D.A. Michael D. Parker: Inept or Corrupt?

Is Michael D. Parker, the Anson County D.A., inept or corrupt? Maybe he's a bit of both. I hope he has every case documented with i's dotted and t's crossed because if the public outcry over the Floyd Brown case is big enough - and I suspect it has just started to grow - he's going to have the AG's office and hopefully the Justice Department crawling through his files.

His blind eye to the truth about Floyd Brown brings into question every case he has ever tried. He will be the poster boy for throwing out capital punishment in North Carolina. How can the public possibly trust in this man, along with the police investigators, the SBI and the judges working Anson County? How many innocent men and women are rotting in jail because Michael Parker decided they were guilty - to hell with the evidence that proved they were not?

The CharO has a good editorial out today. I don't think they are finished with Mr. Parker and I'm glad. He and the SBI agent deserve to have folks crawling all over them and the cases they've worked. From the CharO:

Yet the Anson County District Attorney's office refused to dismiss the charges. D.A. Michael Parker, who wasn't district attorney at the time of the initial investigation, has consistently said he believes Mr. Brown is guilty and too "dangerous" to release. He clung to that Monday.

But if Mr. Brown is too dangerous to release, why did prosecutors earlier offer a plea deal that would have set him free? On Sept. 25, 2006, he was to go on trial, and the prosecution offered this deal: If Mr. Brown took a so-called Alford plea -- meaning he'd be found guilty of the murder without having to admit guilt -- he'd be freed. But he was unable to understand the deal, so the case could not go forward. He has been locked up ever since, stuck because he could not be tried and the prosecutor would not dismiss the charges.

The case was shaky from the start. None of the evidence at the murder scene linked Mr. Brown to the crime. His confession is the key to the case. But the confession contains phrases and words that, according to his doctors and others, he could not have spoken. He does not know dates, cannot tell time, and does not speak in complete or grammatical sentences. Yet the first sentence of a typed confession State Bureau of Investigation agent Mark Isley said was dictated "verbatim" contains both a specific time and date.

And there is this: Within six months of the murder, two of the investigators on Mr. Brown's case were convicted of taking money to fix cases for people they knew were guilty.

Agent Isley is still on the job. I wonder how many more "verbatim" confessions he's....um....pulled out of his ass. I hope somebody reviews every confession that man has ever had a hand in collecting.

Being a prosecutor isn't a cakewalk. They work long hours, on difficult cases that sometimes involve horrifying crimes. They are human and they make mistakes. However, there is every indication that Michael Parker has been acting with intent. His only mistake has been believing that he would be able to go his entire career and not have somebody, somewhere shine a bright hot spotlight on this case.

How many other Floyd Browns are out there? How many other men and women are sitting in jail because they are poor, black, don't speak English or don't have the mental capacity to fight back? How long are we going to let this continue in North Carolina?

I'm working on an action plan and I'll update you as I find out what others are working on to help Floyd Brown.