First Harris Award

1998

EDITORIALS Secrecy subverts justice Pam Tanner was home in Williston to celebrate her birthday when she met with a "friend" and that friend drove her away. Another "friend" met up with her. He brought the gasoline. The two beat her, put her in a car, set her and the car on fire and made it look like an accident. Somehow, she lived long enough to say who had done this to her, and to name the man responsible for the actions of those two. She was 22 at the time. Now, 21 years after Pam Tanner died, Gary Blackburn is free. The man found guilty of arranging to have her beaten and burned is free. A Circuit Judge overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial. The Attorney General originally said it would appeal that decision, but has now decided to take a plea. His conviction was overturned because of secrets. A Circuit Court judge ruled that the investigators and the solicitor prosecuting the case kept secretes that might have helped Blackburn in his defense. Those secrets taken individually don't amount to much. Take all together, they revealed a prosecution team that was "unnecessarily" playing things "close to the vest" in order to bolster a weak case, Judge Costa Pleicones ruled. Because of this infectious need for secrecy, a man who arranged for others to beat and burn, to kill a young woman, now is free. Gary Blackburn has now pleaded to a lesser offense, so he admits complicity in this heinous act. He's served 21 years, almost equal to Pam Tanner's lifetime, so some might say he was punished in accordance with his crime. But not really. He was supposedly serving a life sentence, but somehow, Blackburn managed to get married while in prison. Managed to have children while in prison. He managed to take a two-day Fourth of July holiday here, a four day vacation there. He was put in a work release program that allowed him conjugal visits. He was supposed to be serving a life sentence, but had sex enough times with his wife for her to have more than one of his children. Is that justice? Pam Tanner never had a chance to get married, and never had a chance to start a family. The last two months of her life after the burning were spent in excruciating pain. What strength she must have had to endure it. What a special person she must have been, and the person who snuffed out that unique life is free to hold his children, can now hold his wife. The Second Circuit Solicitor's Office and the Attorney General's Office had much to weigh to reach this decision. Many of the original investigators and witness are either dead or unavailable. Much of the old testimony would not be allowed today, because of the secrets and secret deals cut back then. The secrets the former solicitor kept then have crippled any chance the current solicitor's office might have to again prosecute the case. So, faced with letting Blackburn walk away scot free, or taking a deal, they took a deal. Blackburn does get out on time served, but he also has a black mark on his permanent record that says he and he alone made this happen. We thank them for getting the Tanner family, and getting an outraged public, at least that much redress for this horror. But it's not justice. It doesn't even come close.   ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE PEOPLE-SENTINEL APRIL 1, 1998 Barnwell City Council's pay raise Barnwell City Council went behind closed doors at its meeting July 6 to discuss "personnel salary issues" we were told.After the Council opened its doors to the public again, the Councilmen made a motion to do what was discussed behind closed doors -- give all the employees in town a 4 percent raise, increase the stipend paid to the Mayor by 15 percent, and increase the stipend paid to Council members by 16 percent. The Freedom of Information Act was just amended, and now requires public bodies to be more specific in stating reasons for shutting out the public. But Barnwell City Council reverted to the old generic "personnel matters" mantra. We'd like to go over the FOIA with the Council one more time. The FOIA says a public body MAY close a meeting to discuss the "compensation of an employee or a person regulated by a public body." That word "may" is very powerful. The Council isn't required to close the doors, so it was their choice, their preference. The law says AN employee. That's singular. A PERSON regulated. Again, it's singular. If the Council wants to give one person a raise, it's possible that some personal information might come up during discussion, so a closed door discussion can be justified. But an across the board increase to all employees hardly merits closed door discussion; it's a budgetary matter rather than a personnel matter. Similarly, a discussion of a raise for the mayor and town council doesn't merit shutting out the public. The Mayor and the Council are not employees, they are the employers. It is a stretch to consider persons "regulated by the public body" -- they are they public body. We think Barnwell City Council and the Mayor do a pretty good job in most things, but they seem to have trouble with this law. And it is the law, not some guideline, not some set of tips for how to operate. Are Barnwell City Council and the Mayor doing a good enough job to merit an increase? They think so, because they voted so. But we haven't got the slightest idea what their reasons might be -- the doors were closed and the public was on the outside once again. The public deserves to know why the City Council wants to take more of our tax money and put it in their pockets. It might be deserved. The public might even think it isn't a big enough raise. When public officials win elections, they thank us for being smart enough to vote for them. But when a decision comes, suddenly, we are too stupid to know the facts. And frankly, it's gutless to talk about giving yourself a raise behind closed doors. ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE PEOPLE-SENTINEL JULY 15, 1998 Those awful numbers In recent months, we've given you a long hard look at what the county went through during its budget process. We've told you how expensive using the new regional landfill will be, and how expensive closing the old landfill will be.The only thing clear from the picture emerging after these months is your money is not being handled well or wisely. The county dumped a lot of its cash into the new office building, and spent some other cash money on purchases that it could have paid for with a bond. This has led to the county's current money crunch, where the Council wants to get a loan from a bank to tide it over until we start paying our taxes in January. The latest county audit, of the 1996-97 budget year, is now available. The audit speaks mostly in the neutral language of numbers, but those numbers are damning. The County Council that planned the 1996 budget expected and planned to take $1 million from its savings, according to the audit. It planned for that "shortfall." It was $1 million in "found money" -- planned for the county office building, but not spent because the Council didn't pass the legally required motion three times back in 1995. The budget is a plan, and the Council planed for the shortage. Two things happened, however, that show how bad things have gotten: the county actually collected $837,973 more in taxes and fees and licenses and fines than it planned for in the budget;   but, somehow, the county still was $816,000 short at the end of the year. It used $1 million from savings, made $800,000 more than it expected, yet is was still $800,000 in the hole. That's a $1.6 million turnaround. There are specific citations in the audit, which show the county hasn't accurately estimated the salaries of its employees. Some departments have a few thousand dollars left in salaries, but the ones that underestimated salary and fringe benefits did so by tens of thousands of dollars. If the county finances were the responsibility of one person and the county got an audit report like this this, that person would be fired. But in Barnwell County, that's not the case. The county's money problems are exacerbated by the form of government. Seven elected officials and an administrator all run the county, to varying degrees. They all share the blame. ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE PEOPLE-SENTINEL AUG. 19, 1998