Forty-four years ago, Lexington police arrested Charles McNeair, a 16-year-old Black boy, and charged him with allegedly breaking into a 57-year-old white woman’s home and raping her. McNeair insisted he was innocent and that his attorney coerced him into pleading guilty, resulting in a life sentence.
As we reported back in May, race was central to the case—and it fit a history of Black men accused of raping white women who faced harsh and sometimes deadly repercussions. The Ku Klux Klan had marched in Lexington mere months before his arrest, and the elected district attorney who prosecuted McNeair was a documented racist.
McNeair turns 61 this month and has spent all of his adult life behind prison walls. A small nonprofit called Advocates for Charles McNeair has pushed for his release. In June, the Lexington City Council passed a resolution urging Gov. Roy Cooper to grant a clemency petition McNeair’s lawyer filed on September 12, 2022.
On December 9, Advocates for Charles McNeair will join with Decarcerate Now, a coalition of activists that is part of ACLU of North Carolina, to hold a rally outside Cooper’s mansion in Raleigh.
Kristie Puckett, the coalition’s founder, said McNeair’s case is similar to that of Ronnie Long, who spent 44 years in prison before he was exonerated.
“He was 16 when he was accused of rape,” she said about McNeair. “And so, he accepted this plea deal because he thought his life was on the line. And here he is, 44 years later, still incarcerated.”
Prison officials moved McNeair from Davidson Correctional Center, where he has spent most of his sentence, to Wilkes Correctional Center in September. Wanda Cox, a co-chair for Advocates for Charles McNeair, said he is too far away for some of his family members to visit. Cox also said McNeair can no longer participate in a Christian-based re-entry program he had just started at Davidson. McNeair had also been traveling to Raleigh as part of a work program, she said.
Cox said she and other advocates won’t stop calling for McNeair’s clemency until Cooper acts: “We are not going away.”
Cross Examination
Just before the 2020 elections, Alamance County received some unwanted national attention when its sheriff’s office, along with Graham police, unleashed pepper spray on peaceful civil-rights demonstrators on their way to vote.
The “I Am Change” march drew hundreds of people, including families with children, who expected to arrive together at an early-voting site. They paused at the county courthouse for an 8-minute, 46-second kneeling tribute to George Floyd. Ninety seconds after they rose, the first chemical burst hit. In one video, Graham resident Janet Nesbitt thrashes around, then falls off her mobility scooter, as the spray hits her mouth.
The march never reached the polls.
On October 24, just before the three-year anniversary, marchers Kani Adon Bermudez-Bey and Regis Kishon Green filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Alamance sheriff’s office, Graham police, and individual employees. The complaint describes a law-enforcement free-for-all and argues that the noxious spray was designed to shut down free speech.
Reporter Barry Yeoman spoke to Erika K. Wilson, who directs the University of North Carolina Law School’s civil-rights clinic and is representing the plaintiffs, about the case.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
***
Yeoman: The pepper-spraying was three years ago. There have been other cases that settled. Why bring this case now?
Wilson: In October 2020, we were right in the thick of the [aftermath] of George Floyd. So there was a great deal of attention on this community. The New York Times gave it coverage. We had some national civil rights orgs representing people in the pepper-spraying incident.
But there were many people who were injured who were not a part of the previous litigation. It did leave a lingering hurt in the community. The effect of that event was to substantially stymie, if not halt, protests and demonstrations in the area. We wanted to help give voice to those people who were also injured, and to help to craft a remedy and encapsulate the story for what happened after all the attention died down.
The statute of limitations is three years. So that’s why now.
Yeoman: It seems like the effort of the sheriff’s office and the city police to stifle protest might have had its effect long-term. Is that your reading?
Wilson: Yes. There was a long lingering effect. Many of the folks who were at that march had been at previous marches, and didn’t experience this. It left them severely traumatized and made them fearful of exercising their First Amendment rights, especially in Alamance, especially in Graham. To be afraid to exercise one’s rights deeply impairs the democratic processes.
Yeoman: Alamance County has since changed its policy for dealing with chemical agents. A Graham police report called for new protocols, too. What does that say?
Wilson: I say this without wanting substantively to speak to what the new protocols are: There’s at least some recognition that the way they handled this wasn’t ideal, that there’s a different and hopefully better way to do this.
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On Our Radar
>>State v. Timothy Lamont Evans
In a November 20 order, Judge Edwin G. Wilson overturned the murder conviction of Timothy Lamont Evans, who police accused of fatally shooting Shelton Lamont Johnson on June 13, 1993.
Wilson said he found it troubling that Durham police detectives used a federal inmate’s statements to reopen a cold case and charge a man with murder despite that inmate’s “questionable truthfulness.” Evans served 13 years of a 45-year sentence before being released on parole last year.
Johnson’s murder was unsolved until 2003, when federal inmate Kendrick Oakes gave a statement saying he saw Evans kill Johnson. Oakes also implicated two other men—Anthony Davenport Sr. and Richard Waller.
Davenport and Waller later signed statements saying they saw Evans kill Johnson. They also testified against Evans at his trial in 2009. But in 2020, Waller recanted, saying detectives told him witnesses saw him at the crime scene and that he would go home if he just identified Evans as the shooter.
In fact, Waller did go home and detectives didn’t arrest him and Davenport until 2009. Davenport has since died, but he testified at Evans’ trial that he felt he had no choice but to sign a police statement.
Judge Wilson called Waller’s recantation credible, noting that he testified despite Durham prosecutors warning him they could revoke his plea agreement. He also noted that one of the investigators testified that he would not believe Oakes unless he had corroborating evidence.
Christine Mumma, Evans’ attorney who directs the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence, called for District Attorney Satana DeBerry to dismiss charges against Evans and to vacate convictions for Davenport and Waller. She also wants DeBerry to re-open Johnson’s case and conduct an independent review of any cases investigated by officers who were involved in the Johnson case.
Sarah Willetts, a spokeswoman for DeBerry, said prosecutors are reviewing Wilson’s decision and determining how to proceed, but declined further comment.
>>State v. Thomas Martens and Molly Corbett
The eight-year legal saga over the death of Irish native Jason Corbett had yet another twist on Monday, when state prison officials said Jason’s wife, Molly Corbett, and her father, former FBI agent Thomas Martens, would be released from prison this week.
The news was just another curveball in a case that has garnered national and international attention ever since Jason was beaten to death in the early morning hours of August 2, 2015. His wife and her father were convicted of second-degree and sentenced to a maximum of 25 years, but later had their convictions overturned.
The retrial was moved from Davidson County to Forsyth County due to the amount of media attention it received. Then, after months of negotiation, the pair agreed to plead to voluntary manslaughter. Judge David Hall sentenced them to a minimum of about four years after an eight-day sentencing hearing that ended last month. With time served, the two were expected to get out in about seven months.
This week, state prison officials said Martens would be released today and Corbett on Wednesday. The news topped headlines in North Carolina and Ireland, but hours later officials admitted they had made a mistake—the pair are not getting out this week. They will be released June 27, 2024 at the earliest.
But the news had already led to outrage from Jason’s family, who called the early release a “mockery of justice” in a statement.
It was yet another reminder that nothing about this case ever feels settled.
>>Anita Earls v. The N.C. Judicial Standards Commission
On Monday, N.C. Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls took her legal battle against the Judicial Standards Commission to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Earls filed a federal lawsuit in August, alleging that the investigation into comments she made to legal publications, including Law360, violated her First Amendment rights. She also asked a judge to temporarily block the investigation while her lawsuit goes forward.
U.S. District Judge William Osteen denied the request just before Thanksgiving. Last week, he rejected an emergency motion Earls filed to stop the investigation while she appeals to the Fourth Circuit. According to an email exchange filed with court papers, the commission wants to interview Earls before the agency meets on Friday.
It’s not clear when a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit will hear the case.
Have any suggestions for improving this newsletter or stories we should look into? Email us at courts@theassemblync.com.
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