SBI settlements: The high cost of injustice

Published August 19, 2013

Editorial by Winston-Salem Journal, August 18, 2013.

North Carolina taxpayers will pay dearly for inexcusable mistakes made by the State Bureau of Investigation over the years. But men who will collect multi-million dollar settlements for those mistakes paid an even higher price: They lost their freedom for years.

Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, and his department’s insurers have agreed to pay two men who had been incarcerated due, in part, to misconduct by SBI agents, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported.

Floyd Brown of Anson County will receive $7.85 million for being locked in Dorothea Dix Hospital’s psychiatric unit for 14 years on the pretense that his I.Q. of 50 left him unable to defend himself against charges for a murder he did not commit.

Greg Taylor of Wake County spent 17 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. He will receive $4.625 million. Four years ago, another wrongly convicted inmate, Alan Gell of Bertie County received a $3.9 million settlement for the nine years he spent in prison after being wrongly convicted of murder based on tainted evidence.

On the financial side of this issue, it matters not that the state is insured in these cases. Taxpayers will cover the deductibles on those policies and they are certain to pay higher premiums in the future based on these settlements.

On the policy side, when Cooper announced the settlements recently, he said that the SBI misdeeds were based on outdated practices and policies that have now been corrected. He has pushed needed reform in his agency.

But there is one more thing Cooper could do: He could indicate the state’s true remorse for these injustices by doing the honorable thing. On behalf of the state, he could finally apologize to these men.