Sunday, February 29, 2004
GREENSBORO
Dealing with adversity through transformation rather than bitterness helped three men to emerge with their freedom from three of the most controversial criminal-justice cases in the Triad in the past 20 years.
Kwame Cannon, Ronald Cotton and Darryl Hunt discussed their cases and their readjustments to society during a forum yesterday at Bennett College in Greensboro. The forum, attended by nearly 100 people, was sponsored by the Triad Black Media Professionals.
Each man stressed the importance of not letting anger or frustration corrupt his mind, heart or faith, particularly during his time in prison and while under the media spotlight.
"I hold no bitterness because it eats you up from the inside out, and it'll kill you if you let it," Hunt said.
Hunt spent almost 19 years in prison after being convicted twice of the 1984 stabbing death of Deborah Sykes, a Winston-Salem Sentinel copy editor.
Hunt was released Dec. 24 after Willard E. Brown's DNA was found to be a match of the semen found in Sykes' body and Brown confessed to the crimes. Hunt was exonerated Feb. 6 and is awaiting the outcome of a pardon request to Gov. Mike Easley.
"I'll never get those 19 years back, and I can only live today forward and make the best of what life I have left," Hunt said. "I'm pleased to see that the mentality is changing in the community and that more people are working for more justice to be found."
Cotton said that having family and supporters believe in him kept up his spirits during his 101/2 years in prison. He was convicted of raping a Burlington woman in July 1984 and got a life sentence, primarily because of the convincing testimony of the victim. At his second trial, he was sentenced to another life term for a separate rape, primarily because that victim pointed to him as her assailant.
Cotton was set free in 1995 after DNA evidence showed that another Burlington man, Bobby Poole, had committed both crimes. He later became friends with the first victim, who lobbied for changes to state laws that enabled Cotton to receive nearly $110,000 in compensation for his incarceration from the state.
Poole had told fellow prisoners that he had been the one who raped the woman in Cotton's case and joked that Cotton was doing the time for his crime.
"At one point, I wanted to do away with him and made myself a blade to do it with," Cotton said. "My father convinced me not to kill him, to have faith in God that things would come out right. He was right.
"I kept up correspondences with family, with legal authorities, really anyone who was willing to give me a helping hand. I was writing so much I had calluses.
"But the more people who heard about my case, the more voices there were to speak out."
Cannon said that his case's chances were enhanced significantly when he let go of the bitterness that marked his first five years in prison. He served nearly 13 years in prison after getting two life sentences for six burglaries he committed in Greensboro.
"There were people who grabbed ahold of my case and wouldn't let go," Cannon said.
Cannon said that the efforts of his family, supporters and even his last victim helped convince law-enforcement authorities and former Gov. Jim Hunt that two life sentences were unduly harsh punishment for the nonviolent crimes he committed at age 17. Hunt commuted his sentence in 1999.
"I look at myself as someone trying to regenerate myself instead of rehabilitate myself," Cannon said. "Because rehabilitate means by definition to restore to a former state of being, and that's not what I want to do."
The men warned young people that they are going to be judged, particularly by law-enforcement, by the company they keep. They said that fast living had been part of their lives as teen-agers and they hung out with people who were viewed as troublemakers.
"I'd advise young people to look at the portraits of what we had been through and the similarities to them," Darryl Hunt said. "They need to listen to their parents and mentors because they know the right thing even though they may not like to hear it."
Cannon said that teen-agers need to feel closeness from their parents and their community now rather than receive it only after they commit a crime and are in prison.
"That kind of bonding can help them keep from becoming at-risk in the first place," Cannon said.
• Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com