Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Since he was freed a week ago after about 18 years in prison, Darryl Hunt has cherished the little things - and struggled with them.
A few days ago, he said, his alarm went off at 5:30 a.m., about the time he usually awoke while in prison.
"I jumped up and I was like, 'Where am I going?'" he said yesterday.
Similarly, it took him five minutes the first time he tried to get his key into the door of his home, he said, and cell phones and remote controls are only beginning to make sense.
Hunt shared stories of his newfound freedom at a press conference yesterday at the offices of his attorney, Mark Rabil, and as he made his way about the city. His release on unsecured bond pending a February hearing came in the wake of a new suspect, Willard E. Brown, being charged with murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery in the 1984 stabbing of Deborah Sykes. Brown, whose DNA was matched to a semen sample, confessed to acting alone in attacking Sykes, according to Hunt's release order, signed by Judge Anderson Cromer of Superior Court.
Hunt said he is still getting used to the attention - he was interviewed by CNN and The New York Times yesterday and continues to draw stares in public - and still unsure about his future.
At Borders Books & Music, Hunt and Larry Little, the former city alderman who helped found the Darryl Hunt Defense Committee, looked at books the two discussed over the years. Hunt picked up a hardcover edition of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and thumbed through it.
Little had given him that book and a dictionary when Hunt first went to prison.
"I thought he could take some inspiration from Malcolm," Little said.
Malcolm X, a civil-rights leader who was assassinated in 1964, never went to college and used a dictionary to teach himself while in prison, where he converted to Islam. He became a leader in the Nation of Islam and gained national attention in the civil-rights movement.
Hunt took classes at Winston-Salem State University while he was freed on bond for 11 months from November 1989 to October 1990. Little, an assistant professor at WSSU, said he hopes that Hunt can begin classes there again next month.
Compensation possible
According to state law, if his murder conviction is overturned at the hearing scheduled for Feb. 6, Hunt could be compensated for his years in prison.
Richard Rosen, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, said that state law awards $20,000 a year for each year spent in prison to people who are exonerated of crimes.
In Hunt's case, that could mean $360,000 in compensation.
"There is not enough money in the world to compensate for what was done to him," Rosen said. "There is a long history in the case of official misconduct."
Sykes, who was 25, worked as a copy editor at The Sentinel, the now-closed afternoon paper. She was raped and stabbed 16 times on her way to work Aug. 10, 1984. Hunt was convicted twice in Sykes' killing and sentenced to life in prison. Hunt supporters maintained through the years that he was railroaded on flimsy evidence.
An eight-part Winston-Salem Journal series last month showed how police and prosecutors narrowed in on Hunt as a suspect to the exclusion of others. The series also for the first time revealed that a second, similar rape had occurred nearby in February 1985, but police believed that their suspect in that case was in jail at the time of the attack on Sykes. Brown was the suspect in the 1985 rape.
Legal experts say that Hunt, 38, may receive a bigger award if he sues the city of Winston-Salem on state and federal civil-rights violations.
James Ferguson of Charlotte, an attorney who has represented Hunt since 1985, said that it is too soon to say whether Hunt will file for damages over a wrongful conviction.
"We don't have a lawsuit just because he was wrongfully convicted," Ferguson said. "Right now, we are just focused on getting his freedom fully resolved."
Hunt said he has not thought about a lawsuit.
"The only thing I'm trying to focus on is my family and getting this over with," he said.
A lawsuit against the city or the state might be difficult for Hunt to win, said Cal Adams, a Winston-Salem lawyer. State law may provide a statute of limitations in the case, and the government has legal immunities that would make it difficult for defendants who are wrongly convicted to prevail, he said.
To win, Hunt would probably have to show that he was prosecuted even though police or prosecutors knew he was innocent, Adams said.
He would have to prove some kind of malicious or intentional conduct," Adams said. "I think that's a difficult burden for persons convicted to overcome."
In search of healing
At Borders, an elderly white woman greeted Hunt, congratulating him on his freedom.
She told him she had followed his case for years and was glad that it seemed justice had finally been done. Later, two teen-age girls, one white and one black, did a double-take when they saw Hunt at Thruway Shopping Center.
The past few days, Hunt said, he has autographed sweatshirts and receipts.
"All I've been getting is praise and well-wishes, hugs and kisses," he said. He said he has tried not to get overwhelmed by the attention and the adjustment he has to make to life out of prison.
When he was first imprisoned, Hunt said, he felt only hurt, disappointment and confusion - not anger. Hunt said he wanted prosecutors and police to see that he was innocent.
He said he would like District Attorney Tom Keith, who has indicated publicly that he would like to meet with Hunt, to explain how this case was handled and what he would do to help someone who had been wrongly convicted.
Mayor Allen Joines, meanwhile, said yesterday that he is organizing a committee to help decide how to deal with the outcome of the case and its effect on the community.
"I don't believe the healing will occur by itself," Joines said.
He said he has asked the Rev. John Mendez, a longtime Hunt supporter, as well as Police Chief Linda Davis, the Rev. Richard Groves, the pastor of Wake Forest Baptist Church, and others to serve on the committee.
Joines said he wants to know what the community's concerns are related to the case and how they could pertain to the police department.
"Maybe it will give us direction for additional changes that might be needed," he said.
As for Hunt, he said he is not looking for an apology from Keith or any of the former district attorneys who pursued the case against him and did not reinvestigate, even after DNA results in 1994 showed that he was not the man who raped Sykes.
"What they need to do is apologize to Mrs. Sykes' family," Hunt said. "They lied to them for 20 years. Just leave me alone. Just let me live my life, what's left of it."
• Michael Hewlett can be reached at 727-7326 or at mhewlett@wsjournal.com
• Titan Barksdale can be reached at 727-7327 or at tbarksdale@wsjournal.com
• Journal reporters John Hinton, Phoebe Zerwick and Victoria Cherrie contributed to this story.