More on Nancy Grace Case Decided by GA Supremes
Maggie
arson. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Murder retrial denied
Hastings owner won't face further prosecution
By BILL RANKIN
For the first time in 11 years, Weldon Wayne Carr is, in his words, "finally
breathing as a free man."
Weldon Wayne Carr said he was 'outraged' by his treatment by prosecutors.
Carr, a prominent Atlanta businessman convicted of killing his wife in 1993,
learned Monday that the Georgia Supreme Court had ended the state's murder
prosecution against him.
In a unanimous decision, the court found that Fulton County prosecutors, by
waiting more than four years to announce they were ready to retry Carr, had
unfairly prejudiced his right to a fair trial.
Carr, owner of Hastings Nature & Garden Center on Peachtree Road, called the
case a "tremendously tragic miscarriage of justice."
"My conclusion is to say the public would be as shocked as I was," Carr, 68,
said in a telephone interview. "I was naive. I assumed I had some rights. I
assumed I could have faith in the old principle of justice that you're assumed
to be innocent. I found the reverse to be true."
District Attorney Paul Howard said he regretted the case's outcome. "I
continue to believe Wayne Carr should stand trial for the murder of his wife,"
said Howard, who has been Fulton's top prosecutor since 1997 -- the year Carr's
conviction was overturned.
In 1994, a Fulton County jury convicted Carr of setting his Sandy Springs home
on fire to kill his wife, Patricia. Prosecutors said Carr had discovered she
was having an affair and alleged Carr knocked his wife unconscious before
setting their home ablaze.
Carr was acquitted of aggravated assault, but convicted of arson and murder
and sentenced to life in prison. Jurors pointed to strong circumstantial
evidence: In the days before the fire, Carr checked on his fire insurance, made
copies of his and his wife's wills, told his son to remove belongings from the
family home and put valuables in a safe-deposit box.
But Carr's conviction was overturned in 1997 when the state Supreme Court
found the trial judge improperly admitted unreliable evidence that a trained
dog had detected a fire accelerant at the scene.
The court also strongly rebuked then-prosecutor Nancy Grace -- now host of
Court TV's "Closing Arguments" -- of engaging in "inappropriate and, in some
cases, illegal conduct in the course of the trial."
This included, Carr's appeal said, an illegal search of Carr's home to allow
one of Grace's expert witnesses to view the crime scene and allowing, before
the trial, a CNN television crew to enter Carr's home while filming a feature
on her.
Years of delay
Before deciding whether it would retry Carr, Howard's office agreed to hire a
new arson expert to investigate the case.
But years passed and no expert was retained. Finally, Superior Court Judge
Rowland Barnes said that the case would be dismissed if no expert was hired by
Oct. 25, 2001.
On that day, prosecutors announced they had hired an expert and were ready to
retry Carr.
But they acknowledged the expert did not conclude the fire was the result of
arson, the Georgia Supreme Court ruling on Monday said.
Carr's lawyer, Don Samuel, moved to have the case dismissed on speedy trial
grounds. Samuel noted that because so much time had lapsed, three key defense
witnesses had died or were so sick they could not testify.
Lawyer: 'No evidence'
Barnes' decision to grant the motion was upheld Monday.
"Some people might misconceive this as his getting away with it or it being a
technicality," Samuel said. "But the fact of the matter is the reason the state
waited so long was because they had no evidence with which to prosecute him."
Carr, who was incarcerated for several years but has been out on bond since
1998, said there was "not one iota" of direct evidence against him and said he
has an explanation for every piece of circumstantial evidence used against him.
"I'm outraged," Carr said. "I'm determined to make the public aware, from my
experience, what can happen to them and to their children and their families
through prosecutorial misconduct and through a system that thrives on wins and
losses and does not pay any real attention to the principles of justice."
Maggie
"Nancy, if you were 8 1/2 months pregnant and I was married to you, I'd be
going fishing Christmas Eve." -- Mark Geragos, to Nancy Grace on LKL
Madelin McKinnon
> found the trial judge improperly admitted unreliable evidence that a trained
> dog had detected a fire accelerant at the scene.
>
> The court also strongly rebuked then-prosecutor Nancy Grace -- now host of
> Court TV's "Closing Arguments" -- of engaging in "inappropriate and, in some
> cases, illegal conduct in the course of the trial."
>
> This included, Carr's appeal said, an illegal search of Carr's home to allow
> one of Grace's expert witnesses to view the crime scene and allowing, before
> the trial, a CNN television crew to enter Carr's home while filming a feature
> on her.
Does Nancy Grace ever say anything that is appropriate?
Like pornographer Ken Starr and CNN, who thrived on the opportunity to
introduce the words "oral sex" into everyday usage the way the
initials, H.B. (Horny Bastard) are currently being magnified, the
media is having another salacious field day. I think the real initials
that merit widespread circulation are S.M. (Stupid Morons) because
they apply to the media and to all the authorities who still think
that this is all about sex. This is about the murder of Laci Peterson
and about all the unindicted whores (feel free to be vulgar now that
the media has lowered expectations) who blame an innocent man to cover
up their own incompetence or involvement. At the very least, these
S.M.'s are obstructing justice by distorting the truth about the
murder of Laci Peterson. If it wasn't for the investigative reports of
David Sween, who has been one step ahead of the effort to frame an
innocent man, Scott Peterson would have been dead and buried by now,
just like Richard Albert Ricci was. The fact that David Sween is
responsible for saving Scott Peterson became graphically plain
recently, when the disgraced prosecution tried to save the reputation
of the incompetent, Detective Allen Brocchini. The detective had
gotten a call about how Scott dumped Laci in the ocean on April 19,
2003, a day after Scott Peterson was arrested, but Detective Allen
Brocchini did not follow up because, in his words,
"I just couldn't corroborate it, and I just didn't put a lot of stock
in it."
In retrospect, such a call is consistent with the persistent effort to
frame Scott Peterson, and investigator, David Sween, had virually made
that crystal clear when he wrote the following report:
http://www.geocities.com/botenth/scott.htm
So you see, if David Sween did not methodically and systematically
expose every absurd plot to frame Scott Peterson, the prosecution
might have fraudulently "cemented" the case against Scott early on,
and he may have died in prison, just like Richard Albert Ricci did.
The April 19 telephone call tip that Brochini dismissed is the very
same one that the prosecution has currently embraced, and that is a
clear indication of the fact that earlier efforts to frame Scott
Peterson were discarded because David Sween exposed every fraudulent
effort to "cement" the case against Scott Peterson.
If Scott has a guardian angel looking over his shoulder, his name is
David Sween, and I seriously believe that in the absence of his
brilliant reporting, Scott Peterson would be dead.
How long is the prison torture of innocent people going to be
tolerated? Why are we not charging Ken Starr for torture? With Susan
McDougal and her husband, did Starr not use cruel and unusual
punishment, did Starr not obstruct justice, did Starr not tamper with
witnesses, did Starr not violate the racketeering statutes with the
far right wing, did Star not...??? If Starr's look-a-like, Distaso,
manages to turn Scott Peterson into another Jim McDougall, are we
going to applaud this license to murder an innocent man? Jim McDougal
was convicted on May 28, 1996 of 18 charges against him. Facing up to
84 years in prison and $4.5 million in fines, McDougal agreed to
cooperate with Starr's office. His cooperation netted a reduced
sentence, and in April 1997 he was sentenced to three years in prison
and a year of house arrest, three years of probation and a $10,000
fine. Jim McDougal conveniently died in jail in March 1998. His
cooperation produced the allegation that Susan McDougal and Bill
Clinton had been lovers. Was that statement, (true or not), worth 81
years in jail and almost 4.5 million dollars? Pornographer, Ken Starr
evidently thought so. McDougall's death denied the opportunity to
prove that his original indictment was a consequence of his refusal to
lie. Perhaps, if somebody paid a hefty price for the torture of Jim
McDougal, the murders of Chandra Levy and Laci Peterson would have at
least been investigated in a competent manner, because as long as
justice is about harrassing innocent people, it doesn't exist.