Duke prosecutor (Coman) treads familiar ground

In the coming weeks, the new lead prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse case can expect a deja vu moment when he meets with defense attorneys who will argue that charges should be dropped.

Special Deputy Attorney General Jim Coman had a similar meeting in 2003 with some of the same lawyers when they tried to persuade Coman to drop charges against former death row inmate Alan Gell.

Gell had been convicted in 1998 after prosecutors from the Attorney General's Office withheld evidence that could have proved his innocence. In some respects, Gell's case foreshadowed the one against former Duke lacrosse players Reade Seligmann, David Evans and Collin Finnerty. Previous prosecutors had withheld evidence favorable to the defense. There was no physical evidence against the defendant. The timeline had major holes. There was a solid alibi.

It was just the most recent high-profile case for Coman, who has spent a career in the spotlight. He prosecuted members of the Ku Klux Klan after the fatal shootings of five Communist Workers Party members in Greensboro in 1979. He served as former Attorney General Lacy Thornburg's "junkyard dog," was outspoken as director of the State Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted or investigated many public officials.

Coman was appointed Jan. 13 by state Attorney General Roy Cooper to take over the highly charged case in which the three defendants are accused of sexually assaulting an escort dancer at a team party in March. A day earlier, Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong had recused himself amid a storm of criticism and ethics charges from the N.C. State Bar.

"I've heard others say he [Coman] is a bulldog and mean and tough, but my experiences have always been very pleasant," said Joseph B. Cheshire V, one of Gell's attorneys who now represents one of the lacrosse defendants. "He's always been reasonable."

Cheshire, his partner Bradley Bannon, and Jim Cooney of Charlotte are lawyers in the Duke case who represented Gell in his second trial. When Cooney helped win him a new trial in 2002, Gell had already spent seven years behind bars, four on death row.

Cooney tied together the evidence of innocence in a PowerPoint presentation that foreshadowed many elements of the lacrosse case. Coman chose to go forward, but the opposing lawyers still speak highly of him.

The Gell case differs from the Duke case in several key respects, Cooney said. A crime had definitely occurred: The murder victim was found in his bedroom riddled with shotgun pellets.

"You had two girls who testified that they were eyewitnesses to a murder, and a jury believed them,'' Cooney said. "And the victim's family was pushing for a retrial.''

Coman was lead prosecutor at Gell's 2004 retrial. The jury quickly found Gell not guilty.

"It was a difficult case for him to retry," Cooney said. "He and [assistant prosecutor] Pat Murphy tried as ethical and honorable a case as I've ever seen."

Coman, 64, declined to be interviewed for this story. Colleagues say the prosecutor can spin a yarn when he has a mind to, usually in salty and colorful language.

"Jim is fun to talk with; he can tell some tales," said Steve Royster, a Mount Airy defense lawyer who has faced Coman in several cases. "He loves to tell war stories, and that is very entertaining when you represent the other side. Now, he may be very personable, but he doesn't cut you any slack.''

The son of a Rahway, N.J., police chief, Coman has been in law enforcement his entire life. His first job as a lawyer was as an attorney for the Greensboro police. In 1978, he became an assistant district attorney.

One of his first, toughest and highest-profile cases was the murder prosecution of Ku Klux Klan members in Greensboro in 1980. Five members of the Communist Workers Party were killed during a "Death to the Klan" rally. TV cameras captured the 88 seconds of mayhem: Some party members rushed the KKK and Nazi convoy as it arrived and pounded on the cars. Klansmen pulled guns and fired, and several communists fired back. Five communists were killed.

Coman was one of three prosecutors on the case caught between hate groups. The victims' families refused to cooperate with the prosecutors and actively undermined the trial. On the first day of jury selection, dozens of party members rushed the courtroom, caused a riot with security and pulled fire alarms as they fled the building.

Widows of the victims were gagged and removed after they denounced the trial as a sham devised by the bourgeoisie. Someone poured skunk-scented oil on the floor. One party member testified, but he refused to identify photographs of his bullet-riddled colleagues and launched into a tirade that revolution was imminent.

An all-white jury acquitted the Klansmen. Coman and his fellow prosecutors discussed the case and their frustrations at length in a 2005 interview with the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which published a summary of the interview.

According to that summary, the prosecutors said the communists, by refusing to humanize their loved ones, reduced themselves to cardboard caricatures of rabid Marxists. Coman primarily blamed the communists: They were the provocateurs, he said, and the KKK members were so foolish to need to establish their manhood that they fell into a trap.

"To me, the conduct of the CWP -- as reprehensible as the Klan was -- that they won't even admit they did anything wrong, for me, they bear much more responsibility for what happened,'' said the summary of Coman's interview. "If just one of them has the moral fiber to get up and say publicly that they have regrets for what they did, you can call me up and say I am full of [expletive]."

Coman moved to Raleigh in 1985, when Thornburg, then the attorney general, hired him to work in the special prosecutions section. Thornburg, now a federal judge, used to refer to Coman as "my junkyard dog." Colleagues presented him with a "buzz saw award" -- a saw blade mounted on a plaque.

In 1993, Attorney General Mike Easley -- now governor -- named Coman as SBI director. Coman oversaw the investigation of Alexander Killens, director of the Division of Motor Vehicles, who pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice. He also supervised the investigation of Rufus Edmisten, then secretary of state and a former state attorney general. Edmisten resigned.

Coman returned to the Attorney General's Office in 1999 at Easley's request, in part because Coman made blunt remarks to a News & Observer columnist about a case in which two Hispanic men languished in jail for eight months, awaiting SBI lab tests that would exonerate them.

"Those guys oughta be thanking us," Coman said. "Six years ago there wouldn't have been any damn tests. Do I feel sorry for the guys? No. Is it fair? No. No one ever said life was fair."

For the most part, Coman has avoided speaking with the media since then. He has focused largely on prosecuting public officials, judges and law enforcement officers.

After Gell's acquittal, the N.C. State Bar brought misconduct charges against the two assistant attorneys general who withheld the evidence at Gell's first trial, including a tape recording of the state's star witness saying she had "to make up a story" for police.

Coman appeared as a character witness and supported the prosecutors' decision not to give Gell's attorneys the tape. The tape could be used to "impeach" the witness or undercut her credibility, Coman testified, but didn't have to be turned over.

The U.S. Supreme Court first ruled in 1972 that prosecutors must turn over impeachment material in criminal trials.

This interpretation of constitutional law from the lead prosecutor in the Attorney General's Office proved controversial. At a State Bar hearing in 2005, Coman defended himself under close questioning by Cooney, his adversary in the Gell and Duke lacrosse cases.

"The mere fact that something can be impeaching in and of itself does not automatically require that it has to be turned over," Coman said.

Coman conceded that Cooney, Cheshire and Bannon used the tape to great effect on the jury, who twice listened to it during deliberations before finding Gell not guilty.

"The tape came in, and I certainly do believe that it had an influence on the jury," Coman said. "For me to come in here and say, 'No, it wasn't impeaching' would have been ludicrous."

In some respects, Gell's case foreshadowed the one against former Duke lacrosse players Reade Seligmann, David Evans and Collin Finnerty. Previous prosecutors had withheld evidence favorable to the defense. There was no physical evidence against the defendant. The timeline had major holes. There was a solid alibi.

Coman chose to retry Gell.

That's barbaric.

Barbaric and obscene. At this point, I think I have read enough to keep me from ever setting foot in North Carolina.

Sounds like he has a poor batting average with big cases.

"He prosecuted members of the Ku Klux Klan after the fatal shootings of five Communist Workers Party members in Greensboro in 1979." " jury acquitted the Klansmen. "

"Coman was lead prosecutor at Gell's 2004 retrial. The jury quickly found Gell not guilty."

"Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission"

Google "Truth and Reconciliation." You'll see that it's a Marxist whitewash, in South Africa, in Peru ... these dolts never stop. They kicked a rabid dog and are whining that they were bitten. None of these people, the Klan or the CWP (several of whom were affiliated with Duke University), none of them, were from Greensboro. They did everything they possibly could to undermine their own day in court, and now want to bleat about justice. It's been more than 25 years, and most of us living in and around Greensboro could still just spit, whenever they raise their heads again.

This Duke case will not be allowed to disappear quickly. Too many public figures have too much at stake here. If and when the case is dismissed, it will be done after 'extensive and exhausting re-evaluations.' I wish there were a judicial ambudsman who could simply fire all of these self-serving swine on the spot!

"He prosecuted members of the Ku Klux Klan after the fatal shootings of five Communist Workers Party members in Greensboro in 1979."

Resulting in no convictions.

"none of them, were from Greensboro."

Nelson Johnson, one of the commie participants of the Death to the Klan march is now the head of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation commission. No conflict of interest there.

How could I forget the good reverend? The only African-American involved. Wonder who was responsible, within the CWP, for the decision to hold their charming death rally in Morningside Homes, thereby exposing the largely African-American residents there to death and destruction? And, isn't this rather racist? Why not clash somewhere, anywhere, else? These idiots will never get a pass from me.

The case may not disappear quickly, but you can bet the farm that no prosecutor in his right mind wants to try this dog. Now, the guy who created this travesty and should have been sentenced to the humiliation of trying this case on national TV is out.

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