Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET High Drama THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET by MARGARET DICKSON Few stage plays, few movies, few television programs or other artistic performances can really equal the drama of a good criminal trial. Criminal trials are replete with surprises, cads, reprobates, victims, fl imfl ammers, liars, grieving families, overzealous and highly skilled attorneys and more. Then there is the drama — tears, laughter, revenge, denial, forgiveness and unforgiveness, love, hate, the occasional profanity and even fi stfi ghts. Nothing beats a good trial, and for a really good one, people line up for seats. That was certainly the case in the recent John assault on a sleeping woman who had just undergone head surgery and who was bandaged. What more primal fear do human beings have than being attacked lying down in a place where we believe ourselves to be safe? It is hard not to think about this. Edwards trial in Greensboro. Edwards is, of course, the former North Carolina trial attorney who became a rock star in his profession and who, following the accidental death of his 16-year-old son, chucked it all to run — successfully — for the United States Senate and then for President of the United States — not once but twice! He topped all that off with an affair and love child with a Presidential campaign videographer only to have his world crash around his feet when his hanky-panky and bouncing baby girl were made public not by a mainstream news organization but by a supermarket tabloid whose reporters had apparently been tailing him. Edwards wound up in criminal court because two wealthy campaign supporters supplied money to help hide his mistress and baby. He declined a plea deal offered by federal prosecutors and decided to take his chances with a jury, betting that 12 other North Carolinians would see that money as he did, as personal gifts not as campaign contributions. We all know how that bet worked out for Edwards. Whew! Just writing all that wore me out. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to live through it! Edwards is hardly a sympathetic fi gure himself, but it is impossible for me not to feel tremendous concern for his four surviving children and his elderly parents. Edwards' 30-year-old and Harvard-educated lawyer daughter went to court with him nearly every day, as did his parents. We will never know what that experience was like for them, but we can safely bet that they would rather have been somewhere else. And then there are the three younger ones, including the love child, who did not ask for any of this and who are almost certainly paying social prices nonetheless. High drama steeped in much pain. Next up is the trial of Jason Williford in Wake County for the rape and murder of a member of the state board of education. This crime scares everyone, as it involves a brutal and ultimately fatal The trial had its odd moments as well. Williford's wife, who is understandably seeking a divorce from him, testifi ed that when he returned home the night of the murder he was wearing only his boxer shorts. She also gave her employment as a fi re eating performer in Wilmington. I guess everybody has to do something… As a reporter many years ago in Fayetteville, I covered the trial of a man for fi rst degree murder. The case drew a great deal of attention because it was the fi rst death-penalty case locally after capital punishment was re-instated in North Carolina in the late 1970s. Two other people had been involved in the murder, and both had turned state's evidence and testifi ed against the defendant in exchange for lighter sentences. It was a gruesome trial, as the victim had been shot, hauled around in the trunk of a car and ultimately run over before he was dispatched to meet his maker. The trial of John Edwards in Greensboro has caught the nation's attention. courthouse, ordered the defendant to stand and asked if he would like to address the court before the sentence was formally imposed. "Yes," replied the defendant in voice that could only be described as deadpan. "I just want to say that I am mighty disappointed by the way things went this week." Talk about a man of understatement! When all was said and done, the jury convicted the defendant and sentenced him to death, generating much excitement in the crowded courtroom. This was — and is — serious business when the state is going to take a human life. Before he imposed the jury's sentence, the presiding judge, high above the proceedings in the old paneled courtroom in the old Cumberland County Artistic performances can be fascinating and dazzling, but criminal trials are so riveting, I think, because they involve real people. Real people are sentenced to prison and real families are left behind. Real people grieve their own victimization or that of someone they love. Real people must live the rest of their lives with the consequences of their actions or those of others. We can I say? A play is a wonderful and realistic work of art. With a criminal trial, we are always left with a sense of "?There, but for the grace of God, go I." MARGARET DICKSON, Con- tributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. 20 Countdown Magazine Adventures in Odyssey Focus on the Family Contest & Request Line: 910-764-1073 Keeping the Main Thing ... the Main Thing. visit us online www.christian107.com 8 UCW MAY 30 - JUNE 5, 2012 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM