Activist Victoria Peterson attended a bond hearing last week for Crystal Mangum, who is accused of stabbing her boyfriend to death in 2010. Mangum was asking to have her $200,000 bond lowered, her charges dismissed or to be let out of jail with electronic monitoring.

Peterson, a vocal supporter of Mangum dating back to the 2006 Duke Lacrosse case, said last week she is considering running for the City Council this year. During the hearing, Peterson stood up in the courtroom and asked to comment on Mangum's behalf. Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson had a comment of his own before he let her speak.

“This may be the day that Ms. Peterson has chosen to kick off her election campaign," Hudson said, “The decision she said she was not going to make the other day in the newspaper.

“So I guess you'll take this opportunity to make a public statement that you're going to run. ... We await your decision. Why could you possibly be standing my courtroom to offer some kind of statement in support of Ms. Mangum?”

Peterson has run for office multiple times, without success. In court, she ignored Hudson's comment and made her statement, which also went without success. Hudson denied all Mangum's requests.

Superior Court Judge Orando Hudson has issued an injunction, temporarily delaying the enforcement of the town's towing ordinance and cell phone ban. Both laws are being challenged by Geroge King, of George's Towing in Chapel Hill.

The towing ordinance was supposed to take effect today, the cell phone ban is to take effect June 1.

Read our story here, and read the temporary restraining order and complaint below.

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The hearing on whether Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline keeps her job continues tomorrow. Here is an early look at Bob Wilson's column coming Sunday in The Durham News.

BY BOB WILSON

There is something of Mattie Ross in Durham defense attorney Kerry Sutton.
You remember Mattie Ross, if not from Charles Portis’ novel “True Grit” then from the John Wayne or Coen Brothers films. Mattie Ross of Yell County, Ark., was a never-say-die heroine of the golden west, and even the Duke came to admire her, though it wasn’t easy.

Kerry Sutton isn’t on a quest to find the outlaw Tom Chaney, but she is determined to apply the best of her ability to unseat Durham County District Attorney Tracey Cline. This hasn’t come easy, either. Cline, who has been waging a nasty war against her one-time mentor, Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson (“he has the reprobate mind of a monarch”) for months, is an elected official.

But not just any elected official. Removing a district attorney under General Statute 7A-66 is serious business in the state’s legal community, not to be undertaken lightly. In fact, only one other DA has been removed under the law.

That Cline has dishonored – nay, defiled – the office of public prosecutor with her vile attacks on Judge Hudson because he ruled against her in a couple of hot-button cases is a fact few would dispute. Lawyer Sutton had had her fill last year when she began her blitz against Cline, who was elected DA after the implosion of former DA Mike Nifong, he of the 2006 Duke lacrosse frameup.

At The N&O, we're accustomed to having folks saying unpleasant things about us. Most of the time, we just smile, let it pass. Occasionally, we have to admit that the caller or letter writer is correct.

We try to draw the line when someone falsely accuses us of illegal behavior.

That's what Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline has done, repeatedly, in her legal battle against Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson. In her most recent court filing, Cline again says, in a sworn affidavit, that reporter Andrew Curliss was held in contempt of court in Durham in 1998.

In her affidavit, trying to disqualify Hudson from hearing a criminal case, Cline assembles her version of what happened to Curliss after his jailhouse interview with Derrick Allen in 1998:

"By this time, I knew that this reporter and the Raleigh News and Observer had a vested interest in the Allen case; in that in 1998 Curliss was held in Contempt of Court for refusing to follow a Court Order to provide the notes of an interview with Allen."

Let me say this as simply as I can: That is false. Not true. Didn't happen.

Here's what did happen: Curliss interviewed Allen, who was in jail after being accused of sexual assault and murder of a 2-year-old girl. He wrote a story about it. Durham prosecutors were interested in anything else Allen said, and they subpoenaed Curliss' notes.

The N&O did resist this subpoena. But we ended up submitting the notes for Hudson to review. Hudson ordered the notes turned over, but stayed his order while we appealed. Curliss was never called to testify, and he was not cited for contempt. Not in this case, not in any other case.

We have tried to point this out in news stories, but Cline doesn't seem to be getting the message. So today, I mailed (and e-mailed) a letter to her. It simply asks her to correct the court record and stop saying what isn't true.

Cline is angry that Hudson has dismissed charges against several high-profile defendants in Durham, some of them because of prosecutorial misconduct. Cline believes, incorrectly, that we have somehow conspired against her with Hudson and defense lawyers to compile our stories that have shown that she has withheld exculpatory evidence from defendants and made repeated misstatements in court. Now, while complaining about our work and Hudson's, she has made another one.

Since this misstatement involves us, we'd like to set the record straight. We trust that Cline will, too.

--Steve Riley, Senior Editor/Investigations

 The City Council doesn't have any authority over the courts in Durham, but two council members spoke their minds about the ongoing feud between District Attorney Tracey Cline and Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson.

"I've practiced law in this town for close to 39 years," said Councilman Howard Clement, "and I've never seen anything like this.

"I don't think the council can do anything specifically about it," Clement said, "but I just couldn't let the evening pass without mentioning it."

Last week, Cline accused Hudson of "moral turpitude, dishonesty and corruption," and said she will seek to remove Hudson from overseeing any criminal case in Durham. Councilman Eugene Brown had similar comments.

"This has become an embarrassment that needs to be resolved in a fair and equitable manner as soon as possible," Brown said.

"We're better than this, folks. We're better than this."

The acting director of the SBI crime lab says that Judge Orlando Hudson got a fact wrong in the 46-page order released last week that found egregious errors in tossing out murder and sex assault charges against a Durham man.

Joseph R. John Sr., the acting State Bureau of Identification lab director, wrote to Hudson, the senior resident judge in Durham County, to alert him that he might not have known "the true state of affairs" in an aspect of the case dealing with whether evidence still exists.

Hudson issued a written finding that, after a two-day hearing in December in which SBI agents testified, the evidence in the case had been destroyed by the SBI.

"The Court is unable to determine when such items were destroyed based on an intentional suppression of information by the State Bureau of Investigation and by the Office of the Durham County District Attorney," Hudson wrote. "Any independent testing of these items is now impossible."

It was not a major thrust of his ruling.

John wrote that he researched the issue after reading the ruling.

"It is neither my intent nor desire to comment in any manner upon the Court’s Order," John wrote. "However ... I must report that examination of evidence here in the Lab and of Lab records indicates that no submitted evidence in the above‐referenced cases has been 'destroyed' by the State Bureau of Investigation."

He said that the SBI still has blood samples taken from the victim, a 2-year-old girl, and from the defendant, Derrick Allen.

All of the other items from 1998 case, including clothing and other evidence that had been submitted for testing, were long ago returned to the Durham Police Department, John wrote.

Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline said that the other evidence also has not been destroyed.

"The evidence is in the property room at the DPD and has been available for testing by the defense since 1999," Cline said.

The SBI did not ask Hudson to amend his ruling, which is already being appealed by the state.

Cline has indicated she disputes portions of the ruling that implicated her in withholding crucial evidence from Allen. She said she is considering whether filing a motion seeking changes is appropriate.

The judge's ruling on the destruction of evidence stems from testimony at a two-day hearing in December.

In that hearing, a letter was introduced as evidence from the state medical examiner's office -- which is separate from the SBI -- that said its specimens in the case had been destroyed. The medical examiner conducted an autopsy.

In the hearing, Allen's lawyer said that attempts to ascertain whether the SBI still held any evidence had been rebuffed -- and that the state had not disputed assertions that the evidence was gone.

An SBI analyst who handled the evidence, Jennifer Elwell, was asked about an SBI policy that says items "may be destroyed" after five years.

Elwell testifed that no one had asked her to check to see if the items in this specific case had been destroyed. But Elwell indicated that she didn't think that would have happened, pointing out that the policy says "may" and is not definitive.

"Were you aware that I had a private investigator call the SBI and they refused to disclose the information to him?" Allen's lawyer, Lisa Williams, asked Elwell in the hearing.

"No, I was not," Elwell said.

"Is that the policy of the SBI to refuse to do that?" Williams asked.

Elwell responded: "I do not know."

In the hearing, the state did not bring in other testimony or evidence to show whether the case's evidence existed or not.

UPDATE 1: Williams says today she is surprised to hear that some of the evidence is at the police department.

Williams writes: "I made a specific discovery request to determine whether or not the samples from the child were destroyed. The State did not disclose the information. I had my PI to contact the lab and the ME on November 1, 2011. The SBI would not tell us [if] they had destroyed the samples. I obtained a court [order] ordering the State to say if the samples were destroyed. They did not provide the information. The hearing occurred on 12/9 and 10 because Cline told Hudson they were ready and would provide the information... The evidence before the court was consistent with the evidence either ... being destroyed or the State completely ignoring the court order."

UPDATE 2: John says the SBI did not make any specific requests of the judge because he believes the agency does not have the legal standing to do so.

UPDATE 3: Hudson said in an interview that he intends to amend his ruling to relflect that some of the evidence in the case has not been destroyed. He said it does change any of the fundamental aspects of his ruling. "It won't change the substance of the order," Hudson said.

Click below to read the SBI's letter to Hudson.

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