Something is bad wrong in the Mecklenburg County DA’s office. We’ve known that for some time, you say. But the Royce Mitchell and Matthew Morgan situations are entirely new and different levels of dysfunction.

In Mitchell’s case, the DA based charges against Mitchell solely on the presumption of DNA evidence — evidence that as it happens is not there. This is if we take the DA’s office at their word. It now says it based a rape and indecent liberty charge against Mitchell solely on the assumption that a paternity test of Tiffany Wright’s daughter would show Mitchell to be the father. In other words, they charged a guy with multiple felonies despite having no evidence in hand against him. Frankly, that is crazy — and scary. But that is the official line out of Peter Gilchrist’s office.

The line coming out of CMPD on the case is a whole different one. Police say they have plenty of other evidence against Mitchell and emphatically say they did not want the charges dropped. CMPD also claims that they were not told the charges were going to be dropped if the DNA came back wrong. Aside from the tiresome nobody-told-us routine, a perennial at the Mecklenburg Courthouse, this is a serious, substantive dispute. CMPD says they have evidence of crime and the DA’s office is saying, no you do not. There is a fact of the matter here as well.

Then there is the Morgan bond reduction and release. The DA’s office still cannot say if it told Judge Donnie Hoover about Morgan’s prior record of felony arrests during time he spent bonded out of jail — surely relevant to any decision on whether to reduce bond and allow the guy to be bonded out of jail. Again.

Judge Hoover is not talking about what he knew about Morgan. He is a judge, he answers to no one — unless he pisses off Lisa Bell. Just where has Judge Bell been as the courts under her direction spiral into lunacy? Recall Bill Belk was crazy — file a complaint with the Judicial Standards Commission crazy — to suggest that Judge Bell is a lapdog of local defense attorneys.

Now would be a perfect time to prove otherwise.

Bonus Conspiracy: I am starting to think that once the DA’s office decided not to file charges in connection with the shooting death of Marcus Fluker, Mecklenburg County judges resolved to “even” things up by releasing the other suspects charged in the McClure home invasion.