The N&O series, "Speed Unlimited," stirred some controversy in Greensboro this week.

The series culminated Sunday with a story about Greensboro Judge Pete Hunter's propensity for giving speeders free passes on speeding tickets. The judge gave twice as many "prayers for judgment continued" for speeding over 100 mph between 2002 and 2006 than any other judge in the state, according to the story. PJCs let speeders avoid losing their license and insurance rate hikes.

But on a Greensboro blog, a courthouse regular said The N&O didn't tell the whole story. Judge Hunter gives a lot of PJCs, said attorney Wendell Sawyer, because the district attorney in Guilford County does not allow speeders over 90 mph to plead guilty to a lesser charge, as DAs regularly do in other counties.

"So, the burden of helping anyone who is desperate to save their driver's license from a one-year period of revocation falls onto the judges in Guilford County," Sawyer wrote in a comment to the online blog of Greensboro News & Record editor John Robinson. "That's the reason that there appears to be an inordinate number of PJC dispositions in traffic cases in Guilford County where the speeding charges are 90-plus mph."

The Greensboro paper reprinted The N&O's story on Monday. Sawyer, and several other commentors to the blog, said the story was unfair for leaving that information out.

Sawyer (who represents a lot of those PJC beneficiaries) is only partially correct about the DA's policy. Actually, as the series showed, the Guilford DA did bargain down 10 percent of the over-90 mph cases to lesser charges. That's fewer than in many other counties.

I don't think The N&O story was unfair to Judge Hunter. It gave him ample opportunity, including a lengthy question-and-answer sidebar, to explain his record. Hunter did not mention the fact that the Guilford DA won't reduce charges for speeding over 90 mph.

Still, I wish The N&O had included that information, which Guilford DA J. Douglas Henderson had told to N&O reporters in an interview. It would have given readers better perspective to understand Hunter's record. I also would like to have seen the DA quoted as to his feelings about Judge Hunter's PJC record. The N&O did point out, in a separate story, the Henderson has instructed his assistant DAs not to take a position on PJCs.

Also not included was the fact that the chief District Court judge in Guilford does not allow PJCs in his court, which makes Hunter's record stand out even more. Reporter Pat Stith said he didn't include that detail simply because he had much more information than he could include in the limited space for the story.

And, as Stith pointed out, Hunter still handed out twice as many PJCs as any other judge in the state. However you look at it, that's a record hard to explain away.

05/23/07 at 20:49
The news article published by the News & Observer about Judge Pete Hunter of Guilford County is unfair. Unfortunately, this flawed news article was later published in the Greensboro News & Record.

The N&O article told only half of the story. Any fair person who reads the whole story about this topic will realize that a real injustice has been done to Judge Hunter. The N&O story simply lacked balance by failing to include critical facts within this specific article about the disposition of high-speed cases in other counties in comparison to the disposition of such cases in Guilford County.

If the purpose of the N&O article was to give readers the impression that Judge Hunter was somehow unique by being exceptionally lenient on high-speed defendants by allowing PJCs in their cases, the reporter wouldn't want to mention in the story that the district attorneys in Cumberland County DISMISSED 64% of the 90-plus mph cases in that county.

And, the reporter wouldn't want to include in the story the fact that 50% of the 90-plus mph cases in New Hanover/Pender Counties were reduced to Improper Equipment by the district attorneys.

And, the reporter wouldn't want to include in the story the fact that 45% of the 90-plus mph speeding cases in Davidson/Alexander/Iredell/Davie Counties were reduced in speed to 10 miles or less over the speed limit.

And, the reporter wouldn't want to include in the story the fact that the large number of dismissals handed out by the district attorneys in Fayetteville and the large number of Improper Equipments permitted by the district attorneys in Wilmington do NOT appear on the high-speed defendants' driving records with DMV while the PJCs from Guilford are recorded on the defendants' driving records.

And, the reporter wouldn't include in the story the fact that, unlike dismissals and improper equipment violations, state law has placed limitations on the use of PJCs for both insurance points and DMV purposes.

And, the reporter wouldn't report in the story the fact that the District Attorney's office in Guilford has a policy, and has so for years, that prohibits the district attorneys in Guilford from reducing 90-plus mph speeding cases like their counterparts do in all these other counties.

No, a reporter wouldn't report all these other vital facts in the story if the purpose of the article was to target one county, Guilford, and one judge, in particular, as being uniquely different from the other counties and the other judges in the state; that uniqueness being the exceptional leniency provided to persons accused of excessive speeding.

Once the missing facts are known, a reasonable person may conclude that that this article was more of an opinion commentary than a balanced news article. Maybe Guilford County and Judge Hunter aren’t so unique after all. Instead, it may simply be a matter of the different dispositions (dismissals, improper equipment and speed reductions versus PJCs) used in the different counties to achieve the same result: saving a defendant’s diver’s license from a one-year revocation.

The problem is that the article was published as a "news article" in the N&O and on the front page of the News & Record. Don't you think that it is only fair that both newspapers publish the critical missing facts so that readers can take them into consideration as they draw conclusions about Judge Hunter and make judgments about his reputation?