The N.C. Supreme Court will not review a lower court’s ruling that blocked the release of statements made by Winston-Salem police officers regarding the Silk Plant Forest case:
A three-judge panel of the N.C. Court of Appeals had unanimously ruled that Judge Richard Stone of Forsyth Superior Court had no authority to order the release of statements made by eight former and current officers to the Silk Plant Forest Citizens Committee.
J. Michael McGuinness of Elizabethtown, the officers’ attorney, said that the Supreme Court’s ruling ends the case.
“It was a long, hard legal battle,” McGuinness said. “These officers had a lot at stake.”
Kalvin Michael Smith is now serving 20-plus years in prison for the brutal beating of Jill Marker, who was the manager of the Silk Plant Forest store on Silas Creek Parkway. Questions about Smith’s guilt were later raised by the Innocence Project at Duke University and by a citizens’ committee following a series in the Winston-Salem Journal back in 2004.
A lot of time, effort and expense was put into the attempt to prove Smith’s innocence. It will be interesting to see if this is indeed the end of the case.