Abuse of the Jail | Eastern North Carolina Now

BY:  Hood Richardson

Let me be careful with my use of the words “of” and “at.”  I am not claiming “abuse at the jail”.  I am aware of abuse of the jail (system).   A few years ago the issue of building a new jail prompted me to ask a one word question?  Why?  Several Commissioners and others promptly told me that I only need to vote to spend the $25,000,000 to build the jail at Chocowinity.  That was my job as Commissioner to “Give people what they want.”

After several months of investigation, I discovered the jail was just as mismanaged as the schools and some other County Departments.  The upshot was that we did not build a new jail. We reduced the population of the existing jail drastically.   There were a lot of reasons why the jail was full, with projections for higher inmate populations down the road.  The short answer was there was little effort on the part of all the people who had a hand in determining the jail population in getting people out in an efficient manner.  We had more than 20 people who had been there more than a year without a trial date being set.

To the credit of all who had a hand in determining jail population, the population was reduced.  This includes Judges, the District Attorney, the Sheriff’s Department, along with several other cooperating agencies.   We got a “good” boost in this effort from COVID.

The list of long-term guests who had been in the custody of Beaufort County more than 6 months was reduced to 9 according to the jail report at the end of December.

One of the standouts in the jail population is Paquon Shabrien Coffey who was arrested on October 5 of 2020 and charged with capitol murder, a death penalty charge.  He has been in jail awaiting trial for three years and three months. The cost to keep him there is about $50 per day. The cost to date is $59,250.00.    

Paquon Coffey's court appointed lawyer is Kenneth F. Crow with the firm of Greene, Wilson, Crow and Smith in New Bern.  Attorney Crow has been paid $29,529.00 according to the court file.  There could be more.  Since Crow is a court appointed attorney and therefore his fees were paid by the State taxpayers.  The taxpayers have about $89,000 invested in this individual with no trial date in sight.

Looking at Attorney Crow’s biography, he seems to have the qualifications to keep Mr.  Coffey in the Beaufort County jail for another three years.  Mr. Crow is a retired Superior Court Judge (13 years) and a District Court Judge.  Attorney Crow worked three years as an Assistant District Attorney

The problem with this situation is that a murder trial should not take more than one year and if convicted the individual goes to the State Prison System. 

There are a lot of advantages to dragging out any trial.  Witnesses may die, move away, or get dementia.  You never know when you can get someone like Judge Braddy from Pitt County.  You just may find that Judge who is willing to declare that Coffee did not intend to commit murder, so he is innocent.

Attorney Crow has had some success already.  On February 21, 2022 the charges were reduced to non-capitol murder.  That was almost one year ago.  I found nothing in the court file to indicate a justification for this reduction in charges.  One would have thought there would have been a trial shortly after the charges were reduced.  Maybe Attorney Crow is waiting for the “end of time”.

Justice is missing in this case.  The Taxpayers of Beaufort County deserve justice.  What the Beaufort County taxpayer are getting is the abuse of the law and the jail. Surely Kenneth F. Crow spent enough time on the bench to be able to distinguish between “justice" and “the law”. Surely Judge Crow, as an Officer of the Court understands that it is his duty to not abuse the judicial, legal and jail systems.

The US Constitution says one is entitled to a speedy trial.  That is unless one wants to wait for the witnesses to die.