Oct. 21, 2011

How would you handle six years behind bars after being wrongfully convicted? Here’s how Bob Kelly did it:

“In jail (in Chowan County before being found guilty) there was nothing but sitting and waiting. Central Prison was easier – I could work.

“A warden told me, ‘Whoever kills Bob Kelly will have a trophy. I can put you in lockup, where you’ll be safe.’ But that would’ve meant spending 23 hours a day in a cell. I said, ‘Put me in the general population. I’ve got 12 life sentences, and I’m not going to do my time hiding.’

“But I tried to be smart. It was two years before I went outside in the yard. All I could think of was, if I got in a fight, how would that affect the appellate court?… Only one time did a jailhouse gangster lay his hands on me, and I realized I had to stand up to him to keep it from happening again….

“My first job was janitor in G block. I waxed the floor, emptied the trash, kept it like my home. They don’t allow bleach, because it would get thrown in the guards’ eyes, but I managed to talk a guy in the laundry room out of a bottle. It was great for spraying down the showers. My block was the only one in the whole prison that smelled like Clorox….

“My next job was running the canteen for lockup. The guys who had been there before me had watered down the Cokes and coffee and pocketed the difference. I wanted to run the best canteen I could, so I started giving full measure….

“You know what the other prisoners said? ‘You’re stupid – don’t you know you could be making money?”

July 10, 2014

“Thank you for your letter expressing your concerns about the prosecution of the Little Rascals Day Care Center personnel in Chowan County. Although this matter is outside my jurisdiction as head of the executive branch, I appreciate your interest in the administration of justice in North Carolina….

“I would suggest that it might be appropriate to wait until after the trial when all the evidence has been heard before reaching conclusions about the correctness of actions taken by (District Attorney H.P. Williams) and the court.

“North Carolina has had a long history of evenhandedness in the administration of justice, and I am confident that the tradition continues to be in effect. Nonetheless, if you wish to express your concerns directly to the District Attorney, his address is…..”

– From Gov. Jim Martin’s response to PBS viewers appalled by the first installment of “Innocence Lost” (May 7, 1991)

Last week I found in the State Archives in Raleigh about a dozen letters beseeching Gov. Martin to look into the case. Although significantly less heated than those addressing the mayor of Edenton, the letters expressed alarm about the plight of the Edenton Seven:

“As a member of Amnesty International, I write letters to officials of foreign governments, many of them without democratic governments or traditions, urging them to look into the cases of people being unjustly treated…. (In Edenton) one fact cannot be ignored: Defendants have been held in jail without a trial for close to two years….”

– Laura J. Reid, New York City

“I was disturbed by the incredibly high bonds recommended by the District Attorney and allowed by the Judge…. I would hope that you will personally intervene to request judicial review of the bonds set….”

– Steven J. Edwards, Decatur, Ga.

“As a former teacher, I can assure you that children – especially young children – can easily be coaxed, cajoled or pressured into say just about anything an adult might wish them to say.”

– S.T. Reynolds, Woodland, Calif.

I have asked Gov. Martin, now retired and living at Lake Norman, to discuss his views of the Little Rascals case both then and now. I’ll be posting his response soon.

Aug. 14, 2013

“FARMVILLE – A juror in the trial of Robert F. Kelly Jr. testified Wednesday that it was an ‘amazing coincidence’ that information from a magazine article appeared in his notes about jury deliberations.

“Dennis T. Ray insisted during a hearing on Kelly’s bid for a new trial that he did not use information from a Redbook article about child molestation to evaluate Kelly’s guilt. Ray denied that he compared Kelly to characteristics of a molester listed in the article.

“But defense attorney David Rudolf vigorously attacked Ray’s credibility by referring to notes Ray made during the deliberations. Rudolf cited numerous phrases from the magazine article, such as ‘vast amount of child pornography’ and ‘sex fiend’ which were identical to phrases in Ray’s notes.

“Rudolf, his voice rising, asked Ray whether it was just coincidence that so many phrases from the magazine appeared word-for-word in his notes. Ray replied that ‘it must be’ because jurors did not have the article in the jury room. ‘The only explanation you have for this is that it is an amazing coincidence?’ Rudolf asked. ‘Yes, sir,’ Ray said.

“In another sharp exchange, Rudolf questioned Ray’s contention that he did not describe the article in an interview with a producer for (“Innocence Lost”). Ray said he told her (only) that there were books in the jury room. Rudolf: ‘You are under oath, sir.’ Ray: ‘I do not remember saying that to her. No, sir.’ Rudolf: ‘Did you say it or not? You are under oath.’ Ray: ‘I do not believe that I did.’

“Rudolf then played video tapes of the program that showed Ray describing the article. Ray said after viewing the video that he did not remember it.”

– From “Kelly lawyer attacks juror’s credibility” in the News & Observer (Jan. 20, 1994)

Dennis T. Ray seems to have been quite a loose cannon in the jury room. In addition to the “amazing coincidence” of the Redbook article, Ray also (according to other jurors cited in Bob Kelly’s appellate brief) “made visits to Edenton despite instructions by the trial court not to.

Mr. Ray also claimed to have talked with an inmate at Eastern Correctional Institution. According to Mr. Ray, the inmate, a convicted child molester, claimed to know Bob Kelly, and to have personal knowledge of Mr. Kelly’s guilt. The jurors said that Mr. Ray also displayed some sort of object that he claimed to be a ‘magic key’ referred to by several children.”

Unpersuaded that any of this mischief might have contaminated the jury’s decision-making, Judge Marsh McLelland rejected Bob Kelly’s motion for a new trial.

Aug. 27, 2017

In 1999, when the last charges against Bob Kelly were dismissed, here’s how Joseph Neff of the News & Observer described the scene:

“The prosecutors in the longest, most expensive criminal case in North Carolina history picked a day when all attention was focused elsewhere to quietly throw in the towel.

“It was Sept. 15, as Hurricane Floyd churned northward toward landfall the next day, that Assistant District Attorney Nancy Lamb filed a two-page document with the Clerk of Superior Court in Edenton, dismissing eight counts of sexual abuse against Robert Kelly.”