{"id":884,"date":"2013-03-18T22:53:20","date_gmt":"2013-03-18T22:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=884"},"modified":"2016-07-04T10:35:13","modified_gmt":"2016-07-04T10:35:13","slug":"could-no-have-thwarted-prosecutor-gone-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=884","title":{"rendered":"Could N&#038;O have thwarted &#8216;prosecutor gone wild&#8217;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"style187\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-886\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/130318Sitton.jpg\" alt=\"130318Sitton\" width=\"120\" height=\"180\" \/>March 18, 2013<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cWhen I look back, I think my greatest mistake (was) my failure as editor of the News &amp; Observer to make sure we had a top-notch investigative reporter on the Little Rascals case in Edenton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cOur regional person was adequate as a regional correspondent, a full-time staffer, but he was not the person to see what was wrong with this case and to do the necessary digging to root it out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cThat prosecutor had gone wild, eaten up by ambition, I suppose, to hang these people, these people who operated the Little Rascals Day Care Center, no matter how.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201c&#8230;All the kids talked about being borne through the air this way and that way and flying all over, and it was crazy stuff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-885\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/130318Stith.jpg\" alt=\"130318Stith\" width=\"120\" height=\"180\" \/>\u201cAs it turned out, (the Edenton Seven were eventually released), but it wrecked their lives forever. And I still feel sorry about that, still feel sorry about it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cI think had we sent someone like\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/voices.washingtonpost.com\/washingtonpostinvestigations\/2008\/09\/nc_reporting_legend_pat_stith.html\" target=\"_blank\">Pat Stith<\/a>\u00a0down there, that would have been it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cBut see, at that time, Edenton already was a pretty far reach for the News &amp; Observer&#8230;. (Our) pulling out of eastern North Carolina (to cut expenses) might have affected my thinking (about) whether we were really responsible for doing something about that miscarriage of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"style173\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>\u2013 From an interview with\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.georgiaencyclopedia.org\/nge\/Article.jsp?id=h-3703\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Claude Sitton<\/em><\/a><em>, editor of the Raleigh News &amp; Observer\u00a0from 1968 to 1990 (Southern Oral History Program, Southern\u00a0Historical Collection, UNC Chapel Hill, July 12, 2007)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>March 18, 2013 \u201cWhen I look back, I think my greatest mistake (was) my failure as editor of the News &amp; Observer to make sure we had a top-notch investigative reporter on the Little Rascals case in Edenton. \u201cOur regional person was adequate as a regional correspondent, a full-time staffer, but he was not the [&hellip;]<\/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-884","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\/884","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=884"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2462,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884\/revisions\/2462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}