Page 9 - NC Triangle Vol 6 No 4

BANNON WITH WIFE, CARMEN. SHE IS DEPUTY COUNSEL AT THE NORTH CAROLINA STATE BAR. SHE REPRESENTS THE STATE BAR IN PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT ALLEGATIONS AGAINST LAWYERS.
helped cra , Bannon obtained vol- umes of technical data and did the breakthrough DNA research that uncovered exculpatory evidence withheld by the district attorney and lab director. It helped lead to the dis- missal of the case, chronicled in the documentary lm “Fantastic Lies.”
Bannon continues to be an out- spoken critic of how evidence is sometimes collected, handled, and tested. He appeared in Episode 10 of the Net ix hit “ e Staircase,” testifying about unscienti c exper- iments and questionable reporting by the state crime lab in another case he handled.
Asked what he hoped the public would learn from these cases, Ban- non said, “ e prosecution’s foren- sic ‘experts’ do not deserve to be treated as disinterested witnesses who don’t care about the outcome of the case. ey should be scruti- nized as much as any other witness for the traditional human frailties of bias and imperfection.”
SEPARATION OF POWERS
Bannon recently completed his term as president of the North Car- olina Advocates for Justice, a state- wide organization of legal profes- sionals dedicated to protecting the rights of the injured and accused. Speaking at its June convention in Wilmington, he said, “Our mission is to protect people’s rights no matter who is in charge of the General As- sembly, or living in the Governor’s mansion, or sitting on the bench.”
In an interview in his o ce, Ban- non spoke of those three powers and recent threats to their separation.
“Two things happened in No- vember of 2016 that suddenly made how we choose judges a top priority for the legislature. In state- wide elections, the people elected a Democratic governor to appoint judges and a Democratic judge to sit on the Supreme Court, e ec- tively shi ing that Court’s political party a liation balance.”
“So Republican legislators, en- trenched in a gerrymandered su- permajority, immediately began to yank the power of judicial selection away from where the people have
put it. We’ve now seen partisan ef- forts by legislators to reshape the appellate courts, ll judicial vacan- cies themselves, intimidate judges who review legislative actions, and make all judicial elections more partisan. Regardless of party, that’s not good for any system of checks and balances.”
Closer to the ground level, Ban- non has spent much of his career peering under the hood of North Carolina’s criminal justice system, helping cra some reforms. But he is alarmed at the number of people incarcerated for non-violent crimes.
“If we invested more in com- munity corrections and solutions – versus just warehousing people un- til they are tried or released, with little or no transitional help – our society would be safer and more productive. It’s not just about the heavy collateral consequences of conviction, but of incarceration in the meantime,” said Bannon.
“A lot of non-violent arrestees don’t have hundreds or thousands of dollars for bond. So they sit in jail losing jobs and other oppor- tunities, away from their families, making it a lot more likely they’ll plead guilty just to get out. Wiser district attorneys and judges use their discretion and tools to keep those folks in the community, rath- er than mechanically seeking and imposing ‘presumptive’ bonds that mostly just enrich bail bondsmen.”
PEELING BACK LAYERS
In 2016, Bannon joined Patter- son Harkavy, expanding his prac- tice to include civil rights cases involving police misconduct and wrongful conviction. e rm also represents victims of discrimina- tion in employment, housing, vot- ing, and other areas.
“I’ve been very lucky with law rms. For 20 years I got to practice criminal defense with the best. I still do that work, and I always will. When I started civil rights work, I was just as lucky to land at Patter- son Harkavy with remarkable law- yers in a rm that has an equally strong history of ghting in that arena,” said Bannon.
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