Joe Freeman Britt

Joe Freeman Britt Sr. (July 22, 1935 – April 6, 2016) was an American attorney and judge who developed a national reputation as a tough prosecutor, and for successfully pursuing a large number of death penalty convictions.^[1] The Guinness Book of World Records lists him as the "deadliest prosecutor in America", with 47 death row convictions to his name as of 1988.^[2]

Life

Britt earned his law degree from Stetson University College of Law in Florida in 1963.^[3] He lived in Lumberton, North Carolina.^[4] He was district attorney in Lumberton, North Carolina.^[5] Joe Freeman Britt died Wednesday, April 6, 2016 in Lumberton at the age of 80.^[6][7]

Prosecution and eventual release of Leon Brown and Henry Lee McCollum

Among the cases he prosecuted were those of Leon Brown and Henry Lee McCollum, illiterate African American teenagers with very low IQs; the younger boy was only 15 years old.^[8][9] They were convicted in North Carolina of the 1983 rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie. Their convictions rested heavily on confessions coerced from and scripted for them over five hours of intense questioning by detectives, in the absence of attorneys. They soon recanted them.^[10]

Police failed to turn over to the brothers' defense and denied the existence of retained physical exculpatory evidence for 30 years. The convictions were overturned after DNA evidence implicated then-convicted sex offender Roscoe Artis, who was found guilty of a similar murder he perpetrated in the same neighborhood less than a month after the Buie killing. Both brothers were originally sentenced to death but were released after 30 years in prison. Even in the light of the scientific evidence, Britt refused to acknowledge the men's innocence.^[11][12]

Britt's multiple oversights in this case raise the question of whether he was negligent in his prosecutions of Brown and McCollum, or even whether he intentionally overlooked evidence that could have exonerated Brown and McCollum. A September 2014 story by The Charlotte Observer revealed that Britt's enthusiastic prosecution of Brown and McCollum overlooked glaring evidence that implicated Artis. First, Britt himself had convicted Artis for a similar crime just one month before McCollum and Brown went to trial. Second, Artis lived next to the field where Buie's body was found. Third, Artis also faced a warrant for the 1980 rape and murder of a woman in Gastonia, North Carolina.^[10]

In 2015, with the two convicts released by the court due to the DNA analysis, Britt still opposed a pardon and compensation for wrongful imprisonment of the two. Governor Pat McCrory had also not acted on the pardon and compensation six months after the release.^[13]

On June 4, 2015, nine months after their release, Governor Pat McCrory issued a formal pardon to Brown and McCollum. McCrory said "it's the right thing to do". The brothers can now seek compensation for false imprisonment.^[14]

Judicial election and opponent's murder

In 1988, the North Carolina General Assembly created a new Superior Court Judgeship in Robeson County. Britt was the first to announce his candidacy. Seeing an opportunity to be the first Native American superior court judge in North Carolina, Lumbee civil rights activist Julian Pierce resigned from his position as director of Lumbee River Legal Services and entered the race as Britt's opponent.^[15]

On March 26, 1988, just a few weeks before the election, Pierce's body was found in his home with shotgun wounds to his head, chest, and stomach. Though local law enforcement claimed they had located the murderer, who committed suicide prior to an arrest or trial taking place, the reasons for the murder continue to be debated.^[16] In the aftermath, Britt was automatically declared the winner of the primary election. However, some reporters and campaign workers counted the votes and determined that Pierce actually won the vote posthumously, 10,787 to 8,231.^[15]

References