State of North Carolina v. Johnnny James Blackmon

Raleigh, North Carolina Defendant, James Blackmon, was accused of killing Helena Payton on the sixth floor of her dorm room at St. Augustine's College in Raleigh on September 28, 1979.



Helen left her room to use the common bathroom at 6:15 a.m. She was assaulted on September 28, 1979 and originally survived the assault, conscious and responsive as she arrived at Wake Medical Center. She was sent to surgery, went into a coma after surgery, and never recovered. The Victim died on October 30, 1979.



Several students heard the Victim screaming, including her roommate, Elvin Turner (Turner) and another student,

Jackie Kelly (Kelly). The Victim exited the bathroom into the hall and said to Turner—who had

left their dorm room to help the Victim—"He stabbed me.” The suspect exited the bathroom

from a different exit on the opposite side from where the Victim exited, walked past Kelly, who

was standing with her roommate, Barbara Lee (Lee), and made eye-contact with Kelly. The

suspect then went down the stairs to the lobby, walked out the front door, and ran around the

building after a security guard yelled at him to stop. He was last seen running through the parking

lot.



The Victim initially survived the attack and was conscious and responsive when she

arrived at the hospital. Before she went to surgery, she told her mother she did not know who

stabbed her and that she had never seen him before that day. The Victim informed rescue

workers that she was attacked from behind after she entered the bathroom, and that she was

stabbed in the neck after she screamed. After the surgery, the Victim went into a coma and never

recovered. She died on October 30, 1979. According to the autopsy, the stab wound to her

carotid artery caused irreversible brain damage while the immediate cause of death was likely septcemia. The previaling opinon among everyone interviewed was that the victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time..



The crime was investigated by the Raleigh Police Department (RPD). The initial

investigation identified several suspects and also appeared to focus on the idea that some of the

other girls in the dorm were involved. None of those theories panned out and the case, while

still periodically investigated, was left without leads in mid-1980. There was a renewed effort in

the case by a major crimes task force in early 1981, which included a visit to the campus. Between

the initial investigation and the renewed investigation, police sketched two different drawings of

Latham Hall's 6th floor and Latham Hall's 1st Floor. Police also took photographs. Some

photographs are clearly directly following the crime, while some appear to have been taken at a

later date because the photos do not show the evidence of an assault that has just taken place.

Witnesses describe the attacker as a young thin black man with short hair and was wearing a dashiki-style shirt. The shirt was found near the dorm and the knife in the dorm under a table. Finger prints were found in the bathroom.



Then, in February 1983 a confidential source at Dorothea Dix hospital told police that a

male patient was talking about murdering black women, including specifically mentioning one at

St. Augustine's. This same source, or possibly a second source, gave the patient's name as

"Brammer” and said he lived in the McBride building.



Police could not find an individual named Brammer at Dorothea Dix, but were told by one

of the two sources that Blackmon was the only patient matching the description provided. Police

obtained Blackmon's records from Dorothea Dix which unveiled a history of mental illness and

included reports of assaultive behavior. Blackmon began voluntarily speaking with RPD

detectives in several interviews throughout October, November and December 1983, including a

visit to St. Augustine's and Latham Hall. The transcripts from these interviews further revealed

Blackmon's mental illness, though he made incriminating statements, some of which were not

consistent with the details of the crime. This resulted in Blackmon's arrest and subsequent guilty

plea.



Blackmon was not a suspect.



Eventually as confidential source at Dorothea Dix Hospital, the North Carolina state main psychiatric hospital told authorities that a patient named "Brammer" had said that he had killed a black woman at St. Augustine's. Authorities could not find a patient named "Brammer" at the hospital but focused on James Blackmon, age 28, who had been a patient. Blackmon has a history of mental illness and criminal problems of various kinds.



Blackmon was placed in a lineup but was not picked by any of the witnesses. He was also interviewed numerous times starting in October 1983. At various times Blackmon made bizarre statements including that he could levitate, was telepathic, and could control other people's behavior. He was more than a little crazy.



The officer eventually took Blackmon to the bathroom where Payton was stabbed and claim that Blackmon said:



"This is where it happened.” Holder asked him what "What happened, James? Where were you?” Blackmon said "I was here and she was there.”



The detectives also claimed that Blackmon said: "I — either he cut her in the woods somewhere where he had her at or either up in that building.”



Eventually Blackmon was arrested and charged with first-degree murder on December 8, 1983. The prosecutor sought the death penalty.



Blackmon was held in jail for three years. His lawyer sought to suppress all statements made by Blackmon claiming that he was schizophrenic, biopolar and personality disorders.



A Motion to Suppress Blackmon's statements to law enforcement was held over four days: August 6, 7, 12,

and 14, 1987. The Motion was denied on August 31, 1987. Blackmon's case was set for trial on

December 18, 1987 but a motion to continue was granted on December 17, 1987 to appoint

additional counsel to Blackmon and/or for plea negotiations.



Blackmon floated back and forth between Lumberton, North Carolina and Binghamton, New York and was in Binghamton and had been arraigned in court in Binghamton a month before the Payton stabbing and a month later he was in the same court when a drug-possession charge was dismissed.



The finger print found in the bathroom did not match Blackmon's print. Eventually it was determined that it belonged to James Leach.

Blackmon pled guilty to Second Degree Murder on January 14, 1988 with the stipulation that he be allowed to appeal the denial of his Motion to Suppress. Blackmon’s plea transcript, which is provided in full later in the brief

provides that Blackmon refused to answer as to whether he was in fact guilty and the plea transcript also indicates that “no contest” is not applicable. However, the plea transcript does not specifically outline any questions as to an Alford plea, though Blackmon’s plea is later described by defense counsel in his appellate brief as an Alford Plea.



He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.



Eventually, Blackmon's sought assistance from North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services (in 1995) and the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence (in 2008). No official action was taken in either effort, but in 2012, NCPLS submitted Blackmon’s case to the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, a state agency created in 2006 to investigate and review claims of innocence. By then, there was a greater understanding of the situations and suspects that are most likely to produce false confessions.



Blackmon at age 65 testified that while his memory was not good he did not kill Payton.



Lorin Freeman, the District Attorney for Wake County, claimed that Blackmon had not proven that he was innocent.



On November 16, 2018 the North Carolina Innocence Commission voted unanimously that there was sufficient evidence of innocence to merit a judicial review of Blackmon's case.



On August 22, 2019, a three judge panel held a hearing and declared Blackmon innocent.



Blackmon was release from prison in August 2019. He had been in custody for almost 35 years.



In 2019, Blackmon was awarded $750,000 in state compensation. In October 2020, Blackmon filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking further compensation for his wrongful conviction.

Dr. Edward Landis and Dr. Allsion Redlich

I is difficult to understand how this happened to Mr. Blackmon. The officers who recommended that Blackmon be charged most certainly knew that he did not, in fact, stab the woman and the prosecutor who handled the case for the Wake County Prosecutors office likely knew that Blackmon was not guilty yet he charged with capital murder. He was, as a result at risk of being found guilty and sentenced to death because he was a black man whose ability to help his lawyer develop a defense was compromised. Finally, why did his lawyer stand silent while he was being found guilty. Was it because he knew that being found guilty of second-degree murder with a possibility of parole sometime in the future. It is likely that Blackmon would have died in prison if he had not finally spoken up. He had no one in his corner trying to help him until Jonathan Broun with the North Carolina Prisoner Legal Service been assigned to help. Broun is said to have said: "There's a problem with how the criminal justice system deals with mentally ill people. It was a problem in the 1980s...I am conversed that some problems would be repeated." "Justice delayed is better than no justice at all." Unfortunately, he is mostly likely speaking the truth about the criminal justice system in North Carolina and in your state also.