Thursday, September 28, 2006

Who Is Kim Brummell?

This post begins with a pop quiz: Which of the figures below published a plea for more widespread use of “DNA evidence,” to determine the outcome in cases where “the evidence is not clear showing innocence or guilt”?

  1. Defense attorney Joseph Cheshire, in his letter demonstrating that Mike Nifong’s chief investigator, Linwood Wilson, had not read the discovery file.
  2. Duke Law professor James Coleman, in his call for Nifong to step aside for a special prosecutor, to restore public faith in the process.
  3. National Journal senior writer Stuart Taylor, in his column eviscerating Duff Wilson’s transparently slanted New York Times article.
  4. The co-chair of Nifong’s citizens’ committee.

The answer: (4), Nifong citizens’ committee co-chair Kim Brummell, on page 23 of Reality Has Spoken (Conquering Books, 2005).

Some might consider it a mystery how a figure who so passionately attested to DNA’s significance could wind up co-chairing the citizens’ committee of a district attorney who appears to believe—provided you ignore his occasional affirmation to the court—that DNA can never “immediately rule out any innocent persons.” But Brummell is a woman of many mysteries. For instance:

  • Where does she live?

A late August article in the N&O noted that Brummell was a registered voter in Granville County. And four Herald-Sun letters published over the summer all listed her residence as Oxford.

Yet after becoming associated with the Nifong Citizens’ Committee, Brummell started saying she was from Durham.

  • What is her profession?

An August article by John Stevenson in Nifong’s house organ, the Durham Herald-Sun, claimed that Brummell is “a corporate security officer and writer.”

Yet the N&O described Brummell only as a “freelance writer.” And in her own amazon.com listing, she states, “I am currently working towards a degree in Criminal Justice and is [sic] in the process of optioning off and seeking a literary agent for my first screenplay that I have written. I have served five years in the US Army and is [sic] currently employed part-time with Federal Express.”

  • Does she also write under the nom de plume, “Supporter of Justice”?

In late August, the Recall Nifong-Vote Cheek campaign received the following email:

Hi. If you all are about wanting a DA that is a protector and not a divider [sic]. What the heck you think Nifong is doing with this victim in this case? He’s protecting her rights as a victim. That’s what a DA does [sic]. If she was not pleased at the way he has handled this case, it would probably be dropped by NOW. Why vote for a person who don’t [sic] want the job? It’s no guarantee that Mike Easley not going to re-elect [sic] Nifong again. Have you all read at least some of those 1800 page [sic] documents? I think you might want to wait and take a look and then you probably will start blaming things on nuses [sic], doctors, investigators, etc...All these people makes [sic] a criminal case, not just the DA office. You people better wake up!

Signed,
Supporter of Justice

As RN-VC spokesperson Beth Brewer noted at the time, the email address for “Supporter of Justice” was “the same as the one used by Kim Denise Brummell when filing for her PAC.” It also, I discovered, is the same email used for Brummell’s PayPal account.

Are Brummell and “Supporter of Justice” one and the same person? Emails from both Brewer and me asking this question went unanswered.

Yet the [sic] factor suggests it is so. A recent 100-word letter in the Durham Herald-Sun from the citizens’ committee co-chair denounced “Duke University President Ricahr [sic] Brodhead.” Speaking of Ryan McFadyen, Brummell fumed, “The words he used in midst of sexual assault allegations are not to be taken lightly at all, nevertheless [sic] cute.” She added that the players’ allegedly “disrespectful behavior speaks for much divide [sic] itself.”

Perhaps in the future, Brummell might seek proofreading assistance from Alex Rosenberg, Wahneema Lubiano, or their Group of 88 colleagues—who, I’m sure, would gladly continue doing all they can to facilitate Nifong’s efforts.

Brummell joins the more widely known Victoria Peterson in heading up Nifong’s citizens’ committee. Since April, Peterson has attracted attention for suggesting that medical officials tampered with the DNA evidence. She then shared the platform with the leader of the New Black Panthers party, which both the SPLC and the ADL have branded a hate group. Previously, Peterson had expressed some novel views on homosexuality, such as her contention that if gays and lesbians “are not infected with diseases . . . they will be, even women.”

Brummell, for her part, has made no attempt to conceal the reason she’s backing Nifong. “If Mike Nifong was to lose the election,” she recently wrote, “there would be a slimmer chance of this [lacrosse] case going to trial.” Brummell hailed the district attorney as a “defiant prosecutor” who is focused on “bringing shame and humiliation to the privileged, while opening the public’s eyes to the underprivileged in what might stand as truth once he presents his case.”

Nifong’s reaction that a figure with such opinions was co-chairing his citizens’ committee: “I was very pleased. It made me feel good.” So spoke Durham County’s “minister of justice.”

By the way—it’s not all that mysterious how someone with Brummell’s views on DNA found her way to Nifong’s camp. In “The DNA Evidence,” Brummell four times stated that her position on the issue applied when “a black man” was the accused. Nifong’s targets, of course, are white.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

How does Gov. Easley, who appointed Nifong, feel about the lacrosse case? If he has future political ambitions, Nifong could be his own personal albatross.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for an excellent article about one of the players in the tragedy. If only the N&O and HS could find a way to connect facts to present a whole picture...dare I say story.
I come to your blog and several others for news of the Duke case because of articles like this one.
Brummell should have Karla Holloway help her with grammar, spelling, sentence structure.

Anonymous said...

Wow!! Where did this woman learn her spelling and grammar?
Gov. Easley along with the rest of the NC elected political officials have yet to say anything and continue to let this travesty go foward.
Let us also remember that the e-mail was ONLY sent to his fellow team members and NOT put out there on a public blog. Nifong turned it into the hysteria it became, NOT the writer.

Anonymous said...

Those who present Nifong as the champion of the weak and protector of "victims" are being almost willfully blind to the obvious, and opposite reality: Nifong is using the AV for his own agenda. And I would bet it is against her will.
The first thing to consider is that the AV knows she made the initial story(s) up in a hurry while drunk and that it is full of holes. One gets the impression that she did not want to identify anyone in a line-up, at first. Then after being reminded of her precarious legal situation, she suddenly lays it on thick with a tearful account of her and the other stripper holding onto each other in terror before being dragged off to seperate dungeon chambers for the depraved pleasure of hulking white jocks...
Why would she do this? She knows it is a transparent lie. What is in it for her? Maybe staying out of jail and keeping custody of her kids was offered to her in one of the off-the- record conversations with the "protector of the weak" - in exchange for perjuring herself in front of the whole world.

Daddyx4 said...

we all know that this is another example of arrogent [sic], privleged [sic], white boys thinking they can get whatever they want from a poor, helpless, black woman simply trying to support her family. shame on yall [sic] bloggers who think simply by reading evdence [sic], relying on fact, been[sic] objective, caring about justices [sic], and having ethical standards you can just waltz right into the great "city of medcine[sic]" and tell us [sic]citizens what kind hoax the district attorney is perpetrator[sic]. ignorance is bliss - especially if it can gain us at least one convict[sic]. justice in this case has nuthing[sic] to do with the accused or the victim - it is about scoring one for the home team - don't you know that? get a life!

Anonymous said...

I am glad she is out of the army.

Anonymous said...

Can't the governor of North Carolina, the man who appointed Nifong, call for a special prosecutor to replace his appointee? Does anyone know Gov. Easley?

kcjohnson9 said...

to the 8.39; The governor, alas, doesn't have this power. But there's absolutely nothing that prevents him from using the power of his office to publicly criticize Nifong; or to demand that all district attorneys in North Carolina follow state bar ethics guidelines.

Easley's silence on these matters is a register of his weakness.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, KC. Using the bully pulpit could be an effective way for Democrat Easley to make up for appointing Democrat Nifong to his current post.