Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 23, 1994 TAG: 9409230128
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
\ When Oliver North wanted to talk about crime during a speech Wednesday night in Danville, he had a fresh example - the Christiansburg police officer who was slain while trying to arrest a suspected shoplifter over the weekend.
The Republican U.S. Senate candidate spoke of how moved he was to attend the funeral of Terry Griffith earlier in the day. He talked about the "righteous outrage in this land" against the recently passed federal crime bill that "isn't going to stop one single crime in the commonwealth."
Finally, he worked up to his main point - praising Gov. George Allen's plan to abolish parole as a "great chance to take those career criminals and give them a career change and make them into career inmates."
Which brought North back to talking about the fallen Christiansburg officer.
"The thug that murdered Officer Terry Griffith had been paroled numerous times," North told the crowd gathered in a Danville park. "He'd been behind bars so many times he looked like a doggone zebra, and then he's out on the streets to kill a lawman."
There's a catch, though. Two, actually:
If North's intent was to imply that Allen's parole plan would have prevented this killing, he was wrong. Samuel Jerome Patterson, the man who shot Griffith and was himself later shot to death by Montgomery County deputies, was from West Virginia and wouldn't have been affected by any change in Virginia's parole law.
Even if North was using this as a general example of why parole is a bad idea, he was still wrong. There's no evidence Patterson had ever been paroled anywhere.
Patterson did have an extensive court record in Mercer County, W.Va. In the past 14 years, he'd been charged with 15 crimes, ranging from misdemeanor battery charges against various women to felony armed robbery and grand larceny.
But most of the cases were dismissed when the complaining witnesses or prosecutors did not show up in court.
Only once did court records there show that Patterson served any time in jail - and then just two days, after he was convicted of battery for beating up a store employee who confronted him about a shoplifting.
Even if Patterson served time in local jails in other West Virginia jurisdictions, he never came in contact with that state's parole system.
"We have no record of him ever having been in a state institution, so there's no way he could have been paroled," said Henry Lowery, records supervisor with the West Virginia Division of Corrections in Charleston.
Nor are there any records showing Patterson was ever in Virginia's prison system - or ever paroled here, according to Richard Crossen, deputy director of the Virginia Parole Board.
So why did North say Patterson had been "paroled numerous times"?
"That's what he was told by some of the officers at the funeral," said North spokesman Dan McLagan. Indeed, there were numerous rumors circulating among law officers there about Patterson's criminal history, many of which didn't check out.
In a statewide television program in June to promote his no-parole plan, Allen himself cited seven cases that he said would have been prevented under his plan.
Later, aides acknowledged that criminals in five of the seven cases would have been free even under the Allen plan. In a sixth case, it's uncertain whether a previous conviction would have kept the criminal in prison long enough to prevent the crime.
This isn't the first time that North's version of events has appeared to be at odds with the facts. North admits he intentionally misled members of a congressional committee about the Iran-Contra affair during an informal meeting in 1986, although he never lied under oath and was never charged with perjury.
He was convicted of three felonies, but those convictions later were overturned when an appeals court ruled his testimony before the Iran-Contra congressional hearings, for which he'd been given immunity, could have influenced the jury.
In a debate with other Senate candidates this month, North attacked "unionized public schools" and claimed there were more students in private schools in Norfolk than in public schools. In fact, about 35,000 Norfolk students attend public schools and about 3,500 go to private schools.
And at three appearances in Norfolk, North told audiences a rags-to-riches story about his immigrant grandfather to extol the virtues of self-reliance and free enterprise.
However, the details of the story are at odds with the available historical documents and the recollections of North's relatives. North's explanation of several discrepancies also shifted.
Staff writer Margaret Edds contributed to this story.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB