The learning curve of the DTH
The job means working constant hours and making decisions that draw merciless public scrutiny. It means feeling, sometimes, like you’re graduating from The Daily Tar Heel and not from UNC.
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The job means working constant hours and making decisions that draw merciless public scrutiny. It means feeling, sometimes, like you’re graduating from The Daily Tar Heel and not from UNC.
On Tuesday, a state judge told the University that it was overusing a federal statute to illegally withhold information from the public.
Keeping the government transparent and accountable isn’t just the job of journalists.
Will Pettis thinks he did everything he could to make sure his food truck was legal — he said he has his permits, pays his taxes, meets health code and parks with permission.
The company that manages about $2.5 billion of UNC’s endowed funds hasn’t met its performance benchmarks for two fiscal years.
A lawsuit is a last resort.
As a meeting of the Honor Court ended late Thursday, a reporter for The Daily Tar Heel was asked to leave the premises of the Student and Academic Services Building — a public space he had a right to be in.
Students don’t have to worry about the University releasing their grades or academic behavior records to the public without their permission.
More than two years since men kidnapped and shot UNC’s student body president, one killer’s legal journey through two court systems has landed him in prison for life.
A man who pleaded guilty to former Student Body President Eve Carson’s murder will spend the rest of his life in jail.
A new year starts, and some familiar questions are posed.
Players, the bar on Franklin Street, has new owners, staff members say.
The public may never know Demario Atwater’s full defense against charges that he killed former Student Body President Eve Carson.Atwater, 23, pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges related to Carson’s death in exchange for life in prison without parole. He would have been eligible for the death penalty if convicted in the trial, which was set to begin May 3.Atwater still faces first-degree murder and kidnapping charges in state court, along with codefendant Lawrence Alvin Lovette, 19. But Atwater’s federal court plea, because it sets him up to receive the second highest punishment possible for his crimes, reduces the incentive for Orange County’s district attorney to go through a trial in state court.The only harsher sentencing a trial in state court could bring would be the death penalty — and death penalty trials are much longer, more expensive ordeals with more obstacles for the prosecutor.A hearing is tentatively set for next week in state court, during which the district attorney could decide he is also satisfied with accepting a guilty plea for charges related to Carson’s death. That would end the trial process.“If we have already locked him up for the rest of his life, does it make sense to spend time and money and put the family through an emotional roller coaster?” said Duke University law lecturer Tom Maher, who is executive director of N.C. Indigent Defense Services. “Does it make sense to try death, when in North Carolina it is so hard to get to that point?“There is no incentive.”The federal effectHundreds of crimes occur in North Carolina that are schematically identical to the one that ended in Carson’s death.Prosecutors say on March 5, 2008, Atwater and Lovette kidnapped Carson from her home, took her to ATM machines to withdraw $1,400 from her bank account, and then shot her in a neighborhood off East Franklin Street.The state charged them both with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping.Usually, federal prosecutors wouldn’t get involved.Legal experts following the case have different theories about why Atwater’s case was different. Some say federal courts got involved to ensure that he received the death penalty, evidenced by the fact that they pursued charges against Atwater, who is old enough to receive the death penalty, but not against Lovette, who was too young at the time of the crime.Local criminal defense lawyer Barry Winston said he thinks the involvement came with a desire to latch on to a high-profile case.Whatever the incentive, federal courts are known for going through the legal decision process efficiently, which can either provide quicker closure or a lack of full answers to questions about the crime.“It’s terrible that the feds got involved, that they pushed this case as rapidly as they did,” Winston said. “We will never know whether Demario Atwater ever had a defense or not.”Burdens of a capital trialLegally, the decision made in federal court has no bearing on Atwater’s state charges.“It really doesn’t affect us because they’re two separate things, two separate cases,” Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall said.But logistically, pursuing the death penalty for Atwater would mean a lot more hoops for the prosecution to jump through, from screening jurors for strong opinions to an appeals and post-conviction process, Maher said.UNC law professor Rich Myers said it might be difficult to get an Orange County jury to agree to a death penalty sentence.Carson’s parents stated they were in agreement with the plea bargain in federal court.So with one governmental body in agreement with the result, as well as the family of the victim, it is up to the district attorney whether he wants to negotiate a plea bargain or go through with the trial process in pursuit of capital punishment. “The first and most important decision is Woodall’s to make,” Winston said. “Given what I know about him and what I’ve read about the wishes of Eve Carson’s family, it would not surprise me if Woodall said he was satisfied with the results obtained in federal court.”What this means for LovetteBecause Lovette is ineligible for the death penalty, his trial will be much simpler: a question of whether he committed the crime, and if so, whether it was in the first degree.“If it were a capital case, that would be the beginning and not the end,” Maher said. “These trials often take a week and sometimes less.”But they will no longer have the advantage of seeing Atwater’s federal trial play out first.“They might have been hoping to get a sneak preview of all the government’s evidence,” Myers said.Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
A judge decided the trial for one of the two men charged with killing former Student Body President Eve Carson can stay in North Carolina, dismissing an argument that unbiased jurors would be impossible to find.During the last five months, Demario James Atwater’s defense attorneys submitted pages of evidence that Carson’s killing sparked enough media coverage to ensure that almost all North Carolina residents knew about the case, and that more than half of residents had already decided that Atwater, 23, was guilty.But U.S. District Court Judge James Beaty said all the evidence of extensive media coverage only convinced him that potential jurors needed to be well-screened — not that the trial needed to move altogether.
A judge decided the trial for one of the two men charged with killing former Student Body President Eve Carson can stay in North Carolina, dismissing an argument that unbiased jurors would be impossible to find.During the last five months, Demario James Atwater’s defense attorneys submitted pages of evidence that Carson’s killing sparked enough media coverage to ensure that almost all North Carolina residents knew about the case, and that more than half of residents had already decided that Atwater, 23, was guilty.But U.S. District Court Judge James Beaty said all the evidence of extensive media coverage only convinced him that potential jurors needed to be well-screened — not that the trial needed to move altogether.In his denial of the defense’s request to move the trail, he wrote that mainstream media coverage of Carson’s killing on television and in newspapers was mostly factual. The more prejudiced and inflammatory information came from passionate online reader comments or blogs, he wrote.“There is no basis to conclude that the extreme views of a few, expressed anonymously online, possibly by individuals not even in this district, compel the conclusion that all of the potential jury pool will be prejudiced against the defendant,” Beaty wrote.The trial will be held as originally planned in the N.C. Middle District court in Winston Salem, which is the court Orange County federal cases go to. It starts in less than three weeks — on May 3.During the jury selection process, if it does prove to be impossible to find unbiased jurors, Beaty said he would reconsider the request to move the trial out of state.But the court already has distributed hundreds of questionnaires to potential jurors in preparation for its selection process. Based on a preliminary look at those questionnaires, the court thought it wouldn’t run into many problems, Beaty wrote.As he awaits the federal trail, Atwater is also facing charges at the state level for first-degree kidnapping and first-degree murder, along with Lawrence Alvin Lovette, who is 19.Prosecutors say on March 5, 2008, Atwater and Lovette kidnapped Carson from her home, drove her in her car to ATMs to withdraw $1,400, then shot her five times in a neighborhood off East Franklin Street.There is no date yet for the state trial.Atwater can receive a death penalty sentence if convicted in either state or federal court.Lovette is not facing federal charges, and will not face the death penalty. He was a minor at the time of the crime and is not eligible.Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
A federal judge decided today to not allow the trial for Demario Atwater to be moved out of state.
The Daily Tar Heel is at its best when it engages the University community in informed conversation. If I am selected editor, I will dedicate myself to reaching and connecting with our community more effectively. We can use the year to grow as a resource, both for our readers and for the student journalists we train.GOALS
One of the men charged with killing former Student Body President Eve Carson claims he was abused by Durham police during his arrest.A court document filed by federal defense attorneys Monday links Demario James Atwater’s reportedly rough, abusive arrest with his behavior during police questioning.If defense attorneys can prove that Atwater, 23, was abused to the point that he felt forced to make statements during questioning, that evidence can be thrown out.
Judicial assistant Tammy Keshler noticed the black smoke around 4 p.m. Thursday — it followed the smell. Her camera was already in hand.She had been taking pictures to document the Chatham County courthouse renovations, set for completion April 30.The picture of smoke from the ceiling was the last she’d take inside before spending the next few hours watching the building she loved go up in flames.“We were out standing there, and Judge (Allen) Baddour watched his office burn, and then I watched my office burn.” Keshler said. “It was just a nightmare.”The major fire that almost destroyed the historic Chatham County courthouse Thursday didn’t hurt anyone, officials said.But it will have repercussions for the county and its court system — among them loss of court records. District Attorney Jim Woodall said computers were destroyed, along with court files, by the combination of fire and hose water.“I don’t even know right now which court files are missing,” Keshler said, adding that the superior court judge had papers on his desk to sign.Keshler said that there’s an emergency plan for figuring out where to send people to work and that she expected a meeting Friday to lay out the details.The mayor of Pittsboro, where the courthouse is centrally located within a traffic circle, also announced plans to hold an emergency meeting to determine how to move forward.Many people suspected that renovations at the top of the building caused the fire. Keshler said there have been multiple false alarms since renovations started. But Mayor Randolph Voller said nothing is official until the Pittsboro Fire Department and State Bureau of Investigation complete their analysis.“Someone messed up,” Voller said.In the coming days, court workers will have to confirm who has custody of evidence and documents and how much was destroyed.Keshler said many court files can be restored because lawyers have copies of documents.The sex tapes from the recent hearings involving John Edwards’ mistress Rielle Hunter, for example, are safe, Keshler said.The Chatham County courthouse was built in 1881 by a local lawyer after a roof blew off the old building. It is the fourth courthouse built in the county and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.The scaffolding that surrounded the building during renovation acted like a chimney for the fire, Keshler said.“Out of tragedy, we’re going to rebuild,” Voller said.Staff writer Phong Dinh contributed reporting.Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
The Chatham County courthouse will be almost completely destroyed by a fire that began around 4:30, officials and witnesses say.