Tuesday, February 03, 2004
The committee formed by Mayor Allen Joines to study how the apparent wrongful imprisonment of Darryl Hunt has affected the community will meet behind closed doors.
"I want folks to be able to have frank discussions without seeing their comments in the morning newspaper," said Joines, who will serve on the committee. "It is our intent to be very open with the process, but first we must come together and build some trust amongst ourselves."
The state's open-meetings law does not apply in this case because the committee formed by Joines is not an official public body. The committee's first meeting will be held this morning in City Hall.
Robert Elliot, a member of the Forsyth County Human Relations Commission appointed by Joines to the Hunt committee, said he agreed with the mayor's decision to keep the meeting closed. He did acknowledge the need to share information with the public.
"You're right; the public has a right and need to know," Elliot said. "The question is, 'At what point is that appropriate?'"
Another committee member, the Rev. John Mendez of Emanuel Baptist Church, had a similar view.
"I am assuming there will be some information forthcoming, otherwise we defeat the whole purpose of the thing," Mendez said.
The other committee members are: the Rev. Carlton Eversley of Dellabrook Presbyterian Church; Jim Shaw, a vice president of the local chapter of the NAACP; Richard Groves, the pastor of Wake Forest Baptist Church; Lee Garrity, the assistant city manager for public safety; Sylvia Oberle, the director of the Center for Community Safety; Lynn Rhoades, the director of a performance-based education program for youth; Winston-Salem Police Chief Linda Davis; and Linda Jackson-Barnes, Joines' assistant.
Joines said he did not intend to keep the public from knowing what the committee does, but he wanted community involvement to come in time as the group's goals are more clearly defined. He declined to say how long that might be.
"This is something that's very delicate and folks have to be able to feel like they can open up," Joines said.
Hunt was released from prison Dec. 24, having served 18 years after being convicted twice in the 1984 stabbing death of Deborah Sykes. Winston-Salem police charged a new suspect, Willard E. Brown, with rape and murder in the case after DNA taken from Brown matched a semen sample from the Sykes case.
A hearing on Friday will determine whether Hunt's murder conviction is overturned.
The case against Hunt, who maintained his innocence from the beginning, helped divide the city along racial lines for years, with many people saying that police and prosecutors ignored evidence that pointed to Hunt's innocence. DNA testing in 1994 ruled out Hunt as the man who raped Sykes, but the courts have consistently ruled that it did not eliminate him as a suspect.
Hunt was released on unsecured bond after Brown, when confronted with the DNA evidence, confessed and told authorities that he had acted alone.
Mendez said one of his goals in serving on the committee is to ensure that improvements in the handling of issues involving race in recent years don't falter now in the wake of the Hunt case.
"I don't think we are now where we were then," he said. "But we can't be afraid to look the real situation in the face. It's hard to believe people still will not submit to the truth."
• Victoria Cherrie can be reached at 727-7283 or at vcherrie@wsjournal.com