It wasn't five minutes after Mike Easley was convicted of a felony and fined $1,000 that my computer flashed, alerting me to the message "Convicted Felon."
Sure enough, it was from my favorite convicted felon, Sylvia Johnson Nutall, and she was upset not only by the relatively paltry penalty the former governor was ordered to pay - "That fine was disgusting," she said later by phone - but by how she suspects his post-conviction job prospects will differ from hers.
"I've paid my debt. Ihaven't had a charge since 1986," Nutall said. "I think I deserve a chance."
Nutall got a chance several years ago when I highlighted her post-prison unemployability, writing about how she'd rehabilitated herself and had gotten a college degree while sentenced to 14 years in the joint on drug charges. She was released after five, but was still doing time in a prison from which there is no parole because no one would hire a felon.
I told how, the morning that column appeared, then-Gov. Jim Hunt - moved by her plight - called me and, in his inimitably delightful drawl, said, "You have that woman call me and I'm going to get her a job."
She did. He did, and it looked as though her life was finally on the good foot. Within weeks, Nutall was working at Dorothea Dix Hospital, then at a rehab center, and eventually was teaching fifth grade in Jacksonville, Fla.
Her principal, Lois Diamond, told me in 2007 that Nutall was a "hardworking, innovative teacher," but keeping her on after a fingerprint check revealed her record would have endangered the school's federal funds. Nutall was given the old heave-ho and has yet to regain her footing.
She isn't the only one held captive by a less-than-sterling past.
"My husband," she said, "has a 33- or 35-year-old second-degree murder charge that he's already done time for. He's off probation, off parole, but he can't take care of his family. We're on the verge of divorce because he doesn't feel he can be the provider he wants to be.
"My daughter's fiancé had charges that were thrown out, but the only job he can get is selling vacuum cleaners because they show up on background checks. You can't make a good living selling vacuum cleaners. At one time you could, but not now," she said. "My thing is: A felony is a felony, so why should white-collar or political felons be looked at differently?"
Unless the State Bar takes Easley's law license and plasters a scarlet letter on his forehead, he won't suffer the same hardships faced by Nutall and family. Let's be real here: What North Carolina law firm wouldn't be thrilled to have a former governor's name on its letterhead?
That's cool. No one should begrudge a person who has paid his debt to society a chance to earn a living.
But what about the others who've paid their debts, the ones whose names don't appear in bold print in newspapers or add instant cachet to a company?
Don't they deserve the right to move on from their past, too?
