The time has come to ask that question. Today’s wholly absurd attack on Judge James Dever by the Uptown paper of record could not be more helpful to Jim Black and his bid to de-legitimize his corruption prosecution. Make no mistake, the bid to remove Dever from Black’s sentencing is just the first step in an appeal process for Black. Today the Observer joined Jim Black’s legal defense team.
Why a supposedly unbiased observer would rush to aid Black in is time of need is a mystery. Or perhaps not.
We have already noted the Observer’s strange coddling of Black over the years — the decision not to report Black’s answers to the Observer’s questions about any possible extra-marital affair with former aide Meredith Norris being the most glaring example.
As misguided as that favorable treatment might have been, it may have been prompted by an equally misguided view that Mecklenburg benefitted by Black’s power in Raleigh or that the social welfare state policies Black pushed were good for the state. Either motivation is merely wrong, not intellectually dishonest.
Not so the call for Judge Dever to step down. Unless the paper is willing to hold to a radical new interpetation of judicial fairness — that one-time politically active judges may not sit in judgment of politically active defendants belonging to a different political party — we are left with special pleading for Jim Black.
Why? And that is just the first of many questions the Observer’s new standard for “court appearances” prompts.
Does this concern for the public’s interest and trust in the criminal justice system extend to any appearance of bias arising, say, from a donor to the Jim Black League Defense Fund coming before Judge Nancy Norelli — Jim Black’s sister — in a Mecklenburg criminal court?
Do we even know if such a situation has arisen? How would we know, with donors to the legal defense fund secret? This would seem a much broader matter of public interest going forward than the relatively narrow question of how many months in prison Jim Black gets. Yet the Uptown paper of record inverts the import.
On the matter of how much time Jim Black deserves in prison, understand that Jim Black did not commit some small time white-collar fraud. He sold out an entire state. Judge Dever — or any competent judge — is correct to explore to the greatest extent possible maximizing Black’s penalty to reflect enormity of his crimes. There is no state offense for treason against the people of North Carolina, yet Jim Black is surely guilty of it. Treating him like some two-bit bagman is not justice.
Yet the Observer seems to think it is. Why?
The only reasonable conclusion is that Jim Black has very embarassing stories to tell about the paper and its reporting over the years. Stories the Observer would prefer not to come out.
Well, too bad. The truth always comes out. The only question is whether you get ahead of the truth by coming clean, or opt to get steamrolled later on.
Correction: As this note details, Nancy Norelli is not, in fact, related to Jim Black.
