4 The Daily Tar Heel Friday, Febr uary 17, 1978
Greg Porter
Editor
Ben Cornelius, Managing Editor
Ed Rankin, Associate Editor
Elliott Potter, Associate Editor
Laura Scism, University Editor
Keith Hollar, City Editor
Tony Gunn, State and National Editor
Reid Tuvim, News Editor
.
Sara Bullard, Features Editor
Chip Ensslin, Arts Editor
Gene Upchurch, Sports Editor
Allen Jernigan. Photography Editor
BmUj
85th year of editor, lal freedom
Troubles in Midwest
Coal strike continues; power supply threatened
Federal meddling robbed
Charlotte 3 of justice
Most North Carolinians probably are getting tired of mounting attacks on the
state's judicial system. Eyer-present, ever-vocal protesters have rut hlessly ridiculed
the Tar Heel state, and even some of its most patient citizens are sa ying, " Enough is
enough."
But the good people of North Carolina should not be too hasty in dismissing all
the cries of injustice as unwarranted. In North Carolina and thu other 49 states,
there exists a certain number of injustices. Our court systems are not peirfect. We
must be uncompromising in our efforts to weed out instances of w rongdoings in pur
court system.
Strong evidence suggests that three black men in Charlotte ar e victims of one of
those wrongdoings. James Earl Grant, T. J. Reddy and Charles Parker were
convicted in 1972 of arson in the mysterious destruction of the Lazy B Stable in
Charlotte. Grant, a chemist and writer, was sentenced to 25 yoars; Reddy. a poet
and a sculptor, 20 years; and Parker, an anti-poverty worker, 1,0 years. Parker has
been released on parole, and Grant and Reddy are free on bail while the U.S.
Supreme Court considers an appeal to review their case. Meanwhile, the Charlotte 3
are spending their days of 'freedom by fighting to prove theiir innocence.
The Charlotte 3 were largely convicted on the testimony o f two men Walter
David Washington and Theodore Alfred Hood who claimed they were
eyewitnesses to the alleged firebombing of the riding stables. The testimony of the
two prosecuting witnesses was confusing and marked with c onflicting accounts of
the same event. Washington and Hood disagreed on who made the firebombs.
When asked who threw the firebombs, Hood testified, "Wei 1 the side that 1 was on
was closed off. . . 1 could not see inside the barn." Washington, who testified that he
was standing only a few feet from Hood, told the court, "Both doors to the barn
were open. . .1 had a pretty good view of the inside of the: barn."
In exchange for their testimony, Washington and Hood were granted immunity
from prosecution for their involvement in the firebombing :and charges of violating
federal gun control laws. Washington was also granted immuniity from prosecution
for violating parole. He was a prime suspect in connection with several
Mecklenburg County murders at the time of the Charlotte 3 trial, but charges were
never brought against him.
In addition, the two key prosecution witnesses received $4,000 each in "relocation
payments" from the U.S. Justice Department in exchange for their testimony in t he
Lazy B trial and another federal case. The Treasury Department listed the payments
as "funds for the purchase of evidence." One of the defendants testified during the
trial that he had received no money from the government in exchange for his
testimony, though Washington and Hall were given $1 ,000 each before the trial
began. The federal payments were not disclosed to the judge, the defense attorneys
or, most important of all, the jury.
Why was the U.S. government meddling in a seemingly local case? Why was the
conviction of the Charlotte 3 worth $8,000 in money incentive grants for the
prosecution's star witnesses?
The defense's contention that the Charlotte 3 were prosecuted for their
involvement in the civil rights movement certainly hasn't been refuted by any of the
evidence disclosed since their trial. Grant, Reddy and Parker we re involved in anti
draft counseling in 1968 in response to plans of the U.S. Army to make the black
community of Charlotte a prime area for recruiting. They were organizers of the
black community an activity that was not appreciated by white-dominated
government agencies in the late '60s.
The innocence of the Charlotte 3 has not been proved. Grant's contention that he
was not in Charlotte at the time of the Lazy B fire wa s discredited by a clerk who
testified that Grant opened a checking account at a Charlotte bank the day of the
fire. If the Charlotte 3 can be proved guilty in a proper court proceeding, they
should be returned to jail with stiff sentences.
However, the credibility of the prosecution's case against the Charlotte 3 has been
shot full of holes. The jury that convicted the Charlotte 3 in 1972 was not working
with all the facts. It should have been able to weigh the credibility of the
government's witnesses in the case. The jury was kept unaware of the payoffs and
the prosecution's wide-ranging promises of immuni.ty.
The Charlotte 3 deserve another trial.
Whether he likes it or not, there is another criminal case in North Carolina that
merits the attention of Gov. Jim Hunt. Readers are urged to write the governor and
express their opinions concerning the case, either pro or con.
We must state emphatically that justice can not be bought in North Carolina.
The nation's coal operators bowed to President
Carter's wishes Wednesday after a short-lived refusal
and agreed to bargain at the White House with miners,
whose 72-day strike is causing massive problems.
White House press secretary Jody Powell
announced the Bituminous Coal Operators
Association had agreed to resume negotiations just
three hours after the group had publicly declined to go
along with Carter's request for renewed bargaining.
The United Mine Workers' 160,000 members have
been on their record-long strike since Dec. 6, when
their previous three-year contract expired.
The coal strike combined with heavy snows to throw
industrial production into its largest slump in nearly
three years, the government reported Wednesday.
Major utilities in Ohio and Indiana have announced
they will reduce power next week a step that would
lead to cutbacks in commerical and industrial
operations and possibly mass layoffs.
If the coal strike continues, Gov. Jim Hunt may ask
North Carolinians to start conserving energy. If no
new contract is reached soon, he said he will take
stronger actions.
THE WEEK
By BETSY FLAGLER
Hunt said Wednesday he is prepared to announce
power cuts by utilities or even order mandatory
cutbacks in the state if the strike by miners continues to
drag on.
President Carter has decided to sell jet fighters to
Egypt for the first time in history while denying Israel
about half the war planes it wanted.
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance said U.S.
commitment to Israel remains firm, but he added,
"Egypt, too, must have a reasonable assurance of its
ability to defend itself if it is to continue the peace
negotiations with confidence."
Officials said Carter feels the time is now right to
shift into a more even-handed Middle East arms
policy. Israel continues to get more than $1 billion
worth of U.S. arms every year. The sale of fighters to
Egypt would mark the first time the U.S. ever has sold
Egypt any kind of offensive weapon at all.
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin said
Wednesday the sale is a threat to peace. "It should be
forbidden to supply them with aggressive weaponry
because such a supply will be an obstacle to conducting
the peace talks between Egypt and Israel," said Begin,
who accepted an invitation to visit Washington in
March for a "frank airing of differences."
Cairo Egyptian officials, although disappointed
their country did not get all it asked, said Wednesday
that Carter's decision to sell 50 war planes to Cairo
represented a U.S. policy shift in Egypt's favor.
They also said they viewed the U.S. package of
weaponry as a form of indirect pressure on Israel by
proposing to give it only half the number of warplanes
it had requested.
United Press International spoke too soon Tuesday,
and the Daily Tar Heel listened.
Democrat Bella Abzug of New York did not crush
her Republican opponent William S. Green to take a
seat in the H ouse of Representatives, despite what U PI
sent across its wires.
In her bid to serve the remaining ten months of
Edward Koch's term as U.S. representative from
Manhattan's 18th Congressional District, all Bella
Abzug crushed was a victory speech in her hand.
Abzug, who received 48 percent of the vote, said she
was waiting to see the results of the routine recanvass
of votes by the city Board of Elections today before
deciding whether to seek a formal recount.
The New Mexico Supreme Court Wednesday
reversed a Court of Appeals ruling that sexual
intercourse between a 23-year-old woman and a 15-year-old
male was permissible and essential to the
male's education.
The court issued a unanimous decision without
elaboration, but a formal opinion will follow soon.
Ernestine Favela of Clovis, N.M., is charged with
contributing to the delinquency of a minor by having
sexual intercourse with the youth.
The associate judge of New Mexico Court of
Appeals had ruled that Favela contributed to the
youth's worldly education, not to his delinquency.
"A consensual act of sexual intercourse engaged in
by a young man is nothing more than sex education
essential and necessary in his growth toward maturity
and subsequent domestic family life," the judge said.
The beginning of a Russian influenza epidemic
among young people is underway in the United States,
a federal health official said Tuesday.
The highly contagious strain has zeroed in on those
persons under 25 because young people have no
natural antibody protection against the Russian strain
of flu, which caused epidemics around the world from
1947 through 1957.
The generally mild illness has attacked thousands of
college students and military personnel, because they
are usually in close surroundings.
Outbreaks reported at colleges in Illinois and
California have hit up to 75 percent of the student
population.
The American Cancer Society's X-ray screening of
young women for breast cancer may cause in 1 5 to 20
years the worst epidemic of the disease in medical
history, a research scientist told Congress Tuesday.
A quarter of a million women recently have been
"marched through the radiation fields" used in the
mass screening process, according to the researcher,
Dr. Irwin Bross of the Roswell Park Memorial
Institute in Buffalo, N.Y.
There is no longer any question that radiologists
who describe X-rays as harmless "are killing their
patients," Bross said.
At least six months of psychiatric treatment has been
ordered for former Durham school principal
Clarence Blanton, who took his faculty hostage at
gunpoint last November when school officials decided
to replace him.
Young lovers in Vernon County, Wis. took
PID 70U HAVE TO
OPEN "THAT SCWLITZ MALT
i-IQUOK?
advantage Tuesday of County Clerk Roger Novy's
special Valentine's Day half-price sale on marriage
licenses. Any other day, it costs $5 to tie the knot in
Vernon County, but for Valentine's Day the rate was
$2.50.
A couple who walked into Novy's office between
8:30 and 9 a.m. got his "door-buster special," a license
for $1.50 and a mystery gift.
A man who showed up later was not lucky enough to
get the "door-buster special," or even a license at all.
His fiancee didn't show up.
White House press secretary Jody Powell was not
very lucky either on Valentine's Day. He lamented at a
news briefing, "There's nothing more discouraging
than to come in on Monday morning, see this whole
stack of Valentine cards on your desk, open them up
and find out people are telling you what you can do
with yourself."
A 60-year-old man had a bigger problem on his
hands Tuesday when his prize bull broke loose from
the tree it was tied to and sauntered throgh Zamora, a
province in northwest Spain.
The bull terrified police officers, firefighters and
marketgoers before winning a bullfight with a car and
ending up in a vacant third-floor apartment.
A 1 ,540 pound, horns-bucking five-year old that's
a lot of bull.
Betsy Flagler, a junior journalism major from
Winston-Salem, is a staff writer for the Daily Tar Heel.
Letters should not run over 50 lines
(300 words) and should be mailed to the
Daily Tar Heel, Carolina Union.
Unsigned or initialed columns on this
page represent the opinion of the Daily
Tar Heel. Signed columns or cartoons
represent the opinion of the individual
contributor only.
letters to the editor
Reverse discrimination bad approach
'this isa
FLEUK0N..Y0U
THOUGHT IT WAS
an asterisk,
dipntw
To the editor:
Before having read the DTH article
Wednesday concerning Dean Renwick's
recent report, I was pleased to know that his
work as special assistant to the chancellor
might assure black students of adequate
representation in the administration of the
University. Race relations difficulties,
unfortunately, still exist on this campus and
our finding solutions to these problems must
be considered high-priority business. It is my
hope that, sometime in the future, Dean
Renwick will not only strive for, but achieve
racial parity on this campus.
However, from his report, I now realize
that it is not racial parity for which he strives,
but it is "justified discrimination." He wants
to establish a special reception for
academically successful minority studnets.
He also wants to gain automatic
undergraduate acceptance for black
applicants meeting only the minimum
requirements.
I am deeply distressed, now, to realize that
high in our school's administration is a man
who supports reverse discrimination. I' feel
that any action taken on these grounds of
"more than equal" policy is unfair and
unconstitutional.
Finally, let it be known that racial equality
is of utmost importance to me. I will not be
totally content with any institution until
genuine racial equality is finally achieved
within that institution. However, "more than
equal" doctrineis not sound. It serves only to
stir racial unrest and to perpetuate the racial
discrimination which has existed in this
country for some 200 years. 1 hope that Dean
Renwick will soon aj;ree.
Fail! V.-;r
232 Averv
UNC system unequal
To the editor:
I would like to voice support for the
NAACP-HEW effort to equalize
educatitonal opportunity in our state
universit y system. In 1976, the Consolidated
University's 1 1 "white" campuses were 94.4
percent white, the five "black" schools 91.5
percent black. And, by any standard, there
exists a wide gap in quality between them.
It is difficult to understand what is
happening (the UNC Board of Governors'.
1977-79 Budget Request is 439 pages!), but
the universities are apparently funded
according to the following classifications:
major research (UNC and N.C. State), other
doctoral-granting (UNC-G), special (N.C.
School ,of Arts), comprehensive, and
baccalaureate. All "black" schools fall into
the last two categories, outnumbered by the
"white" in all but the lowest. Thus, for 1975
76, the "black" campuses received only 76.8
percent funding-per-student as the "white."
The Vet School, Med School, Institute of
Government, all Ph.D. programs, etc. have
been placed on "white" campuses. Could not
N.C. A&T, for example, be treated equally
with N.C. State? N.C. Central with Chapel
Hill?
HEW raises many complex issues but I
would hope that, instead of "fighting to the
bitter end," we would explore ways to make
this a more just and effective system.
Nyle Frank
Chapel Hill
Take posters down
To the editor:
It'j e.bout time something was done about
the pollution of our walls and bulletin
boards by thousands of campaign posters.
While there may be a reason to have them up
before the e'ection, I can't see any reason to
keep them up after the cVv'.Um. The removal
and disposal of this trash makes a good deal
of extra work for the custodial staff; Physical
Plant has to send over painters to repair the
damage done by taping posters to the walls.
I propose, in this era of post-Watergate
morality, that each candidate be held
personally responsible for the removal of all
posters within 24 hours following the
election. For any poster remaining up
beyond this time, there should be a fine
levied directly on the candidate and an extra
punitive fine for the taping of posters to any
painted wall. Maybe this system will inject a
small sense of responsibility into our
candidates and their campaign
organizations.
Doug Richards
8D University Gardens
Sage advice
To the editor:
The discussion that goes on and on in the
Middle East reminds me of the sage advice
given me by an American official in
Jerusalem; who, in 16 years, had absorbed
some of the desert philosophy which is so
akin to manana. I was working in Gaza with
UNRRA, and he urged me not to take my
work too seriously, quoting from Kipling
who wrote from many years experience in
the Middle East. , '
This philosophy of laissez faire affects us
in tune to the tinkling of the camel bells
but not to reason!
It is not good for the Christian health
To hustle the Ayan brown
For the Christian riles
And the Arab smiles
And it weareth the Christian down.
At the end of the fight is a tombstone w hite
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear 'A fool lies here
Who tried to hustle the East.'
Frances Berkeley Floore
738 F. Franklin St.
7
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