jmccann@heraldsun.com; 419-6601
DURHAM -- How a man can kill someone and get less time behind bars than a guy whose involvement with gunfire left somebody minimally injured had Durham's Dewayne Lester shaking his head.
"The judicial system in Durham is all messed up," Lester said.
Lester says he's the uncle of Danny Watson, who is doing time after getting convicted in February on a 2005 charge of assault with a deadly with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. Nobody died in the incident, and the gunfire merely grazed the victim, according to Lester.
Watson was sentenced to seven years and 11 months in prison.
Lester's frustration stemmed from learning this week that two men caught up in Bull City crime individually will serve less time than his nephew after confessing their involvement in a 2007 shooting that left one man dead and another wounded at 200 W. Enterprise St.
Originally charged with first-degree murder, Billy Jerome Richardson and Lawrence Grier this week pleaded guilty to reduced charges of involuntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury in the matter that claimed the life of Paul Maye on Dec. 15, 2007. Superior Court Judge Paul Gessner on Monday sentenced Richardson to 46 to 65 months behind bars, while Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson sentenced Grier to 17 to 30 months. At the most, that's not even six years of incarceration time Richardson was ordered to serve -- and a man died as a result of his crime.
The judge gave Grier credit for 20 months he's already served, so now the most time behind bars he's facing is 10 months.
Lester's nephew isn't projected to get out of prison until 2015.
Blame the judges? Well, they're easy targets, but judges are on the bench to uphold the law, which dictates sentencing parameters. And prosecutors can only work within the law to bring folks to conviction so judges can lay down the law.
Which means the ire of people like Lester should be directed toward Raleigh where politicians craft legislation, Hudson said. But prosecutors also have a role in this with respect to building solid cases, the judge added.
Durham County Assistant District Attorney Stormy Ellis prosecuted the cases involving Richardson and Grier, and she was relying on the testimony of Antonio Adams to help seal the deals.
Adams was at 200 W. Enterprise St. when Maye was shot and killed. Robert Lee Ferguson Jr. was shot and injured.
During a pretrial court hearing, Adams talked about some men coming to the house asking if there were Bloods gang members there. Adams said no. Before long, gunfire broke out, Adams said.
At some point outside of the courtroom, though, Adams' story changed, according to courtroom testimony. In another version, Adams said the intruders barged in demanding drugs and money. Grier's lawyer played that up in front of the judge when he sought to paint Adams as the ringleader of a drug operation at the house.
In other words, Ellis' key witness had lost credibility. The concern, then, was how believable Adams would be to jurors if the case went to trial. So instead of potentially losing the case and allowing Richardson and Grier to walk free, Ellis said she cut a deal.
"It's horrible, because when you look at this, somebody lost their life," Ellis said. A family is without a son, she said. But "the best I can do is what the evidence will let me do," the assistant district attorney said.
Hudson, who said the rap sheets of prosecutors' witnesses sometimes are as bad as the guys the defense lawyers are representing, is aware of those in the public having a tough time swallowing light sentences. Right now, someone with a relatively clean criminal record is looking at less than 10 years for second-degree murder, the judge said.
"That's hard to bite sometimes for second-degree murder," Hudson said. But "that is the way the process works, to some extent."
Serious crimes always ought to get serious punishment, no matter what, Hudson said. But the judge also acknowledged that it's just not possible to lock up every single criminal.
After having the issue explained to him, Lester -- his nephew is the one locked up on that assault charge -- began to come around.
"It's not Stormy's fault. It's not Tracey Cline's fault. It's the lawmakers," Lester said.
