News 14 Carolina - Political Connections

No Feds help no jail for Black? I moderated an interesting discussion panel Wednesday night put on by the Federalist Society.

The panelists were Sen. Phil Berger, Wake Co. DA Colon Willoughby, and former federal prosecutor Kieran Shanahan. The audience was peppered with former prosecutors, current judges, as well as a couple Jim Black investigators.

The main question at hand was prosecutorial power and investigative grand juries.

Willoughby talked often about the lack of resources and need for new technology. Without investigative grand juries in this state, some feel DA's need the feds to take down "big wigs".

That led me to ask Mr. Willoughby if he thought Jim Black would be sitting behind bars right now if he didn't have the help of federal investigators. Without hesitating his answer was "it would have been real difficult".

On another note if you haven't heard, the NC Supreme Court is asking lawmakers to "redo" the Pender county boundary line for elections-fondly referred to as redistricting. It's district 18 and coincidentally is current Rep. Thomas Wright who's facing some fierce allegations.

The court ruled along party lines and ruled that that lawmakers must redo it AFTER the 2008 elections. If it can be done by itself, there is no need to redraw all district lines, however all lines will be redrawn after 2010 anyway because of a new census report.

Have a great weekend everyone!!