dinner of grilled chicken with brown rice and salad. After a couple of restless nights, he woke up Monday morning feeling refreshed. "It's not a dream," he said. "I'm really free. I'm really home."
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Instead, Hudson strongly rebuked Durham police and prosecutors. "People are starting to question in Durham the degree to which the prosecutor's office and the police department are tracking down cases where there are leads for other people in the crime. That's a serious problem when the court has to deal with it. If you don't turn over these leads and find out what's under them, sometimes they lead to the wrong people. I don't want that to be a problem in the Durham Police Department or in the prosecutor's office."
:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
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"Yes," Harris said. "I encouraged the source of that information to come forward. I encouraged him to get an attorney. The information I had was that Sam Strong committed this robbery and Freda Black knew about it."

Hello? Hello? You mean, Freda Black is just a female Nifong? Say it ain't so!!
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Sep 24 2008, 05:53 PM
Instead, Hudson strongly rebuked Durham police and prosecutors. "People are starting to question in Durham the degree to which the prosecutor's office and the police department are tracking down cases where there are leads for other people in the crime. That's a serious problem when the court has to deal with it. If you don't turn over these leads and find out what's under them, sometimes they lead to the wrong people. I don't want that to be a problem in the Durham Police Department or in the prosecutor's office."
:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
perhaps he meant to say

"I do not want this to coninue to be a problem. Many people correctly continue to question Durham's ability to track down cases where there are other leads. I'm in enough trouble already."
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sdsgo

Eighteen months ago, Judge Orlando Hudson would never have said,

"People are starting to question in Durham the degree to which the prosecutor's office and the police department are tracking down cases where there are leads for other people in the crime. That's a serious problem when the court has to deal with it. If you don't turn over these leads and find out what's under them, sometimes they lead to the wrong people. I don't want that to be a problem in the Durham Police Department or in the prosecutor's office."

Fortunately, one courageous Durham citizen forced the judge to address the problem of prosecutorial misconduct head on. For months, the judge failed to act in the face of overwhelming evidence, but with the help of a Buncombe lawyer, she forced him to rule in open court. Though Orlando judiciously sidestepped the basic issue, the resulting public outcry eventually led the judge to see the light.

But that’s just my own opinion.
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http://www.newsobserver.com/134/story/1231473.html


Published: Sep 25, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Sep 25, 2008 04:53 AM
A time for our anger
Barry Saunders, Staff Writer Comment on this story
Seven years of reflecting apparently allows you to see yourself for just what you are.

It did in Erick Daniels' case. He said he spent seven years -- a third of his life -- reading, sleeping and reflecting while incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit.

"I feel like I'm a decent person," he told me while seated in the den of his grandmother's home in Durham. "As far as my character, I'm not outstanding. I could be better, but I'm not no robber or burglar."

Yet, he was convicted of being both when he was 14 and tried as an adult. He was freed last week after Judge Orlando Hudson threw the case out.

Daniels said that while in prison, he read about the Duke lacrosse case, in which prosecutorial and police misconduct -- including a flawed, unfair photo lineup like the one that got him sent away -- resulted in three innocent men being charged with rape.

Daniels unflinchingly admits that during the first 14 years of his life "I wasn't no angel."

"Smoking reefer, ducking school," he said, were his main pre-prison offenses, "but I've learned that education is important. I got a GED" while locked up.

What about the next seven years?, I asked.

"I want to be established financially and mentally, family-based. I want to be correct," he said. "I don't want to wake up worried about somebody putting handcuffs on me."

He acknowledged, though, that that is precisely what some people expect will happen. "I see it from people I know. It's a vibe I get. ... That's just the way it is. I ain't trippin' over it, though.

"It's understandable that somebody'd think I'd go back. There's that shadow of doubt" among some people, he said, that he might not be the innocent victim the judge ruled he is.

Daniels went into prison as a thin, 5-foot-4 little boy who screamed "Mommy" when the judge announced his sentence.

He filled out a bit and grew 2 inches while locked up. He speaks with a surprising acceptance -- if not for prison, then for what it represented. "It's been a journey. There wasn't a 'good' day, but some were better than others. I feel every bit of every one of them, but at the end of the day, I love the fact that I came through it."

That he had to come through it at all, that he did seven years on flimsy or nonexistent evidence, isn't necessarily a sign that the cops or the prosecutor had it in for him.

It's worse than that: It's a sign that Erick Daniels barely registered enough for them to do their jobs properly.

Robert Harris, Daniels' attorney, acknowledged -- to his credit, if he deserves any credit -- that his defense of Daniels was lacking. He said he told prosecutor Freda Black that he knew who the real robber was and that the robber was going to 'fess up.

Black, from the stand in court last week and in a telephone interview Wednesday, admitted that she did not pursue the case. "Some time after the trial, the attorney for Mr. Daniels came to me and said a man in federal prison was going to confess to the crime. ... I told him to show me an affidavit or a notarized confession and I'd be glad to go to the DA to reopen the case.

"I never heard from him again. ... I later heard that the man refused to sign because he said he was not in fact the person who committed the crime," she said.

Daniels, like most of the cats I've talked to who did stretches for crimes they didn't commit, was free of anger.

We shouldn't be.

barry.saunders@newsobserver.com or (919) 836-2811
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sdsgo
Sep 24 2008, 07:53 PM
Eighteen months ago, Judge Orlando Hudson would never have said,

"People are starting to question in Durham the degree to which the prosecutor's office and the police department are tracking down cases where there are leads for other people in the crime. That's a serious problem when the court has to deal with it. If you don't turn over these leads and find out what's under them, sometimes they lead to the wrong people. I don't want that to be a problem in the Durham Police Department or in the prosecutor's office."

Fortunately, one courageous Durham citizen forced the judge to address the problem of prosecutorial misconduct head on. For months, the judge failed to act in the face of overwhelming evidence, but with the help of a Buncombe lawyer, she forced him to rule in open court. Though Orlando judiciously sidestepped the basic issue, the resulting public outcry eventually led the judge to see the light.

But that’s just my own opinion.
Beth & Betty! :hd: :hd:

Two members of LieStoppers who decided something had to be done and did it. I can't praise them enough!

If only Durham & Duke had listened.
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http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/letters/story/1234070.html


Published: Sep 27, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Sep 27, 2008 01:40 AM
A failed system
Comment on this story
The N&O deserves our thanks for publicizing the injustice our system has rendered to Erick Daniels (news story, Sept. 20). He was convicted at age 14 of a strong-armed robbery based strictly on eyewitness testimony of the victim (a police employee who was robbed of over $6,000 in cash). This proves our justice system can "convict a ham sandwich."

The United States is one of the few countries in the world that try juveniles as adults. We have over 2,000 in jail for life for crimes committed as juveniles. The rest of the world has 12. (Check the PBS Web site for this story). How can a jury convict based on eyewitness testimony alone? Standards should be higher than that.

Our judicial system has failed: Too few prosecutors, too few courtrooms, too little money spent on defense lawyers, probation and preventative and rehab methods. Yet the public is willing to throw big money at the problem elsewhere. For example, we'll spend $250,000 to imprison for 10 years an alcoholic who passes less than $10,000 in checks. Californians spend more on prisons than on higher education. Conservatives fully support that kind of tax and spend. I don't.

Larry Bumgardner

Durham
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http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editorials/story/1234078.html


Published: Sep 27, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Sep 27, 2008 01:40 AM
Free to go
Wrongful convictions are a blight on North Carolina's courts, even if there's rejoicing when an innocent man is freed
Comment on this story
So was that a triumph of justice in a Durham courtroom the other day? Perhaps so -- but a triumph that occurred only because for seven long years prior to Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson's bombshell ruling, justice was dragged through the mud.

Erick Daniels in 2001 had been sent to prison -- adult prison! -- at age 15, convicted of a home invasion armed robbery. And as far as the Durham district attorney's office was concerned, that was the end of it. Even when Daniels' attorney went to prosecutors with a report that another man had confessed to the crimes, nothing happened.

Finally, however, another attorney, Carlos Mahoney, persuaded Hudson to hear Daniels' request for a new trial. What resulted was both exhilarating and shocking -- exhilarating because Daniels' conviction was thrown out on the spot, and shocking because of the judge's withering criticism of the travesty that had put the youth in prison.

Identification procedures had been shaky. There had been no physical evidence tying Daniels to the crime, no testimony to corroborate the charges. The defendant's trial attorney later acknowledged that he had done an inferior job.

Perhaps most troubling was prosecutors' failure to follow through when told that someone else -- a federal prison inmate who matched the victim's description of the suspect -- had confessed. The impression left by such lack of initiative is that for some authorities in Durham, once a conviction is obtained, there's no further obligation to make sure justice is done.

Hudson framed that concern: "People are starting to question, in Durham, the degree to which the prosecutor's office and the police department are tracking down cases when there are leads that other people have committed the crime." Unfortunately, the judge wasn't referring only to Daniels' case. Just recently, when armed robbery charges were dismissed against a man who had waited five years for trial, the Court of Appeals noted strong evidence of another man's guilt.

There have been too many instances in recent years, by no means only in Durham, of North Carolina courts rendering judgments that turn out to demonstrably flawed. People have been sent to prison for crimes they didn't commit, and even have been placed at risk of execution.

Causes range from court systems struggling with a lack of resources to prosecutors who are too focused on the courtroom contest at the expense of getting things right. But the effects, besides the cruel unfairness of wrongful conviction, are also to let the guilty go free and to shake public trust in the judicial system.

Hudson could have directed that Daniels be retried. But he concluded that the evidence was too weak to sustain the charges. When a judge decides that there's no reasonable chance a jury would convict someone who already has been in prison for seven years, the system has badly malfunctioned. Or, when the person is set free to try to pick up the pieces of his life, an appalling mistake has finally been corrected.
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http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1234210.html


Published: Sep 27, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Sep 27, 2008 01:41 AM
Only a fish fry can fix this fix
Barry Saunders, Staff Writer Comment on this story
Anybody got a secret, can't-resist recipe for hushpuppies? Catfish? Nanner puddin'?

Maybe I can get my first ex- to whip up a mess of her string bean casserole. When she left, I swear, that's the thing I missed most.

Laugh if you want, but the city of Durham and its residents could conceivably find ourselves resorting to an old church tradition -- selling chicken dinners or fish sandwiches -- to raise money if the tab for lawyers in the Duke lacrosse case keeps going up.

Many of us have probably attended churches where, in times of financial duress, the pastor turned to the kitchen for help.

Let he who has not heard "Sister Hattie, we need to patch up the roof. Can you fry us up a mess of your catfish?" cast the first hushpuppy.

If that old church tradition doesn't raise enough money to defend the city against the moneygrubbers, perhaps we can resort to an even older church tradition: praying.

It's unlikely that Mayor Bill Bell will come a'knocking on our doors asking us to contribute a favorite meal, but I'm dusting off my famous hoecake-with-cracklins recipe just in case the situation turns even more dire than it is now.

It could happen. We reported this week that the bills from lawyers representing the city in "the case that won't go away" had topped $1 million as of August.

Some of that money is supposed to be refunded -- about $239,000, we reported earlier -- but American International Group (AIG), the company that owns the insurer, is asking the government to bail it out of its own fiscal mess.

The amount for which the city is on the hook doesn't even include what the city may find itself spending if and when the other lacrosse players -- the 36 who suffered about as much injury as you or I but who are still scrambling to suckle from the city's teat -- seek to turn the city upside down like it's their personal piggy bank.

There are three other players, indicted but later declared innocent, seeking their day in court and in the city's pocket.

One hopes that their day in court ends quickly, with a kick in the pants and a substantial bill for wasting the court's time with such an obviously frivolous moneygrab.

Then there's the case of Erick Daniels, the 22-year-old Durham man who just skated after spending seven years in prison for a robbery and burglary he didn't commit. In his case, as in the lacrosse case, it appears that prosecutorial misconduct resulted in judicial miscarriages that could cost the city big bucks. Those big bucks, of course, come from us.

Daniels is certainly one who has a valid claim for recompense, but when I spoke with him Wednesday, shaking down the city was not something he was focused on.

"Whether I get money or not, I'm free," he said. "Life would be more comfortable with it, but I'm free."

The man deserves something from the city just for the manner he has handled himself after his nightmarish ordeal.

Come to think of it, most of the lacrosse players deserve something for the way they've handled themselves.
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Note how 1 ) the media is now willing to discuss the flawed judicial system of Durham (because there are so many cases they can't avoid them all); but

are generally unwilling to mention the 800 pound elephant in the room in connection with these (the lax case); and

2 ) Barry Saunders, AGAIN, is repeating (for those who didn't get it the first time) the mantra,
"the lax players didn't really suffer, and they're only greedy and in it for the money" :


Quote:
 
Published: Sep 27, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Sep 27, 2008 01:41 AM
Only a fish fry can fix this fix
Barry Saunders, Staff Writer

Laugh if you want, but the city of Durham and its residents could conceivably find ourselves resorting to an old church tradition -- selling chicken dinners or fish sandwiches -- to raise money if the tab for lawyers in the Duke lacrosse case keeps going up.

Quote:
 

If that old church tradition doesn't raise enough money to defend the city against the moneygrubbers, perhaps we can resort to an even older church tradition: praying.



Quote:
 
It could happen. We reported this week that the bills from lawyers representing the city in "the case that won't go away" had topped $1 million as of August.


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The amount for which the city is on the hook doesn't even include what the city may find itself spending if and when the other lacrosse players -- the 36 who suffered about as much injury as you or I but who are still scrambling to suckle from the city's teat -- seek to turn the city upside down like it's their personal piggy bank.


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There are three other players, indicted but later declared innocent, seeking their day in court and in the city's pocket.

One hopes that their day in court ends quickly, with a kick in the pants and a substantial bill for wasting the court's time with such an obviously frivolous moneygrab.

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The man [Erick Daniels] deserves something from the city just for the manner he has handled himself after his nightmarish ordeal.

Come to think of it, most of the lacrosse players deserve something for the way they've handled themselves.


Is this a hate-filled diatribe, or what?

Is this an attempt to rouse public ire at the plaintiffs again (the usual recourse of the scoundrels who run Durham)?

Is this the 'official' line the city defendants are going to take?

And note to Barry: as for resorting to prayer--yes, some others know about that, too. . .

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