Friday, April 2, 2004
Gov. Mike Easley said yesterday that he would decide soon whether to pardon Darryl Hunt, who was exonerated earlier this year in the 1984 rape and murder of Deborah Sykes.
A pardon will entitle Hunt to about $360,000 from the state - $20,000 for each of the 18 years he spent in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Easley's office declined a formal request for an interview this week, but he agreed yesterday to speak briefly about the case during an appearance in Greensboro.
"We just got some information in from several different sources," Easley said. "I think you can expect action fairly soon."
He declined to discuss the case in detail.
Tom Keith, Forsyth County's district attorney, reopened Hunt's case late last year after DNA testing identified a new suspect in the case. That man, Willard E. Brown, confessed to the crime and told police that Hunt played no role in Sykes' murder. A Superior Court judge vacated Hunt's conviction Feb. 6. Later that month, Hunt filed a petition with Easley asking for a pardon.
"We want things to happen faster than they've happened, but we certainly understand the need for the governor to check everything out," said Mark Rabil, Hunt's attorney. "It seems to me that the course of action is fairly clear with the district attorney joining in with a request for a pardon, the court exonerating Darryl and the police saying that he had no part in the crime."
Keith could not be reached yesterday, but he said recently that he wrote Easley to say that he does not oppose a pardon. After Brown confessed, Keith said, he spent the next few weeks reconstructing the events of Aug. 10, 1984, and closely examining all of the witness statements and testimony from two trials and several police and SBI investigations.
In February, Keith and the two investigators who testified at Hunt's court hearing met with Easley's counsel, Reuben Young, to explain why they believe that Hunt did not rape or stab Sykes.
"As far as did he kill Deborah Sykes? I can tell the governor no. Did he rape her? No," Keith said then. "All I can say is Darryl Hunt did not kill and rape Deborah Sykes."
For almost 20 years, the state's law-enforcement system fought hard to keep Hunt in prison. When Easley was attorney general, from 1993 to 2001, his office opposed a new trial for Hunt in arguments before the N.C. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals. When DNA testing first excluded Hunt in 1994 as the rapist, Easley's office continued to oppose a new trial for him on the grounds that he may not have raped her, but could still have participated in her murder.
Many people involved with the case - including Sykes' mother, Evelyn Jefferson - continue to believe in spite of the recent court rulings that Hunt somehow played a role in the murder.
State law requires the governor to notify victims and their families of a petition for pardon. Jefferson said this week that Easley's counsel visited her in her home outside Chattanooga, Tenn. "It certainly makes you feel better knowing they hear what you have to say," Jefferson said.
Easley has granted one other pardon in a case involving DNA evidence, and it took him just four days to decide. In January 2001, DNA evidence showed that former Marine Lesley Jean had not committed a rape he was convicted of in 1982. Jean's conviction had been overturned nine years earlier, but without the DNA, he could not prove his innocence.
Lawyers familiar with cases of wrongful conviction said yesterday that they were not surprised that Easley is taking his time with Hunt's case.
Tye Hunter, the executive director of the N.C. Office of Indigent Defense Services, handled numerous clemency applications in his former position as the state appellate defender. Because the state constitution and state law don't spell out a procedure for how governors must handle clemency and pardon requests, each governor tends to develop his own, Hunter said.
"I'm not surprised and I'm not critical (of Easley). I would be surprised if he didn't get a pardon in the end," Hunter said.
Should Hunt receive a pardon, he would apply to the N.C. Industrial Commission for compensation.
"Every case we've had so far, if they got the pardon they got the money," Commissioner Bernadine Balance said.
Rabil said that he would not charge Hunt attorney's fees, and that the compensation is not considered income and is therefore not subject to income tax.
Hunt spoke to law-school students at Campbell University and N.C. Central University yesterday, and is scheduled to speak today at Duke Law School.
"I just hope it's done soon so we can get past it, so I can at least take care of my family in some way," he said.
• Phoebe Zerwick can be reached at 727-7291 or at pzerwick@wsjournal.com
• David Rice, a reporter in the Journal's Raleigh bureau, contributed to this story.