Pardon now far overdue

Thomas' Superette near Sanford is the perfect country store.

There's a low ceiling, windows stained the color of cigarette smoke, a hoop of cheese on the counter, and customers and clerks who've known each other for years.

On Feb. 13, 1998, a man wearing a ski mask and armed with a pistol burst in the door shouting, "Give me the money! Give me the money!"

Two of the clerks told police the robber was Steve Snipes, a neighborhood man who was a regular customer in the store.

The clerks said they didn't see the man's face, couldn't even be sure of his race and although the robber apparently altered his speech, they said it sounded like Snipes would have sounded if he had tried to change his voice. They also said the gunman's clothing looked like clothes Snipes sometimes wore.

Snipes was arrested shortly after the holdup. Police did not recover the stolen bank bag, money, weapon or a jacket like the one the robber was wearing 15 minutes earlier.

"The evidence was sort of thin," District Attorney Tom Lock said this week.

Snipes was convicted and sent to prison in spite of an alibi and the tenuous case against him.

Then things got weird.

Snipes had hired Andre Barrett, a family acquaintance and a real estate lawyer with no criminal court experience. The prosecutor was Assistant District Attorney Bill Huggins.

Barrett was subsequently disbarred after allegations of misappropriating $800,000 in client funds. Prosecutor Huggins was accused of trying to get his girlfriend to kill his wife. A plea bargain sent him to prison for obstruction of justice and embezzlement.

Snipes kept saying he was innocent. In 2003, he passed a polygraph test. Investigators reopened the case and eventually Snipes was released from prison and granted a new trial. Lock agreed to the release and chose not to try him again.

Cleared of the charges, Snipes asked for a pardon of innocence from Gov. Mike Easley.

"I let the governor's legal counsel know I supported a pardon of innocence for Snipes," Lock said. "I suspect he's a good candidate."

So why has the pardon request not been acted on? Only Easley has that awesome power in this state, and he has been reluctant to use it, even in cases where everybody agrees the petitioner is innocent.

"The governor has received the request," a spokesman said. "He is giving it a thorough review."

I'll say. Since 2001, the governor has received 435 pardon requests. He has granted three, all of them based on DNA evidence. Unfortunately, stick-up men rarely leave DNA behind.

Nothing can return the years taken from Steve Snipes. A pardon of innocence wouldn't even erase the conviction from his record. Only a judge can do that. But it would make him eligible for $20,000 for each of the five years he was locked up. And it would say that he was, in fact, an innocent man and the people of North Carolina are sorry for the injustice he suffered.

Surely the governor, a former prosector, trusts the system that cleared Snipes. Surely he does not want another North Carolinian left with an unjust conviction hanging over his head.

How long does it take to do the right thing?