Albemarle Tradewinds June 2016 Final Web Optimized

Judge Jerry Tillett
Another view: Tillett story gained
traction on slippery facts
By: Neil W. Scarborough
“Not to oppose error is to approve it. Not to defend truth
is to suppress it, and indeed to neglect to confront evil
men, when we can do it, is no less a sin than to
encourage them.”
— Pope Felix III
Continued from last month
Steven Michael
Editors Note: This is a story provided by the
outerbanksvoice.com.
We wish to make citizens aware of an attempt by a tight
group of unelected people to overturn the will of the
citizens by removing an elected judge.
Part 2 is too long to print in this magazine but we
reccomend checking it out on the outerbanksvoice.com
Right before printing this month’s issue the state
supreme court intervened in this case. On page 39 is the
latest in this interesting story.
Rather than apologize and wish the group a good night, however, the officer made a veiled threat, telling Tillett’s son “we’ll be looking for you.”
Bear in mind that Tillett’s son and his girlfriend had driven to MexiCali’s and were still dressed in church clothes.
Tillett’s son has no criminal record of any kind.
Tillett’s involvement stemmed not from anything his son did that night butfrom what the officers did.
Contrary to the storyteller’s version, Tillett didn’t call the meeting with Britt and KDH officials; the town’s attorney, Dan Merrell, did.
Regardless, everything was caught on tape, right? According to the story, during the meeting in Tillett’s chambers on April 15, 2010 Britt told Tillett that the
events of April 4th were caught “on tape” and that the good judge could review it himself, to which Tillett retorted, “tapes can be altered.”
Most readers likely took the account of this exchange as equivalent to an admission by Tillett that his son had broken the law and that Tillett knew it, which is
precisely what the storyteller intended.
This time the storyteller hasn’t simply omitted facts; he has twisted them in an effort to manipulate the reader.
The story reads as if the righteous police chief, finding himself assailed by the angry judge, remains steadfast in his commitment to the truth and, backed into a
corner, directs the judge to view “the tape,” which doesn’t lie, after all.
The truth is that Tillett and the Chief knew the tape didn’t show any criminal conduct by the occupants of the car; of issue was the conduct of the officers; and
specifically, what they said, hence, Tillett’s dismissive attitude was about the value of the tape.
He was conveying that his son’s account of what happened that night was all he needed and, in any event, he already knew the comments made by the officer
weren’t recorded because the town’s attorney, Dan Merrell, had already listened to the tape and informed Tillett of the fact.
What’s more, the inappropriate comments the officers made to Tillett’s son weren’t even the reason for the meeting. Tillett and other judicial officials had received
numerous complaints about the conduct of KDH police officers prior to April 2010.
And on this occasion, the officers hadn’t failed to live up to their reputation: They stopped the car Tillett’s son was in without reasonable suspicion or probable
cause (the minimal, threshold standards permitting law enforcement officers to make a stop), then held the occupants of the car for nearly 30 minutes while
they awaited arrival of a “K-9 unit,” which is also illegal.
The unprofessional and inappropriate comments to Tillett’s son and the other occupants were merely the icing on the proverbial cake.
So then why were we told such a story? We were told this story precisely because it is a good story.
It is, in fact, just a clever “red herring” — a shiny object intended to catch the reader’s attention and distract her from the problems with the story.
I say it’s a clever use of the tactic because in this case it pulls double duty: It distracts the reader from the critical fact that more than a year elapsed between the
date of Tillett’s son’s encounter with KDH police and the date Tillett ordered KDH personnel records to be delivered to his office.
And it also conveniently serves as the reason for Tillett’s purported beef with Britt and the KDH police department.
Again, the storyteller would have us believe that Tillett began a personal crusade against Britt in retaliation for KDH officers daring to stop his son.
But the fact that more than a year passed between the incident involving Tillett’s son and the date Tillett ordered the release of the personnel records undermines
the idea that there was any connection between the two events.
Without the incident, however, the storyteller loses Tillett’s supposed motive for going after KDH.
So what does the storyteller do? He then downplays the time lapse and mischaracterizes the facts concerning the stop and the April 15 meeting so that it gives
the impression of impropriety on Tillett’s part. (The reason Tillett ordered personnel files to be provided to him stems from events about which a book could be
written. It’s covered in depth in a separate article that will follow this one.)
But who would concoct such a story and why?
Enter Steve Michael and the State Bar, which we will explore in the second installment.
Though I deeply respect Judge Tillett and would like to think I would have written this article for that reason alone, I feel honor-bound to inform the reader
that I regularly practice in this district, and I both know and on occasion appear in Tillett’s court.
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