SMITHFIELD -- District Court Judge Joseph Setzer said he will issue a ruling in the next few days on whether 33 DWI cases that were illegally dismissed in Johnston County can be reactivated.
Johnston County District Attorney Susan Doyle filed a motion Wednesday asking a judge to strike the dismissals on the ground that they were issued improperly. Four attorneys and a former prosecutor were convicted this year in the scandal.
Defense attorneys for some of the 33 people who were issued the citations argued that Doyle's motion wasn't legal, given that the defendants weren't responsible for the illegal dismissals and weren't given adequate notice of the hearing Thursday morning.
"Just telling people to come to court [without proper notice] hearkens back to totalitarian dictators," said attorney Bob Denning, representing members of the Johnston County Bar Association present at the hearing.
He said he thinks the move is political, given that Doyle is up for re-election in November.
Doyle said she promised to pursue the dismissed cases in January when the attorneys were convicted -- a month before she learned she'd have an opponent in the election. "I'm doing exactly what I promised the citizens of Johnston County I would do," she said.
Assistant District Attorney Whitney Hendrix said the defendants didn't need to be notified of Thursday's hearing because it didn't involve new charges against them, though Doyle's office sent notices earlier this month. Also, she said many of the defendants have moved or changed attorneys and were difficult to find.
Doyle's move doesn't affect all the illegally dismissed driving-while-impaired charges. She said she only plans to reactivate the cases that were dismissed with forms signed by prosecutor Cindy Jaeger after she left office. Dozens of other cases dismissed by Jaeger won't be affected. Jaeger, along with attorneys Chad Lee and Lee Hatch, were sent to prison for their involvement in the ticket-fixing scheme.
"Ms. Jaeger had no authority at all to dismiss these cases when the forms were entered," Doyle told a judge Thursday.
Attorney Frank Wood said the two-year statute of limitations has run out for his client, who was charged in 2006. Doyle countered that because the charges were never legally dismissed, the charges have been pending for years.
One of the defendants, John Hubbard, said he had nothing to do with the improper dismissal and shouldn't have to deal with the case again four years later. He was battling alcoholism at the time of the charges, he said, but has now been sober for a year.
"This is going back and reopening something that I thought was behind me," Hubbard said.
Another defendant, Terry Berg, said she has already paid one attorney to represent her and can't afford to get another. "This greatly upsets me because it's been three years," Berg said.
If Setzer rules the cases can be pursued, each of the 33 defendants would get a new court date. Anyone the clerk of court's office can't track down would likely be charged with failure to appear in court and could be arrested during a traffic stop.
