New Hearing For Men Convicted of Murdering Chris Paul’s Grandfather

A superior court judge out of Davie and Davidson counties has granted an evidentiary hearing for the four men convicted of murdering NBA star Chris Paul’s grandfather two decades ago. The men requested the hearing in hopes of proving their innocence, after a key witness recanted her testimony. 

Paul’s grandfather, Nathaniel Jones, 61, died after a brutal attack outside his East Winston-Salem home. Five teenagers—brothers Nathaniel Cauthen and Rayshawn Banner, along with Christopher Bryant, Jermal Tolliver, and Dorrell Brayboy—were convicted of murder. Brayboy died in 2019, a year after he was released from prison. Banner and Cauthen are serving a life sentence, while Bryant and Tolliver have also been released. 

We wrote about Paul’s new memoir last year, which contains indelibly rendered remembrances on his close relationship with Jones and the grief he felt when his grandfather was violently taken away. In November 2002, Paul was a standout basketball player at West Forsyth High School who had just signed to play at Wake Forest University. Five days after his grandfather’s death, Paul scored 61 points in Jones’ honor, an iconic moment that catapulted the teenager into the national spotlight. 

The five teenagers accused of Jones’ murder maintained their innocence and said Winston-Salem police coerced them into making false confessions. They were kept for hours in police interrogation rooms, where four of them said detectives threatened them with the death penalty. At the time, North Carolina had no death penalty for juveniles–but they didn’t know that. 

No definitive physical evidence tied the teens to the crime scene, and their subsequent statements to the police contained numerous inconsistencies. They couldn’t agree on who participated in the beating, who served as lookouts, and who unscrewed the lightbulbs in the carport where Jones’ body was found. They couldn’t even agree on what weapons were used. 

What sealed their fate was the testimony of Jessicah Black, a then-16-year-old white girl from Davidson County who had befriended the boys, who are all Black. She said they had talked about robbing someone and that she had driven them to the park near Jones’ house. She also said she heard Jones’ screams while she sat on a park bench. But she recanted her statements to a former Houston Chronicle reporter in 2019, throwing the whole case into question. 

The men filed claims with the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, which resulted in a hearing before an eight-member commission board in March 2020. The commission board sent the case to a three-judge panel, which upheld the convictions in April 2022. 

Last year, the men filed new appeals in Forsyth Superior Court, and on March 11, Superior Court Judge Robert A. Broadie called for an evidentiary hearing. He hasn’t yet scheduled it, nor has he addressed a pending motion filed by the attorneys for Bryant and Tolliver.

Paul has not said much publicly about the case. In a short chapter in his book, he says he believes all five men are guilty, but he is conflicted about the lengthy prison sentences they each received. Paul’s family has urged that their convictions be upheld. 

Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill, a Republican currently running for lieutenant governor, has strongly opposed any reconsideration of the case and has condemned the commission’s work as biased and unfair. 

–Michael Hewlett

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The War Over Confederate Monuments Continues

The North Carolina Supreme Court unanimously upheld a decision by Asheville and Buncombe County officials to remove a 75-foot obelisk honoring Zebulon Vance, a Confederate officer and former state governor and senator who enslaved Black people in the 19th century. 

In March 2021, the Asheville City Council voted to demolish the Vance Monument, which stood in the center of downtown, in the midst of Black Lives Matter protests and a national reckoning over Confederate monuments.  Among the people who pushed for the monument’s demolition was Noel Nickle, a descendant of Vance. 

The Society for the Historical Preservation of the 26th North Carolina Troops sued, alleging that the city had breached a 2015 agreement under which the group said it raised nearly $140,000 for restoration with the understanding that the city would keep the monument up in perpetuity. 

Justice Phil Berger Jr., who wrote the majority opinion, said the society ultimately failed to prove its breach of contract claim. Without that claim, the group has no legal standing to challenge the monument’s demolition. 

Things turned out differently in Alamance County under another ruling last week, this one from the Court of Appeals. Judge Chris Dillon, writing for the three-judge panel, said state law prohibits Alamance officials from taking down a Confederate statue located outside the county courthouse. Dillon cited the Monument Protection Law that the General Assembly passed in 2015, which said cities and counties could not remove Confederate monuments. 

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit that the state and Alamance branches of the NAACP filed in 2021, arguing that the 30-foot statue is a symbol of white supremacy and should be removed to a “historically appropriate location.”

Dillon said the monument is on public property and “commemorates military service that is part of North Carolina’s history.” He also noted that the federal government recognizes service in the Confederate Army as military service and that the state celebrates “Confederate Memorial Day” as a legal holiday. 

–Michael Hewlett

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Time Trial

The state Supreme Court ruled last week that a Durham man denied his right to a speedy trial could not pursue damages in civil court from a former Durham district attorney, mayor, police officers, the city, and the state.

Frankie D. Washington saw criminal convictions against him vacated in 2008 after the state Court of Appeals found that his rights had been violated when he had to wait almost five years from his arrest in May 2002 for trial in February 2007.

In a lawsuit that drew support from the North Carolina Advocates of Justice and the ACLU of North Carolina, Washington and his son sought monetary damages for harms suffered from Washington’s lengthy jail stay before trial, as well as the police investigation and prosecution.

The case provides a window into the ripple effects that incarceration can have on a family and raises questions about whether setting aside criminal convictions is enough to compensate a person who did not receive a trial in a timely manner.

The state Supreme Court divided 4-2 (with Justice Trey Allen not participating in the discussion or deliberation) on whether Washington should be able to pursue such a claim in a civil procedure. 

The majority opinion was written by Justice Richard Dietz for Justices Tamara Barringer, Phil Berger Jr. and Chief Justice Paul Newby. Justice Anita Earls wrote a dissenting opinion, which Justice Allison Riggs signed onto.

Dietz characterized Washington’s complaint before the Supreme Court as asserting “that vacating his convictions was not enough. He also wants money damages from the State as a second remedy for the constitutional violation.”

Dietz and the majority found that having the criminal convictions set aside was “a powerful remedy” that meaningfully addressed the violation of Washington’s rights.

Earls and Riggs disagreed with what they said was the majority’s characterization of Washington as “an opportunistic, double-dipping litigant,” saying he sought “redress for nine years’ worth of harms.”

They said waiting nearly five years for trial can put a defendant at a disadvantage. Witnesses might no longer recall information that could help the accused mount a defense. Evidentiary trails could go cold.

In addition, trial delays can hurt defendants’ ability to provide for themselves and their families. They can be exposed to safety and health risks in jail, become severed from their communities, and robbed of opportunities that would help them and their loved ones flourish, Earls wrote.

“No reasonable person would believe that mere release from custody and removal of a conviction is adequate redress for the years-long deprivation of their freedom,” Earls wrote in her dissent. “‘Sorry we violated your rights, you can go home’ is not a satisfactory remedy for the denial of this foundational right, especially when the charges were shaky and ill-examined from the start.”

—Anne Blythe

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