Courts: Reports of eCourts Suit Death Greatly Exaggerated

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Behind Bars But on the Move

For most of the last five years, Charles McNeair was home—or at least, close to it—in the Davidson Correctional Center. He’d grown up in Lexington and was arrested there in 1979 for a crime he says he didn’t commit. 

Then last August, he was abruptly transferred 70 miles away to Wilkes Correctional Center, after prison officials claimed he had become too “familiar” with the area. 

In just over two years, McNeair has been sent to Spruce Pines, then back to  Davidson, then to Dan River Prison Camp, then  to Craggy Correctional Center in Asheville, and then back back to Davidson. He only stayed at Wilkes for eight months before he was again moved to Catawba Correctional Center in mid-April. 

All this movement is unusual for inmates like McNeair who are serving life sentences with parole, said Ben Finholt, director of the Just Sentencing Project at Duke University School of Law. Most stay at one prison that is close to their families and may be allowed to participate in work release or other programming. 

As The Assembly reported last year, McNeair, who is Black, was just 16 when Lexington police officers arrested him in November 1979 based on allegations that he broke into the house of a 57-year-old white woman and raped her. McNeair has maintained his innocence, and a growing group of supporters say his case should be revisited. They have been pushing Gov. Roy Cooper to grant a clemency petition and have held rallies in Lexington and at the executive mansion in Raleigh.

As Michael Hewlett reports for The Assembly, McNeair’s advocates say all the moves are an attempt to punish him for their activism. 

“I feel they try to break him,” said Wanda Cox, one of his leading supporters. 

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Vexation and Legislation

A state Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up proposed legislation this Tuesday that could limit how many times someone can file misconduct complaints against attorneys that don’t amount to a violation of the Professional Rules of Conduct.

The bill, SB790, would give the State Bar the authority to declare someone a “vexatious complainant.” That label would mean the bar’s counsel would not have to investigate future grievances from that individual.

The bill also would narrow who has agency to file a grievance to:

• Judges and lawyers obligated to report misconduct, 
• Jurors or court staff members involved in legal matters subject to the grievance,
• Family members or trustees directly involved in guardianship, probate, bankruptcy proceedings,
• The State Bar,
• Or  “a person who has a cognizable individual interest in or connection to the legal matter or facts alleged in the grievance.”

The proposed legislation stems from recommendations a committee made earlier this year after reviewing the process the State Bar uses to discipline lawyers and inform the public about misconduct. A 63-page report issued March 13 laid out recommendations the State Bar could take on its own without legislative action, as well as some that require tweaks to the law.

If the General Assembly adopts the bill, the bar would have to set up a new mechanism for expunging public records of certain disciplinary actions against attorneys. But the bill does not specify which misdeeds would fall into that category.

The State Bar Review Committee, composed of six Republicans, one Democrat, and no people of color, was created through a policy mandate in last year’s state budget. 

Woody White, a lawyer, UNC Board of Governors member, former state senator and New Hanover County commissioner, raised some eyebrows in late January when he opened the committee’s work saying: “A couple of areas I hope we will talk about in the ensuing weeks is ensuring while we are protecting the public that we are not allowing the public to weaponize things improperly, that we are not allowing the public to use the Bar as a weapon against people to cancel and to otherwise curb and influence rights that we’ve been given under the First Amendment, etc.”

White’s co-chair was Charlotte lawyer and political consultant Lawrence Shaheen, who said that any disciplinary process should ensure there will not be questions about partisanship or other concerns about what the individual “believes outside of the practice of law.”

White and Shaheen’s comments prompted a swift response from 15 lawyers in the House Democratic Caucus, who raised concerns about reducing  the transparency about attorney discipline.

— Anne Blythe

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