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Advocate asks Carteret County commissioners to use budget oversight to investigate alleged wrongful convictions
Summary
Shelley Phillips, a representative of United Together Services and a wrongful-conviction survivor, urged commissioners to use their funding and oversight authority over the sheriff's department to investigate alleged constitutional violations in county prosecutions, citing a petition and a specific case she called concerning.
Shelley Phillips, identifying herself as an advocate with United Together Services and a wrongful-conviction survivor, urged the Carteret County Board of Commissioners on June 16 to examine local criminal-justice practices and to use the board’s budgetary oversight of the sheriff’s office to demand answers.
Phillips told commissioners her organization’s review of cases in the county began with one file she described as alarming and expanded after an online petition gathered “over 500 names in less than 12 hours.” She said multiple cases show a pattern of “constitutional violations, ignored evidence, questionable witnesses, and apparent disregard for due process.”
“The board doesn’t decide who’s charged and who’s prosecuted, but you do control the budget, and you do have the right to ask questions, to demand answers, and to call for an investigation into practices that may be undermining the very rule of law,” Phillips said. “No department, especially one funded by public money, should operate without any oversight.”
Phillips specifically mentioned the case of Hugh Willis Jr., saying he “was convicted in Carter County without any physical evidence, without any credible testimony, and with little apparent regard for presumption of innocence.” She offered to share case details with commissioners and asked them to act, saying, “Justice for somebody who sits behind bars with no evidence against them … can’t wait any longer.”
Phillips also said she was awaiting a final decision on a pardon petition involving work by clemency advocates; she described that petition as under review by the president and mentioned Alice Johnson in that context.
Another member of the public, Brian Niccolo, told the board he was moved by Phillips’s remarks and said the nation’s incarceration rate for nonviolent offenders is high. He supported the call for systemic attention to criminal justice issues but did not request a specific county action.
The board did not take formal action during the meeting; no motion to investigate or staff directive was recorded in the minutes from the June 16 session.
