Judge calls brothers’ conviction ‘outrageous’ and rebukes lawyers

A federal judge refused Friday to approve a settlement in a lawsuit brought by two wrongly convicted brothers, scolding their attorneys for not doing enough to ensure the mentally impaired men understood what they signing.

“No one here seems to be acting for the interests of the clients,” U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle said during an afternoon hearing. “This is fraught with danger and requires care.”

Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, whose low IQs limit their ability to read and write, spent 30 years in prison for another man’s crime. They filed a lawsuit to collect money and answers from the police who put them there.

But the case has progressed largely in secret. Patrick Megaro, a Florida attorney who represents the men, filed nearly all of his documents confidentially and had asked Boyle to seal them permanently.

An attorney for five media outlets, including The News & Observer, asked Boyle to reject lawyers’ requests to keep the records in this case confidential, saying there is “simply no compelling interest served by confidentiality in this case.”

Amanda Martin argued in a motion that the number and type of records shielded from public is “utter absurdity,” pointing to court transcripts and newspaper articles filed confidentially.

Boyle agreed, later issuing a ruling denying all motions to seal records in the case. He gave lawyers the opportunity to appeal within 10 days.

Megaro said in an interview last month that he was obliged to keep the records confidential because he agreed to a protective order when he received the case files from The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission. The N&O reported last month on a debate over whether the commission can demand their records be kept private.

The Charlotte Observer, The Fayetteville Observer, The Associated Press and WTVD-TV joined the N&O in the fight to open the records in the case.

Questioning an agreement

McCollum and Brown’s limitations have been central to their story since their arrest in 1983 for the brutal rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.

Agents for the State Bureau of Investigation and officers from the Town of Red Springs elicited detailed confessions from the brothers after hours of interrogation. They were teenagers at the time, living in a small town in Robeson County.

In 2014, a judge freed McCollum and Brown after DNA evidence led investigators to the real killer, a man police had originally considered a suspect in 1984.

Their release attempted to right the 30-year wrong. The civil lawsuit, though, was expected to bring accountability for the errors that derailed the brothers’ lives.

Boyle stalled the case until McCollum is appointed a guardian to represent his interests in the negotiations. Brown, who was declared incompetent last year, already has a guardian acting on his behalf.

Boyle questioned whether the brothers were competent to have signed a contract hiring Megaro.

“You do understand someone not legally competent doesn’t have the capacity to enter into an agreement?” Boyle asked Megaro.

Megaro declined to be interviewed after the hearing. The N&O reported last month on his role in the case, including a contract that called for an “irrevocable interest” in the brothers’ settlements, even if he were fired as their lawyer.

More claims pending

Friday’s hearing brought the latest twist in a harrowing journey for McCollum and Brown.

Though released in 2014, the brothers were broke and bewildered, relying for many months on charity and relatives with scant resources to meet their needs. It took 10 months for Pat McCrory, then the governor, to officially pardon the men, paving the way for them to receive the $750,000 each were owed by the state for their wrongful incarceration.

Over the last two years, Brown, who suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, has been in and out of mental institutions. He is a ward of the state and now lives in a group home.

McCollum has moved to Richmond, Va., and is faring better. He came to court Friday expecting to get access to another chunk of money. He declined to talk after the hearing. His father, James McCollum, said his son would be fine.

“He’s been through far worse,” James McCollum said.

The brothers’ legal battles are expected to drag on. Civil claims against two other agencies, the SBI and the Robeson County Sheriff’s Department, are still pending.

And how much they can keep of any monetary awards to come is still a matter for the court to consider.

The N&O reported last month that two out-of-state consultants and attorneys for the brothers are in a dispute over their claims on payouts to the brothers.

The consultants, women who bill themselves as activists, said they may sue to recoup the portion of the brothers’ civil payouts that they negotiated in a contract signed just months after their release. Deborah Pointer and Kimberly Weekes said they are due 1 percent of the brothers’ civil awards for the time they spent publicizing their case and pressuring the governor to pardon McCollum and Brown.

The consultants solicited and vetted new civil attorneys for the brothers, but since coming onto the case, relationships between Megaro and Scott Brettschneider of New York and the women soured. Megaro said last month that he will not authorize payouts to Pointer and Weekes; each of them already received $10,000.

They say they are owed a $75,000 cut of the $1.5 million the state paid the men in July 2015. In a press release posted online this week, Pointer and Weekes reiterated their assertion that they are owed more money for their work.

“Right now our focus is on getting paid,” Pointer and Weekes said. “We want the brothers and their lawyers to do the right thing and pay us what we are owed, nothing else.”

This story was originally published May 5, 2017 at 5:40 PM with the headline "Judge calls brothers’ conviction ‘outrageous’ and rebukes lawyers."