|
Episode #1715
Terence Garner—Justice in North Carolina
Holloway: Jay Holloway,
Host
Garner: Terence Garner
Chambers: Linda Chambers
Wise: Phillip Wise
B. Garner: Brenda Garner
Barber: Reverend William Barber
Montgomery: Mark Montgomery
Grant: Jim Grant
Riddick: Keith Riddick
M: Male Voice
F: Female Voice
M: A black guy shot this
white woman. Somewhere along the line she related to someone
in the court system in that county, so now it has to be swift
justice. Someone has to pay.
Holloway: Was it a matter
of race or just another matter of justice when 16-year old
Terence Garner was tried and convicted of crimes that he and
many others say he did not commit in Johnston County. Join
me and our studio guests with your calls and comments for
discussion on this case and the bigger issues of race, politics,
and the justice system here in North Carolina. We are live
tonight from UNC-TV Studio B in RTP, next on Black Issues
Forum. You stay tuned.
Voiceover: Closed captioning
of this program on UNC-TV is made possible in part by a grant
from the F.M. Kirby Foundation. This program was made possible
with contributions to UNC-TV from viewers like you. Thank
you.
[THEME MUSIC]
Holloway: Good evening and
welcome to a special live edition of Black Issues Forum, I’m
Jay Holloway. Tonight—what next in the State versus
Garner case, and the broader issues of race, politics and
the justice system here in North Carolina? Joining me tonight
are Reverend William Barber, pastor of Greenleaf Christian
Church in Goldsboro. He is former Director of Human Relations
for the State of North Carolina. And attorney Mark Montgomery,
appellate lawyer for Terence Garner. And Jim Grant, a community
activist in North Carolina, and affiliated with the Southeastern
Church Action for Safe and Just Communities. And hopefully
later on tonight via satellite, from her home in Dudley, North
Carolina, Linda Chambers, the mother of Terence Garner. Her
son is now serving 33 to 43 years in prison. She has not seen
him in nearly five years. Linda, we hope to have her on shortly
via satellite. We also invited judges, local and state law
enforcement, attorneys, other top state officials, and victims
involved in this case to participate in tonight’s discussion.
They all have declined our invitation. We will also be taking
your calls tonight, but if you are not familiar with this
particular case and did not see the Frontline program—documentary—last
night, here is a short clip from the documentary about this
very interesting case of justice or injustice in Johnston
County. Let’s take a look.
[RUN CLIP—Frontline: An Ordinary Crime]
Voiceover: It was an ordinary
crime. The judge himself said so.
Judge:This was an ordinary
run-of-the-mill armed robbery case that probably dozens are
occurring as we sit here now.
Voiceover: There was an arrest.
Garner: They asked me, “What’s
your name? Where do you live at?” I said, “My
name is Terence Garner, I live right here.” And the
next thing I knew they said I was under arrest.
Voiceover: There was a plea
bargain.
M: We were willing to allow
his client to plead guilty to the lesser charges in exchange
for his truthful testimony.
Voiceover: A defense lawyer.
Interviewer: Do you think
he is telling the truth?
M: That’s not my call.
Interviewer: But what do
you think?
M: I don’t think anything,
that’s not my call, that’s not my focus.
Voiceover: A co-perpetrator
who took the plea.
M: I asked my lawyer one
time, I said, “Suppose I tell them on the stand that
it wasn’t Garner?” “You don’t want
to do that.” “Yeah, I don’t want to do it.”
Voiceover: A very sure eyewitness.
F: I know that it was Terence
Garner that shot me. His face is the last thing that I saw
with both my eyes.
Voiceover: Another eyewitness
who at trial didn’t sound as sure.
F: I frankly helped raised
Terence Garner. I know him. It was not him.
M: I feel like that, you
know, my punishment was well deserved, Riddick’s punishment
was well deserved, you know, but Mr. Garner, they forced that
upon him. He had no choice in the matter. He still doesn’t
have a choice in the matter, he’s just doing somebody
else’s time.
M: I think a lot of people
feel that Garner is serving time that he really doesn’t
need to be serving; a lot of people there feel that he probably
is not guilty, and there are not a lot of avenues that they
can take. A trial was conducted, a jury found him guilty,
and in a courtroom process there is not a lot of process or
appeal process that you can do beyond that. But I think the
majority of them, a majority of the people still feel that
this young man didn’t commit the crime, and that is
a tragedy, if you’ve got somebody sitting in prison
who didn’t commit a crime.
Garner: It could have happened
to anybody, but it just had to happen to me. They pulled up
my name, “Let’s see if he did it,” you know.
It could have happened to anybody. I think about it a lot
like that. Somebody innocent getting locked up for something
they didn’t do.
[END OF CLIP]
Holloway: And that Frontline
broadcast will be rebroadcast tonight immediately following
our broadcast. Right now I would like to introduce live via
satellite Linda Chambers. Linda, are you there?
Chambers: Yes, I’m
here.
Holloway: Okay, we’ve
got Linda Chambers from her home in Dudley, North Carolina.
Linda is the mother of Terence Garner, and her son is now
serving the 33 to 43 years. And also that is Brenda Garner,
Terence’s aunt. Is that you, Brenda, next to her?
Chambers: I can’t hear
it.
Holloway: Okay, Brenda, and
thank you both for joining us this evening live on UNC-TV.
Let me say now also to our audience, last night after the
Frontline broadcast we surveyed UNC-TV viewers and asked the
question, “Does Terence Garner deserve a new trial?”
98% of the statewide callers said yes, he deserves a new trial.
If you saw the documentary and feel otherwise we welcome your
calls tonight as well. Also, if you would like to make any
brief comments on the bigger issues of race, politics, and
the justice system here in North Carolina, our toll-free number
tonight, and we are looking for your calls, 1-800-555-3120.
We have a lot to cover this evening so we’d like for
you to make your comments brief, as well as our studio guests
here. Reverend Barber, let me go directly to you first. When
we initially contacted you—you are there in Wayne County—you
said you really didn’t know that much about the case,
but as we talked to you it appears that you were directly
involved from the beginning and had some contact with the
Wayne County Sheriff’s office. What was that contact?.
Barber: I knew about the
case, I didn’t know about the status of the case. I
knew it had gone to the appellate and defenders were working
with that case, and that there were a lot of issues about
how it was going to play forward, but initially a couple of
the officers did come to the church and shared some of the
information and asked about what should be done, how should
they respond. I think they were a little sensitive about not
saying anything.
Holloway: So they came to
you and said, “We’ve found some interesting evidence
and the black community should be outraged at this”?
Barber: Right. And my comment
to them was that justice is not black or white, but that the
community ought to be concerned about this, it’s not
a…regardless of the color. But we did have a meeting
with the NAACP in Johnston County, and—I think the presidents
of the Goldsboro and Wayne branches—and also the regional
director, with a few ministers, and then they took it from
there, it was the NAACP, and they kind of took over from there.
Holloway: Are you saying
that at the Wayne County Sheriff’s office, were they
afraid—I think we discussed earlier—to actually
go directly to Johnston County with this new evidence?
Barber: Well, I don’t
know about afraid, I think they are concerned. You know, officers
typically work together, and I think one of the tragedies
of this case is as you saw on the Frontline, where you have
two counties struggling with how they are going to interact
with each other.
Holloway: Mark Montgomery,
attorney for Terence, we are talking about right and wrong
here, is what he is saying here. Now, what have you done and
what are you doing next for Terence?
Montgomery: Well, you know,
the trial has happened, the verdict was guilty. We ran the
appeal through the court of appeals and the Supreme Court;
didn’t get any help there. We have presented to the
court in motions all the evidence that hopefully your viewers
saw last night, and if they didn’t last night I hope
they see it after this show tonight. So far in state court
we haven’t gotten anywhere. We have filed in federal
court—just this last summer we filed habeas corpus,
for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court. The attorney
general of North Carolina has opposed it and we are waiting
to see what a federal court judge is going to do. In the meantime,
we are continuing to investigate developing new evidence that
we can go back into the state court with. We have been talking
to several witnesses that are going to be helpful, they have
been talking to us all along. I think the show that was on
last night, and that is going to be on again tonight, is going
to give people the courage to come forward and help Terence
Garner.
Holloway: Is there anything
that you have not done in the State of North Carolina in terms
of the legal process that you still can do?
Montgomery: Yes. We will
file an additional motion, probably later this spring, bringing
forth new evidence that nobody’s heard about yet and
I can’t talk about in any great detail, but more evidence
showing that Terence is innocent.
Holloway: Jim Grant, you’ve
been involved in community activism all across this state
for a long time, and you organized a rally I think today in
that area. Tell me, viewers have called in on our line and
many are interested in getting involved in this. But what
kind of community support are you seeing around this issue?
Grant: Well, I’m seeing
a great deal of community support developing. We’ve
been collecting petitions now asking for the governor to release
Terence Garner, and we are getting a lot of petitions in from
a lot of different places. So I think people are finally speaking
out on this issue. And it’s a funny thing. When people
find out about how things have actually been conducted on
this, people are outraged. They want to get involved in this,
and we’ve, we keep getting petitions in all the time.
Holloway: Do you ever hear
from people in the area who believe that he is guilty?
Grant: No, no. I mean, they
haven’t contacted us. I work with Southeastern Cary
Jaycees and Justice and Witness Ministries of the United Church
of Christ, and both groups have sent out petitions to the
different churches.
Holloway: All right. I want
us to put that telephone number up so we can get our callers
calling in, and we do have our first call. We ask that, we
told you that we invited many of the government officials
and victims as well. I understand now we have Phillip Wise,
and he is the son of Alice Wise, who was the shooting victim
that was in this case. Phillip, are you there?
Wise: Yes, I’m here.
Holloway: Phillip, I understand
that you have a statement from your mother that you would
like to read or make to the viewers here. Can you please…
Wise: Actually it’s
a statement from myself, and I’m sure my mother concurs
with it.
Holloway: Please go right
ahead.
Wise: Okay. The Frontline
documentary that is going to be airing later tonight is a
great news story, but it’s just that, a story, a story
meant to entertain and captivate viewers, not to offer an
objective account of the facts. I can see how anyone who has
seen it would be outraged and convinced that an innocent man
is in jail, but the fact is Garner is guilty. However, that
is not much of a news story and would sell no papers and attract
no viewers. I would urge anyone who believes that Terence
Garner is innocent to read the trial and hearing transcripts—all
of it, not just the parts that have been reported in the media.
Once you have the whole story you will agree that the right
person is behind bars. As far as testimony, only two truly
objective and impartial witnesses took the stand in this case,
and neither had anything to gain by putting the wrong person
in prison. Both clearly and without doubt identified Terence
Garner as the man who tried to take my mother’s life,
and I’m sure he regrets every day that he was not successful.
Thank you.
Holloway: Phillip, thank
you so much for your statement, and regards to your mother
there as well.
Wise: Thank you.
Holloway: Mark, would you
like to respond to Phillip’s statement?
Montgomery: Well, I’ve
read the transcript, I’ve read the evidence, and there
is nothing left out of the Frontline show. The evidence against
Terence Garner was simply, as Phillip said, his mother’s
claim that is was Terence—and I have no doubt at all
in her sincerity—and Charles Woodard’s claim that
it was Terence Garner. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity
either. But that is the evidence. That’s all the evidence
against it, so there is nothing left out of the Frontline
show.
Holloway: He said that it
is a good story, and that’s what it is, a story.
Montgomery: I think it’s
the truth. I’ve lived it for four years—I don’t
claim to be unbiased because I am Terence’s lawyer—but
the transcript is public document, all the briefs that have
been filed are all public document, and I will challenge anybody
to look at it and find the evidence of Terence’s guilt,
other than the testimony of the two eyewitnesses.
Holloway: And I want to remind
our viewers that you can call in also at 1-800-555-3120, and
you can get more of that information on the UNC-TV and PBS
websites. Let’s go now to Dudley, North Carolina to
mother Linda Chambers and Brenda Garner there. Can you all
give us a response to what you heard from Phillip Wise? Brenda,
would you like to respond first? Brenda, would you like to
respond to the statement?
[TECHNICAL COMMENTS]
Holloway: Okay, we may be
having some audio difficulty there. Reverend Barber, let me
go to you, if you would like to make a response, please.
Barber: Well, I tried to
think about this in terms of a pastor. What if you had everybody
in this case in your church, and the thing that I thought
about was a Greek tragedy. I mean, surely, this is tragic.
Here is a woman who was just at work who got shot. That’s
a tragic, senseless act, and it angers anybody with any sense.
Here you have three young African American men who could be
brain surgeons but who have all committed to this. Then you
have a judge who has a zeal for prosecution, but perhaps his
zeal blinded him. And then you have a young man who is possibly
being held innocently who—facts are coming forward now
that are saying that he wasn’t the actual shooter. When
you talk about it it’s tragic all the way around. And
I think one of the concerns is you don’t want to try
to get justice by perpetrating injustice, and I think that’s
the struggle with this whole case. You don’t want to
seek justice by having injustice, and so when you hear people
calling for new trials, what people are really saying is let’s
make sure we remove all reasonable doubt. Let’s make
sure everything has been put on the table. I thought about
Ms. Wise today, and it could be my mother, my sister. But
at the same time Terence could be my brother or my son, and
so what we have here is a very tragic situation. Even the
fact that you had officers of the law afraid to approach officers
of the court…and that in itself is tragic, so the whole
piece is tragic, and we surely don’t want to make it
more tragic by not having a full hearing of all the things
to make sure that if justice has been served it is served,
but that if injustice has been served then it is corrected.
Holloway: Mr. Grant, let
me ask you. We’ve got a situation with…we have
a caller…oh, we do happen to have a juror on the line
right now, and this is a juror from Johnston County, are you
there?
F: Yes, I am.
Holloway: Hi. Would you like
to respond? Did you see the Frontline documentary?
F: Yes, I did.
Holloway: And now that you’ve
seen that is there any new evidence, would you make a different
decision now that you’ve seen that?
F: No, there was not.
Holloway: Okay. And would
you like to make any other comments to Mark Montgomery or
to the mother or to the general audience about this particular
case as it stands now?
F: I think the one comment
that—well, there are a couple of comments that I would
like to make. First of all there were 12 men and women in
that jury who had absolutely nothing to gain by convicting
Terence Garner. Secondly, I don’t think race or politics
played a part in our decision at all. And thirdly, I think
that we considered all of the evidence carefully that we were
presented. I think that we listened to all of the witnesses
and I think that we based our decision on those witnesses
that we felt were telling the truth. I personally did not
believe Riddick then any more than I believe him now. I think
Terence Garner and Riddick and Henderson have all set out
to do one thing, and that was to place reasonable doubt, and
I think the whole thing…they’ve gotten exactly
what they wanted, they’ve placed reasonable doubt in
some people’s minds.
Holloway: But not in your
mind?
F: No sir. If you had been
in that courtroom for three weeks, or two and a half weeks
like we all were and listened as carefully as we did to the
evidence, you would have come to the same conclusion that
we did.
Holloway: Okay. Thank you
very much for calling in this night, tonight, and we are going
to try back once again to Linda Chambers and Brenda Garner
in Dudley, North Carolina. Are you there, can you hear us
now?
Chambers: Yes, I can hear
you.
Holloway: Okay. Would you
like to respond? We’ve had two very compelling statements
from one of the victim’s sons, and also from one of
the jurors. Did you hear what they said and would you like
to respond?
Chambers: Well, I didn’t
quite hear it, the whole thing, but I feel like if you could
listen at the whole court system and know exactly what happened
and how it did happen, you can’t convict a 16-year old
of a crime that boys older than 25 and 20 years older than
my son? No, I don’t agree with it.
Holloway: What about Brenda
there, Brenda do you have any comments? How do you feel about
what you have heard, and could you hear any of the statements
at all?
B. Garner: Yes sir, I did.
The thing that I think about—and I did jury duty in
Wayne County—and you can’t always say that by
knowing somebody for three or four weeks, you can’t
just judge them just like that, because I did a case and it
wasn’t totally about what the person did, it was the
people around him, and he just got caught in a bad situation.
Holloway: And now, the last
juror said that they considered all that, and race and politics,
they heard all the evidence, and she still would not change
her mind. Do you disagree with that?
Chambers: I totally disagree,
because she is prejudging him to start with.
Holloway: Let me…Jim
Grant, you didn’t get a chance to respond to that. Would
you like to respond to what you’ve heard, from either
the juror or the victim’s son?
Grant: Well yes, I certainly
would. The first thing I’d like to say is that race
is definitely a part of what is going on here. This is what
is driving the whole case. I also would like to make mention
the fact that you have three black witnesses that told one
particular story and two white witnesses that told another
story, and you have the jury, which was mostly white, you
have a white prosecutor and a white judge—a white, racist
judge—coming to a conclusion that this man was guilty.
And you have three witnesses who happen to be black who were
basically ignored. And I find that a totally, a travesty.
Holloway: Mark, let me ask
you. It’s clear that there is a disproportionate number
of black males in the penal system, and there is a perception
that if you are young and black in situations like this that
you are guilty, and in many instances the system—many
people accuse the system of that, I should say. If Terence
were white do you think that he would still have been in jail
now for five years?
Montgomery: Well, you know,
I don’t think it’s so much about whether Terence
was white. I think Keith Riddick and Kenrick Henderson, and
for that matter Deloach, I think that what they had to contribute,
the evidence that they had to contribute was mis-evaluated,
perhaps, because of their race. If you look at when they said
what and why they said what it’s clear that Kenrick
Henderson had no reason to take 17 years just to create reasonable
doubt for Terence Garner. Keith Riddick had no reason to accept
that, to put himself in jeopardy for 60 years by coming forward
and saying that he had perjured himself at trial. He said
that Terence Garner was guilty in order to get four years
rather than 60. The problem, I think, in this case was that
their motivations weren’t considered, and it may be
because they just weren’t, they were poor, black, “criminal
types,” and nobody thought too carefully about what
their motivations would be and why they would say what when
they said it.
Holloway: Okay. We have a
caller now from Durham who would like to make a comment or
question. Caller from Durham, are you there?
M: Yes, I am.
Holloway: Go right ahead,
please, with your question or comment.
M: I watched the Frontline
special last evening, and I’ve just go two comments.
First is I think the prosecutor in this case had a reasonable
belief when he called the press conference with the newspaper
and the media to say that this man was not the person guilty
of the crime. Subsequently he changed his…in the middle
of the stream when they guy comes from Wayne County to Johnston
County and recants this statement, I found that kind of ironic
and kind of mystifying, because obviously he is a learned
attorney to be the district attorney. I would assume that
he passed the bar. Secondly, for him to call a press conference
he had a reasonable belief, I believe, that this guy that
they prosecuted was not the correct person. Secondly, the
comment by the sitting judge that the detectives from Wayne
County were buffoons…
Holloway: Real quickly sir,
we are about to run out of time.
M: …were buffoons,
I thought that was inappropriate on his part. If the buffoon
part or the buffoon person comes in to play, it would seem
to me that the judge is the buffoon for not even wanting to
reevaluate the case.
Holloway: Okay. Caller, thank
you so much for calling from Durham. We have just a few minutes
left, and we do have Keith Riddick on the line, who is calling
in now from the Wayne County/Johnston County area. Keith,
are you there?
Riddick: Yes, I am.
Holloway: Go right ahead,
sir, please, quickly, with your comment or question.
Riddick: When you are dealing
with this situation it is almost definitely racial, because
when you sit back and analyze it, no black people had any
power within this whole case whatsoever. It was handled by
prominent white men, and they manipulated it and designed
this case to the outcome that they wanted, and that is exactly
what happened. Everybody was manipulated, from the top to
the bottom, from the judge all the way down. It’s the
crew protecting each other.
Holloway: Thank you so much
for that comment, and we appreciate you also participating
last night and on the Frontline documentary. Let me go back
to Dudley, if I can, and I want to ask Linda right quick,
how is the racial climate there, if you can real quickly,
affecting the attitudes, you think, of other youth there in
that community about the justice system now? How are they
feeling after seeing your son being locked up? What is their
faith in the justice system?
Chambers: Well, I, ever since
the show showed last night, I’ve had phone calls from
all different colors of people, and they are highly pissed.
They don’t agree with nothing that is going on, and
all they are doing is calling to let me know that they are
trying to do everything to help my son be set free, because
he is falsely in prison.
Holloway: And now what do
you think that, do you think that your economic status or
race had anything to do with justice in this case?
Chambers: I don’t understand
what you said.
Holloway: In other words,
in terms of how much money you make and because you are black,
does that make a difference do you think that Terence is still
behind bars, and from your point of view has not gotten justice
yet?
Chambers: Yes, I do. I think
that, you know, I am not middle-aged, or one of the rich people
out there in the world, but you know, I am living. I take
care of six kids, I have done the best I can. I raise them
to the appropriate way. I know for myself that Terence didn’t
do it, so it doesn’t matter to me what everybody else
says, all that matters to me right now is that I want my son
to come home, because I know he is innocent.
Holloway: Linda, thank you
so much for joining us tonight, we are about to run out of
time, and I wanted some last real quick comments, if anyone
would like to make a…oh, but we really don’t have
time, we’ve run out! 30 minutes passes by very fast.
Once again I want to say that we really all have choices,
and the choice to join others in questioning our system of
justice by holding leaders and law enforcement officials accountable,
or the choice to simply assume full trust in these systems
and hope that justice will prevail without your involvement.
The choice is yours. Next week most of us will celebrate the
birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and all state employees
are invited to join the official state celebration at 12 noon
at First Baptist Church in Raleigh, and Dr. Stegatto Powell
will be the guest speaker, and we encourage you to join other
King celebrations. A man who stood for justice and equality.
For Black Issues Forum I am Jay Holloway. Thank you so much
for watching. And stay tuned next for a rebroadcast of Frontline’s
“An Ordinary Crime.” You have a blessed evening,
good night.
[THEME MUSIC]
|
