Charns Law Office

No sober counsel for some defendants on North Carolina's Death Row
By D. TUCKER CHARNS AND ALEX CHARNS Copyright Charns & Charns 2001

DURHAM - In this festive season of office parties and partying, we are often reminded of the carnage caused by drunken drivers. Can we add to the list of victims the clients of alcoholic and cocaine-addled lawyers -- those on Death Row waiting to be executed, and those already dead?

We're not sure that North Carolina leads the nation in drunk or impaired lawyers representing persons facing the death penalty, but sadly, the state is doing its unfair share.

In a case close to home, Governor Easley will decide if a man too poor to hire his own lawyers should die Jan. 11 after getting the unlucky draw of a state-appointed, impaired lawyer. Charlie Mason Alston, formerly of Warren County, now on Death Row, had a drug-using lawyer who is now disbarred. Ten days before being involuntarily committed to Dorothea Dix Hospital, the attorney missed a filing deadline which prevented the case from being reconsidered or appealed in the federal courts.

Alston has always maintained his innocence. There were no eyewitnesses to the brutal slaying of Pamela Renee Perry. She was beaten with a hammer in the face before she was suffocated with a pillow. Fingerprints found on evidence at the scene matched someone else.

There's no direct physical evidence linking Alston to the murder: no blood evidence, no fiber evidence. Nothing, despite the incredibly bloody crime scene. Making matters worse, the local police lost DNA evidence which could have proved Alston's innocence.

The prosecution's case was based on circumstantial evidence. The victim was Alston's girlfriend, whom he had assaulted six weeks before her murder. One hundred dollars worth of quarters were stolen from a jar in her bedroom the night of the murder. Alston was said to have purchased items that night with quarters, but the jar didn't have his prints on it -- it had someone else's.

Not long after the murder, Alston and a women friend, one of the state's witnesses, were driving and ran out of gas. A Highway Patrol officer gave him a ride. Alston's clothes had no blood on them. He didn't have the $100 in coins either. Too bad he ended up with an impaired post-conviction lawyer when he needed a zealous advocate.

Unfortunately, Alston is not alone. In one western county, an alcoholic trial lawyer had three clients sentenced to death in less than two years. One of those men, Ronnie Frye, was executed this year. Those death sentences were the first handed down in that county in decades. The same lawyer,

who had a blood alcohol concentration of .32 on a DWI conviction -- enough alcohol to kill some people -- still represents a client facing the ultimate penalty.

So we propose that the General Assembly pass a Lawyering While Impaired (LWI) law. Make it a crime for an attorney to work on a death penalty case, at trial or post-conviction, with any alcohol, cocaine, heroin or other intoxicating substance in his body, and provide a procedure for clients to challenge their convictions on this basis alone. It's illegal for a commercial trucker to drive "while consuming alcohol or while alcohol remains in the person's body." A criminal defense lawyer in a capital case requires no less skill than a truck driver, or a brain surgeon. The consequences of error are no less dire.

The adage "you'll never meet a rich man on Death Row" probably can't be banished from our lexicon until the death penalty is abolished. One way to begin fixing our broken system is to make sure that poor people aren't represented by attorneys who are too stoned to keep their clients off Death Row.

We hope citizens will contact the governor and ask him to spare the life of Charlie Mason Alston. Innocence knows no season. To execute anyone, at any time of year, even in small part because of the personal failings and legal omissions of his lawyer would bring a terrible retribution upon us, not the least the judgment of history and doubts about our commitment to an equal and fair justice. This is all the more critical when the condemned may be innocent.

D. Tucker Charns is past president of the Durham Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. Alexander Charns is a former member of the 14th Judicial District Grievance Committee. He assisted at the clemency hearing. The opinions stated are those of Charns & Charns.

Gov. Easley granted clemency to Mr. Alston in January 2002

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