Hewlett awarded for coverage of McNeair case, government accountability
{Michael Hewlett accepts award at NC News Summit. Photo: Antionette Kerr/Davidson Local}
Michael Hewlett has won the Sunshine Award for Journalism from the N.C. Open Government Coalition for a story on Charles McNeair of Lexington that he wrote for The Assembly, a digital magazine featuring in-depth reporting and writing about North Carolina. Davidson Local reprinted the story, with permission, by The Assembly.
The award was recently presented to Hewlett at the annual N.C. News and Information Summit held at North Carolina Central University.
The Coalition is a nonpartisan group that unites organizations interested in ensuring and enhancing the public’s access to government records and meetings. The Sunshine Award recognizes journalists and news organizations that have effectively used public records to tell stories of significant importance in their communities. In a session with Rebuild Local News, Davidson Local was featured as a small news outlet case study.
For Hewlett, the award recognizes his efforts to use public records law to shine a light on the case of Charles McNeair, a 16- year-old black teenager who pleaded guilty in 1979 to second-degree rape of a 57-year-old white woman after his attorney coerced him to take a life sentence plea deal or risk getting the death penalty in a trial.
In an interview, Hewlett noted North Carolina had already done away with the death penalty for rape at that time. If McNeair took the same plea today — 44 years later — the maximum sentence would be about 10 years, he added.
Hewlett said McNeair has maintained his innocence over the years and said the relationship with the woman was consensual.
Hewlett and The Assembly filed a motion seeking the release of the criminal investigative file from 1979, which could have shed light on what steps the Lexington Police Department took in their investigation, whether they collected a rape kit or if there was any other physical evidence from the scene such as DNA or fingerprints. But the file had been destroyed.
But another motion seeking the release of records related to McNeair being questioned in other criminal cases was granted. In those records, it was discovered that being functionally illiterate at the time, McNeair signed statements he couldn’t read. In fact, in another case in which he was questioned his statement was written in cursive but he only printed his name, “which led me to believe the police wrote it,” Hewlett said.
Hewlett’s in-depth story about McNeair also puts the case in the context of systemic racism in the local law enforcement and legal system at the time.
The story notes that a local group of McNeair supporters have lobbied Gov. Roy Cooper’s office to draw attention to McNeair’s clemency petition, which was filed in September 2022. Cooper has until the end of his term in December of this year to consider granting clemency.
Hewlett said the idea for the story was suggested to him by Phoebe Zerwick, his former editor at the Winston-Salem Journal and now director of the journalism program at Wake Forest University. She is also the author of “Beyond Innocence: The Life Sentence of Darryl Hunt,” a book about a 19-year-old black teen wrongly accused of rape and murder of a white woman in 1984 who was finally exonerated and released from prison in February 2004 after DNA testing was ordered in his appeal in 2003.
The Rev. Alan Suber (left), author Phoebe Zerwick and Jim Strillacci discuss her book about the late Darryl Hunt and a local case involving systemic racism in the legal system at the Lexington Book Festival Saturday afternoon. (Vikki Broughton Hodges/Davidson Local)
Zerwick had previously written an eight-part series exposing the systemic racism in the legal system in the case for the Journal titled “Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt.” Zerwick said there were similarities in the two cases.
Before joining the staff of The Assembly as a criminal justice reporter about a year ago, Hewlett was a reporter for 20 years with the Winston-Salem Journal, primarily covering local government, criminal justice, and education as well as some feature stories on pop culture. He covered news in Davidson and Davie counties for a couple of those years.
