Prosecutors' pass

Some North Carolina district attorneys must be distressed by the N.C. State Bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission's decision to drop serious charges against two former Union County prosecutors -- particularly since the decision rested on a technicality.

The bar's rules are that there is no deadline to charge lawyers with felonious misconduct. But the rule was never published in the state Supreme Court's minutes. Thus, on Friday, the commission dropped charges against the former prosecutors, Kenneth Honeycutt and Scott Brewer.

This case has raised understandable suspicions as to whether prosecutors, as officers of the court, are out for justice or just out to win -- any way they can. That sort of thing reflects on all prosecutors, not just on those involved in the case of Jonathan Hoffman, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for the robbery and murder of Danny Cook, owner of a jewelry store in Marshville.

Honeycutt and Brewer cut an attractive plea deal with Hoffman's cousin, Johnell Porter, who was facing some long prison terms. Porter now says he made up his testimony to get the deal. The bar said the prosecutors hid the arrangement from the trial judge and the jury, altered documents they gave the judge to conceal the deal and lied to him. Honeycutt is in private practice now; Brewer is a district court judge in Rockingham.

State Attorney General Roy Cooper can't move on his own say-so to investigate (a district attorney has to make a request), but his office has asked the bar to send its evidence of felonies to Union County District Attorney Michael Parker, who was Honeycutt's chief assistant until Honeycutt left the job. It doesn't really matter if Parker has been nominated for sainthood based on his adherence to ethics rules -- this is still a conflict of interest. He should make the necessary request to get Cooper and state investigators involved.

Hoffman has won a new trial, but the questions surrounding his prosecution need answers. An independent investigation is called for, and there must be resolution, lest the state's entire justice system be tainted by the clouds over this case.