Last Friday, violence erupted outside the Wake County Courthouse when Gwendolyn White reportedly shot at two lawyers, Mary Harris and Jeffrey Whitley. The attack happened after a tense hearing at which the lawyers were representing the Rolesville Police Department in a matter involving a request for officer-worn body camera footage. The News & Observer published an audio recording from the hearing, in which Ms. White can be heard shouting in the courtroom. Thankfully both lawyers survived the attack. Ms. White stands charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder. The incident highlights the challenges of security inside and outside the courtroom, as well as the intersection of mental health and the legal system. In a WRAL interview, one of Ms. White’s former lawyers shared his condolences with everyone involved, and noted that Ms. White had “significant mental health challenges.” The Wake courthouse reopened earlier this week, and my thoughts are with those who returned to carry out the important work of the court system. The North Carolina Lawyer Assistance Program has counseling resources available to those who have experienced a crisis event or other trauma.
Prison staffing pilot. The judiciary isn’t the only branch of government grappling with security concerns. Over in the Executive Branch, the Department of Adult Correction is working on ways to address prison staff shortages. ABC11 has the story on DAC’s pilot program to streamline hiring by allowing applicants to begin working in certain roles at the prison while completing certification requirements. The contingent hiring model has been implemented at Central, Harnett, and Pasquotank. The Governor’s Office has emphasized the need for a more comprehensive solution, beginning with correctional officer salaries. A press release noted that North Carolina ranks 49th in starting salaries for correctional officers, with Governor Stein adding, “Right now, we’re asking people to put themselves in a very demanding job [where they] earn less money than they can working at a Costco.”
Another Batson reversal from Mississippi. Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided Pitchford v. Cain, siding with a Mississippi death row inmate in his Batson challenge. Defendant Terry Pitchford argued that at his 2006 trial, the trial court judge did not properly carry out the three-step Batson process when evaluating his allegation of racial discrimination in the prosecutor’s dismissal of four potential jurors who were black. (The prosecutor in Pitchford’s case was the same prosecutor involved in Flowers v. Mississippi, 588 U.S. 284 (2019), another Batson reversal, summarized here. Same trial judge, too.) The short, 5–4 majority opinion was authored by Justice Kavanaugh and joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson, and Chief Justice Roberts. The crux of the case was that the trial court erred on step three of the Batson process, failing to give defense counsel an opportunity to argue that the prosecutor’s race-neutral reasons for striking the jurors were pretextual. We’ll dig into the details in a future post. In the meantime, ScotusBlog has a helpful summary.
The man with the golden . . . bars. Finally, the FBI arrested a former U.S. intelligence official, David Rush, after agents found more than $40 million worth of government property at his residence in the form of gold bars, foreign currency, and Rolexes. In addition to the investigation of his high-end stash, Rush is charged with lying about his credentials, including saying at one point that he was a military test pilot. If this was a “Catch Me if You Can” situation, it looks like the FBI could and did. I used to have a fairly high-level security clearance for my former job, but I was apparently not read into the same programs as Mr. Rush.
