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Thread: Henry Lee McCollum - North Carolina

  1. #11
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Judge dismisses Buie contempt case

    RED SPRINGS — A judge has ruled that the Red Springs Police Department will not be held in criminal contempt of court over accusations that it withheld evidence from a commission looking into the innocence of a man accused in a 1983 killing, town officials said.

    Town Attorney Neil Yarborough announced the court’s decision during Tuesday’s meeting of the Red Springs Board of Commissioners.

    Yarborough said Wayne County Superior Court Judge Arnold O. Jones issued the order earlier in the day.

    “I was pleased that he dismissed the matter,” Yarborough said. “It was what we were hoping for all along.”

    Jones, who heard a motion to dismiss the case on May 15, had already ruled that Chief Ronnie Patterson and Capt. Kevin Locklear will not face criminal charges.

    The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission had accused the Red Springs Police Department of withholding evidence sought as part of an investigation into Leon Brown, one of two men who had been convicted in the murder and rape 11-year-old Sabrina Buie. That investigation ultimately led to Brown and Henry McCollum’s freedom in September, when a judge overturned the convictions against them after new DNA evidence was presented.

    “RSPD’s failure to comply with the court orders impaired the commission’s ability to conduct a full and timely investigation. The commission relied upon the information provided by RSPD that RSPD did not have any files or evidence for the commission’s investigation,” the motion says.

    But town officials have insisted that the department did nothing wrong.

    “This is very, very positive,” Mayor John McNeill said. “Our attorney was shocked that all of this was even happening. After he took statements from our police officials, it was obvious that we did everything above and beyond.”

    According to court documents, Capt. Locklear said he first got a telephone message in July 2010 from Sharon Stellato, associate director of the commission, seeking information about the evidence, but was unable to talk with commission officials.

    Locklear has served as the evidence room custodian since April 2010. He was not on the police force when the evidence from the 1983 case was first stored at the department.

    According to an April 29 motion by the commission requesting the order to show cause, Stellato made several attempts to reach either Locklear or Patterson by telephone throughout July 2010. Stellato mailed to Patterson a proposed motion to order that evidence be produced, asking him to respond with any comments or objections by Sept. 13, 2010, according to court documents.

    In his sworn affidavit, Locklear said he received a court order in late August or early September of 2010.

    “During this period of time, I reviewed our evidence inventory filing system and did not see anything relating to Leon Brown, Henry McCollum, Sabrina Buie,” according to Locklear’s affidavit. “I also reviewed our police records and found no records relating to Leon Brown, Henry McCollum, Sabrina Buie.”

    According to the April 29 motion, Locklear on Nov. 11, 2010, notified Stellato that no files concerning the case were found at the Police Department.

    Locklear said he did not recall any other contacts with anyone regarding the matter until the late summer of 2014. He said Stellato at that time gave him more details about the background of the case and informed him that Van Parker with the SBI was involved.

    “Armed with this additional information, I then conducted an item by item search of our evidence room and after some time, I came across a box labeled Hold Authority Thomas Hicks Attorney General’s Office + Van Parker SBI 8-14-95,” Locklear said.

    According to the affidavit, Locklear examined the box and determined that it might contain evidence related to the case and immediately contacted Stellato. According to the motion filed by the commission, the box had a file taped to it reading “Henry Lee McCollum Death Row Appeal. Buie Murder Case.”

    “At no time did I willfully or intentionally disobey any order of the court,” Locklear said in his affidavit. “I do not know why my name is mentioned in the Show Cause Order against Red Springs Police Department.”

    http://www.stpaulsreview.com/news/lo...-contempt-case

  2. #12
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    McCrory pardons former death row inmates cleared in 1983 murder

    RALEIGH, N.C.
    — Gov. Pat McCrory on Thursday granted pardons to two former death row inmates who were cleared last fall in the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.

    Leon Brown and his half-brother, Henry McCollum, walked out of prison on Sept. 3, a day after a judge overturned their convictions because of new DNA evidence in the case.

    The men, who were two of North Carolina's longest-serving death row inmates, were found guilty in the death of Sabrina Buie, whose body was found in a soybean field in the Robeson County town of Red Springs. She was naked except for a bra that had been pushed up against her neck.

    McCrory said he talked personally with each brother as part of his review of their case. He declined to discuss details of the meetings, saying it was one aspect of the decision-making process that led to the pardons.

    "This has been a very comprehensive and thoughtful process during the past nine months," he said. "Based upon personal evidence that I have reviewed, I am granting pardons to Henry McCollum and Leon Brown. It is the right thing to do."

    Superior Court Judge Douglas Sasser overturned the convictions, saying the fact that another man's DNA was found on a cigarette butt left near Buie's body contradicted the case originally put forth by prosecutors.

    Defense attorneys argued that the case hinged on coerced confessions from two scared teenagers with low IQs. McCollum was 19 at the time of the murder, and Brown was 15.

    Both men were initially given death sentences, which were overturned. At a second trial in the 1990s, McCollum was again sent to death row, while Brown was convicted of rape and sentenced to life.

    Defense lawyers petitioned for their release after an analysis from the butt pointed to another man, Roscoe Artis, who is in prison for a similar rape and murder of an 18-year-old woman that happened less than a month after Buie's death. The prosecutor acknowledged strong evidence of the brothers' innocence, and the judge released them.

    "It is difficult for anyone to know for certain what happened the night of Sabrine Buie's murder," McCrory said, extending his sympathies to the girl's family.

    When McCollum walked out of Central Prison in Raleigh in September, he hugged his mother and father and thanked God for his release.

    "I knew one day I was going to be blessed to get out of prison, I just didn't know when that time was going to be," McCollum said the day of his release. "I just thank God that I am out of this place. There's not anger in my heart. I forgive those people and stuff."

    Several hours later, Brown walked out of Maury Correctional Institution in Greene County.

    "God is good," Brown said at the time, hugging his sister before asking to go for a cheeseburger and milkshake.

    http://www.wral.com/after-30-years-i...free/14689475/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #13
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    Unsub posted the following article and it was removed along with his opinion of Justice Scalia. I am going to re post it, not because I agree, but I would like y'all to read the comments below the article. As usual Dudley Sharp kicks butt!

    Leonard Pitts, Jr.: What do you think of the death penalty now, Justice Scalia?

    Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/o...#storylink=cpy
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  4. #14
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    Pardoned brothers would pay lawyers $400K under settlement

    A federal judge has rejected a deal allowing lawyers for two wrongfully imprisoned men to claim $400,000 of a $1 million settlement with investigators.

    Judge Terrence Boyle issued a written order denying the settlement agreement for half brothers Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, men with low IQs who wrongly spent three decades behind bars for the killing of an 11-year-old girl. The settlement amount was revealed in newly unsealed documents after a coalition of news organizations asked that they be released.

    Boyle's order from Wednesday also names a court-appointed advocate for McCollum because of the judge's concerns about his competency. The order notes that a settlement agreement can be filed again once the advocate gets involved. A lawyer previously arranged for Brown to have a similar advocate.

    McCollum and Brown, who were released from prison in 2014 because of DNA evidence and later pardoned, had filed a civil lawsuit alleging local and state authorities violated their civil rights. They notified the court in April that they had reached a settlement with the town of Red Springs and two of its former investigators.

    The newly unsealed documents show that McCollum and Brown would have received $500,000 each from the Red Springs defendants. Lawyers representing the men in the civil suit would have received about $200,000 from each of them, according to the April 12 request for court approval of the settlement.

    The settlement notes the Red Springs defendants have denied wrongdoing in their responses to the lawsuit. A county sheriff and state agents named as defendants weren't part of the settlement.

    The documents were unsealed after news organizations including The Associated Press went to court to seek access to confidential filings in the case. The men's lawyers had sought to keep the details of the settlement secret, along with numerous other documents.

    But earlier this month, Boyle rejected the requests to seal many of the documents, saying the parties had failed to justify the need to keep the filings hidden.

    Boyle has also questioned whether McCollum and Brown's interests have been protected by their current lawyers, and whether they were legally competent to sign a contract with them.

    One of their current lawyers, Patrick Megaro, didn't immediately return an email seeking comment Friday.

    McCollum, 53, and Brown, 49, were freed from prison in 2014 after DNA evidence indicated that another man raped and killed the girl. They were later pardoned and awarded $750,000 each from the state through a separate process for wrongful convictions.

    McCollum was 19 and Brown was 15 when Sabrina Buie was killed in rural Robeson County. Their attorneys have said they were scared, had low IQs and were berated by investigators who fed them details about the crime before they signed confessions saying they were part of a group that killed the girl.

    The two were initially given death sentences. In 1988, the state Supreme Court threw out their convictions and ordered new trials. McCollum was again sent to death row, while Brown was found guilty of rape and sentenced to life.

    But no physical evidence connected them to the crime. A break in the case happened after the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission got involved several years ago and had a new DNA analysis done on evidence from the crime scene.

    Robeson County's current prosecutor said recently that no decision has been made on whether to pursue charges against the other man whose DNA was found on evidence at the scene. That man is in prison for another murder.

    http://www.montereyherald.com/genera...der-settlement
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  5. #15
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    North Carolina Bar Files Ethics Complaint Against Lawyer Accused of Fleecing Intellectually Disabled Death-Row Exonerees

    Florida lawyer Patrick Megaro is facing an official complaint by the North Carolina State Bar for allegedly defrauding death-row exonerees Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, and taking 1/3 of the compensation granted to the 2 men.

    Half-brothers McCollum and Brown were exonerated in 2014 after spending 30 years in prison, some on death row, for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.

    Both men are intellectually disabled, a factor that made them more vulnerable to wrongful conviction, and, the Bar complaint says, vulnerable to exploitation by Megaro. After McCollum and Brown were exonerated and formally pardoned by Governor Pat McCrory, they sought compensation from North Carolina for their wrongful convictions and incarceration.

    Megaro became McCollum's and Brown's lawyer in March 2015, after 2 women who claimed to be advocating on behalf of the brothers persuaded them to fire the lawyers who had been representing them in their compensation action and to hire Megaro's firm instead. The brothers received compensation awards of $750,000, but Megaro - who the complaint says did virtually no work on their exonerations or compensation cases - took $250,000 in fees from each man.

    Within 7 months, McCollum was out of money and taking out high-interest loans that Megaro arranged and approved. Megaro also negotiated a proposed settlement of the brothers' wrongful prosecution lawsuit in which he was to receive $400,000 of a $1 million payment.

    The complaint alleges that Megaro committed 16 ethical violations, including lying to judges, double-billing his clients, and engaging in fraud by signing for loans with a 42% interest rate.

    It also alleges that he violated his duty to act competently when he failed to determine the police department's insurance policy limits before agreeing to settle the brothers' wrongful prosecution case. McCollum expressed his disappointment with Megaro, saying, "He took money that he should have never took. I could have that money right now."

    According to the Marshall Project, "Wednesday's complaint begins a legal process similar to a civil lawsuit that will likely culminate in a public trial of the charges, with 3 members of the state's Disciplinary Hearing Commission sitting as judge and jury."

    Megaro - whose law partner derided the disciplinary action as "a political prosecution" - could face disbarment if he is found guilty.

    (source: Death Penalty Information Center)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  6. #16
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Robeson County to pay millions to two brothers wrongfully sent to NC’s Death Row

    BY ANDREW CARTER
    The Charlotte Observer

    On the day that closing arguments were to begin in the civil trial of law enforcement members whose work led to the wrongful convictions of two intellectually disabled half brothers who spent more than 30 years in prison, one party has decided to settle.

    Lawyers representing former Robeson County Sheriff’s Office deputies James Locklear and Kenneth Sealey agreed in federal court on Friday morning to a $9 million settlement with Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, the brothers who were twice convicted of a brutal crime they did not commit. The $9 million will be divided between the brothers.

    Since 2015, McCollum and Brown, both Black, have pursued a civil case against law enforcement members behind their wrongful convictions, claiming that their civil rights were violated during the interrogations that led to their convictions.

    All the while, until Friday morning, lawyers representing the two deputies had maintained that their clients did nothing wrong — and that the brothers might have still been guilty, after all.

    The settlement by Robeson County brings an end to one half of the civil case. Lawyers representing two former SBI agents, Leroy Allen and Kenneth Snead, have not settled. Closing arguments in the civil case will continue for that part of the case on Friday morning.

    DNA EVIDENCE CLEARED MEN OF RAPE AND MURDER

    McCollum and Brown, released from prison in 2014 after DNA evidence exonerated them, were teenagers when they were accused in 1983 of the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in Red Springs, a small town on the northern edge of Robeson County.

    The brothers were originally questioned by police on the basis of a rumor that they might have been involved in the crime. The state then built its case against the brothers on the basis of confessions that law enforcement officers — including Red Springs Police Department officers, Robeson County Sheriff’s deputies and SBI agents — wrote out and had the brothers sign.

    The town of Red Springs, originally named in the civil suit, settled in 2017 for $1 million.

    McCollum was 19 when he was interrogated; Brown, 15. They both had IQs in the 50s. Both were convicted and sentenced to death on the basis of those confessions. McCollum spent most of his 31 years in prison on death row, becoming North Carolina’s longest-serving death row inmate. Brown’s sentence was later changed to life in prison.

    Locklear, Sealey, Snead and Allen were all lead investigators in the case, and all had a role in procuring the confessions. For decades, McCollum and Brown maintained that their confessions had been coerced, and that police pressured them to sign statements that were untrue.

    Both have said they were led to believe they’d be able to go home if they signed the statements, and that if they didn’t they’d face the gas chamber.

    A Robeson County judge threw out their convictions in 2014 after DNA evidence pointed to another convicted murderer, Roscoe Artis, who in 1983 lived in a house next to where the victim in the McCollum/Brown case was found.

    https://www.charlotteobserver.com/ne...251411148.html
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  7. #17
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    2 men wrongfully sent to death row awarded $75M in damages

    By Associated Press

    RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A jury in a North Carolina federal civil rights case has awarded $75 million to two Black, intellectually disabled half brothers who spent decades behind bars after being wrongfully convicted in the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.

    The eight-person jury on Friday decided Henry McCollum and Leon Brown should received $31 million each in compensatory damages, $1 million for every year spent in prison, The News & Observer reported. The jury also awarded them $13 million in punitive damages.

    "The first jury to hear all of the evidence — including the wrongly suppressed evidence — found Henry and Leon to be innocent, found them to have been demonstrably and excruciatingly wronged, and has done what the law can do to make it right at this late date," Raleigh attorney Elliot Abrams said after the trial.

    Abrams was part of the brothers' legal team, which issued a statement saying the decades-long wait "for recognition of the grave injustice" inflicted on the two by law enforcement was over. It added that "a jury ... has finally given Henry and Leon the ability to close this horrific chapter of their lives. They look forward to a brighter future surrounded by friends, family, and loved ones."

    McCollum and Brown have pursued the civil case against law enforcement members since 2015, arguing that their civil rights were violated during the interrogations that led to their convictions.

    The two were released from prison in 2014 after DNA evidence that pointed to a convicted murderer exonerated them. They were teenagers when they were accused of the crime, which happened in Red Springs in Robeson County.

    Attorneys for the men have said they were scared teenagers who had low IQs when they were questioned by police and coerced into confessing. McCollum was then 19, and Brown was 15. Both were convicted and sentenced to death.

    McCollum spent most of his 31 years in prison on death row, becoming North Carolina's longest-serving death row inmate. Brown -- who the newspaper reported suffers from mental health conditions related to his time in prison and requires full-time care -- had his sentence later changed to life in prison.

    On Friday, the Robeson County Sheriff's Office, one of the defendants, settled its part of the case for $9 million. The town of Red Springs, originally named in the civil suit, settled in 2017 for $1 million.

    Friday's judgement came against former SBI agents Leroy Allen and Kenneth Snead, who were part of the original investigation.

    Scott MacLatchie, the lead defense attorney for the SBI agents, attempted during his closing argument to cast doubt on the brothers' innocence, the newspaper reported, despite the fact that they had received full pardons of innocence.

    "I've got my freedom," McCollum said. "There's still a lot of innocent people in prison today. And they don't deserve to be there."

    https://wlos.com/news/local/2-men-wr...ges-05-16-2021
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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