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Law limits sharing of Silk Plant Forest panel's work
Some info involves privacy of city workers
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Published: October 8, 2008
The citizens committee that has been studying the Silk Plant Forest assault case is supposed to be turning over any evidence that it uncovers about guilt or innocence to attorneys who are trying to free Kalvin Smith, the man who has maintained that he was wrongfully convicted in the case.
But soon after the committee's work began, the proposition of sharing its work with the attorneys hit a roadblock.
Interviews conducted by the committee's investigators include some discussions that the city believes cannot be made public under the state's personnel-privacy laws.
Those include parts of interviews of 19 current and former city employees and other interviews that mention employee job performance.
So even though turning over anything involving Smith's innocence or guilt is part of the committee's duties, it has not been giving many of its interviews to Smith's defense team.
"We can't just turn that over because we want to," said Guy Blynn, the committee's chairman. "We have to obey the law."
In 1997, Smith was convicted in the beating of Jill Marker, a manager at the Silk Plant Forest, a store on Silas Creek Parkway. His case has been investigated by the Winston-Salem Journal and Duke University's Innocence Project. Both investigations raised questions about the conviction and the work of police and prosecutors on the case.
A persistent question has been Marker's ability to identify her attacker, given that the attack left her with severe injuries.
Last week, when Judge Richard Doughton of Superior Court heard Smith's motion for a new trial, attorneys for the city, Smith and District Attorney Tom Keith's office began to hash out a solution to the problem of what to do with the work being conducted by the citizens committee.
Doughton told Al Andrews, an assistant city attorney, and David Hall, an assistant district attorney, to cull out the parts of interviews believed to be protected under state law.
Then they should ask those current and former employees to waive their privacy rights, which is one way around the state law.
"If they give their consent, turn it all over," Doughton said.
None of the attorneys involved expect the lead detective in the case, Don Williams, to agree to waive his privacy rights. Williams, who retired in 2000, has refused to comment on the case publicly in recent years as questions have dogged his work.
Doughton said that if any employees should want to fight release of the information, he would review the documents and then schedule a hearing.
David Pishko, one of Smith's attorneys, said he expects that most of the city's interviews are not protected by state law and will be turned over quickly.
"It may include information that is relevant to (Smith's claims), which may lead us to subpoena people to the court," he said. Blynn said he doesn't know whether the committee's investigators have uncovered anything new.
Hall said Friday that he has yet to start calling the employees in question for permission to release the documents.
The city took similar steps about two years ago when it wanted to release the results of a citizens committee's work reviewing the Deborah Sykes case, a 1984 murder and rape in which the wrong man was twice convicted.
Many officers interviewed by the Sykes review committee at first objected to releasing their interviews in the report. They reached an agreement with the city to release all the interviews after they were able to review them.
The Silk Plant Forest committee is supposed to finish its report by December, but members have been weighing whether to ask for an extension.
■ Dan Galindo can be reached at 727-7377 or at dgalindo@wsjournal.com.
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