{"id":664,"date":"2012-10-12T16:44:06","date_gmt":"2012-10-12T16:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=664"},"modified":"2016-03-02T02:40:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T02:40:00","slug":"you-dont-just-brush-off-24-years-of-a-mans-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=664","title":{"rendered":"‘You don’t just brush off 24 years of a man’s life’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"121012Gaither2\"Oct. 12, 2012<\/p>\n

The exoneration of\u00a0Willie Grimes<\/a>\u00a0warms my heart, and not just because the 66-year-old parolee has become \u201cFree at last!\u201d after a 1987 rape conviction in Hickory.<\/p>\n

As often\u00a0lamented on this site<\/a>, prosecutors such as those in the Little Rascals case simply refuse to acknowledge, much less take responsibility for their mistakes.<\/p>\n

In the Grimes case, however, District Attorney\u00a0Jay Gaither\u00a0told the Innocence Inquiry Commission panel, \u201cThe State cannot argue any conclusion other than for innocence in the case of Willie Grimes,\u201d then rested the state\u2019s case and sat down.<\/p>\n

Afterward, he explained that \u201cIn this week\u2019s presentation of evidence we counted no less than 35 pieces of evidence and testimony in support of innocence…. The fact that the three-judge panel was so emphatic in its conclusion and decision only strengthens the confidence I have in our decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"121012Grimes\"But Gaither went even further, on camera and rebroadcast by WSOC-TV: \u201cOn behalf of the district attorneys of North Carolina, I want to offer an apology to Willie Grimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes \u2013 an apology!<\/p>\n

Although the Grimes conviction occurred long before Gaither took office in 2002, DAs often feel compelled to defend even their predecessors\u2019 performance. As former New York prosecutor\u00a0Bennett Gershman<\/a>\u00a0has observed, \u201cThe prosecutor can’t do anything that undermines the public’s confidence in the prosecutor’s office. Once the public begins to doubt that prosecutors convict guilty people \u2013 that there may be mistakes in the system \u2013 that undermines confidence in the prosecutor….\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaither took the opposite approach. \u201cYou don\u2019t just brush off 24 years of a man\u2019s life and go on,\u201d he told me Wednesday. \u201cA series of events denied Mr. Grimes a fair trial. Closure was required.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted the public, as well as Mr. Grimes, to know that we weren\u2019t just beat down, but that we were actually sorry.\u201d (Click Gaither’s picture above to watch the broadcast that includes video of the courtroom apology.)<\/p>\n

Also notable is how Gaither framed his apology: \u201cI was speaking not so much for district attorneys as individuals, as for the State of North Carolina…. Only 44 of us have that right to say \u2018The state says….\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

In this case, that right was admirably used. Would that it happened more often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oct. 12, 2012 The exoneration of\u00a0Willie Grimes\u00a0warms my heart, and not just because the 66-year-old parolee has become \u201cFree at last!\u201d after a 1987 rape conviction in Hickory. As often\u00a0lamented on this site, prosecutors such as those in the Little Rascals case simply refuse to acknowledge, much less take responsibility for their mistakes. In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=664"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1998,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions\/1998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}