Payback time?

This is one of the most surprising instances of the brandishing of judicial prerogative that I have ever read about in North Carolina court proceedings, but give The News & Observer an assist for the "justification" of this most unjustifed $1 million fine.

The News & Observer, which has competed vigorously with its new McClatchy Newspapers teammate, The Charlotte Observer, to give the public a false picture of Jim Black as a sinister, back-of-the-alley power broker in Raleigh--when in fact on some many occasions he unselfishly contributed personally to the betterment of personal and familial stresses faced by fellow members of the North Carolina House of Representatives--made a big point of saying that Dr. Black "bragged" about his ability to raise $1 million in political funds.

Dr. Black was just informing the court in a truthful manner as to what the fund-raising situation was in the N.C. House as best he could assess it, which is what one would suppose that court officials and especially the judge would have wanted.

Then the judge took an illogical leap from that statement to somehow find his way to some inappropriate parallel between raising political funds and raising personal funds for one's own business, family and personal acitivites. It seems as if the judge decided to "dare" Dr. Black to "prove it."

But Dr. Black was no longer in the General Assembly at the time of his state court sentencing and indeed and already been sentenced and served the first day of that sentence at the time of the proceedings. We are then supposed to accept the premise that Dr. Black can be adjudged to have been restored to his former station in order to go about raising a million dollars in personal, and not political, funds as some sort of "court contest?"

What does Dr. Black "win" if he wins this contest? We already know what happens if he loses this Wake County million-dollar jamboree: more imprisonment, according to Judge Stephens.

Where is the statutory authority for levying a find in the amount of $1 million for having unwisely permitted chiropractors to make campaignng contributions outside the proper channels? Why wasn't the court interested in pursuing the previous flase charge of bribery for a party-switching maneuver when it became clear that Dr. Black was not going to permit funds to be advanced to an individual in order to motivate him to change his parties but rather stood ready as the responsible leader of Democrats in the N.C. House at the time to make political funds avialable on a fair and nondiscriminatory basis to all members of his party in the House, including newcomers?

All the newcomers to Raleigh, think of this part of the story: the former Speaker was chastised for his willingness to let a newcomer to the Democratic Party--after switching to the party on his own volition--to have access to the normal distribution of political campaign funds for N.C. House Democrats.

This is the most deceitful manner in which the public school district in one of North Carolina's 100 counties can be enriched over all the others in the amount of $1 million when in fact the geographic venues for the specific charges against Dr. Black on the unreported chiropractor contributions was agreed by all parties inovled to have been in the Piedmont section of the state. Why should Wake County get a million dollars and Rowan County not a nickel?

Has there ever been a fine of $1 million levied against an individual in public life--and not a corporation or interest group--in any sort of similar case? In the past, The N&O would have researched this question and provided an answer.

But no, the newspaper was too busy ridiculing people who have difficulty of hearing aids [Lead sentence of story: "Say what?"], following its present pattern of "lingo first, content later," that it hasn't been able to look into this.

Folks, Dr. Black is an optometrist, not a hearing specialist.

The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer both could have found out what really happened in this case. But as liberal as they both are presumed to be, they seem downright afraid to probe the "penalty treatment" which some state Republicans are willing to dish out--to Republicans and Democrats alike--who are willing to work together for bipartisan progress for the people of North Carolina.

This $1 million bout of judicial braggadoccio should be ruled out of order by a higher level of the judicial system before the rest of the country finds out that in North Carolina sentencing does not even need to approach "fitting the crime."

David McKnight--Durham

I must have misunderstood. I apologize

Actually the Judge suspended the sentence only until December. If Black pays the $1 million by then the additional 19-23 months jail time is to be served concurrently. If Black does not pay the $1 million, the additional jail time is to be served consecutively.

Black's not going to pay that fine because there's no incentive to pay it. Not paying it doesn't punish him either considering the "additional time" added to his sentence will be servered concurrently with the additional charge. This is like saying I'm going to make you play golf while you're at the country club.