Baddour did it again. Inferior Court judge Allen Baddour denied the request of a Chapel Hill man to remove his name from the North Carolina sex offender registry after a prosecutor said the man has never accepted responsibility for what he did 10 years ago.
Rush Douglas Greenslade, 63, appeared with his attorney during the brief hearing held in Orange County Criminal Superior Court last week. He was convicted Feb. 27, 2002, of two counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor, and he first registered as a sex offender on March 5, 2002.
According to records from the North Carolina Department of Corrections, Greenslade was given a probationary sentence and never served time for his convictions.
The minimum time he had to stay registered as a sex offender under state law was 10 years, and during those 10 years, according to his attorney, he always maintained his registration and never was charged or convicted of any other crimes.
Assistant District Attorney Lamar Proctor told Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour that Greenslade had originally been charged with first-degree kidnapping and first-degree rape but in a plea agreement, Greenslade pleaded no contest to two counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor.
Over the objections of Greenslade’s attorney, Proctor told Baddour the facts of the case, which in summary were that a 12-year-old girl woke up in Greenslade’s bed, and he had vaginal intercourse with her. He told her to keep what happened between them, but the girl told her mother, Proctor said.
Proctor argued against Greenslade’s name being removed from the registry.
“It doesn’t appear that he accepted responsibility at the time,” Proctor said about Greenslade’s plea of no contest.
Proctor said he worried that if Greenslade’s name was removed from registry, he could be put into a position of trust and confidence around another young girl.
In denying the motion, Baddour said he could not find that Greenslade wasn’t a current or future threat to the public, and that he was concerned about the lack of evidence of any acknowledgement of wrongdoing or treatment.
Greenslade’s attorney said she had witnesses in court she could put on the stand, but Baddour denied her request saying she had lost her chance at that.
“I asked you if you had anything further, and you said, ‘No,’” Baddour said. “What am I supposed to do, say, ‘Are you sure?’”
Baddour told Greenslade he could try again in a year.
The victim, who is now a young woman, attended the hearing with a former employee of the Orange County Rape Crisis Center. She did not speak, and they left quietly after the hearing ended.
On the other side of the aisle, five or six people attended the hearing to support Greenslade.
At first blush this sounds like a good result. Another Sex offender gets his. But the question we have isn’t necessarily about the end game, but if Judge Baddour is taking seriously, his sworn oath to uphold the Constitution and the due process rights of those that appear before him.
We’ve seen Baddour do this tactic before. He sits upon his throne and purports to be this tough guy (LOL) flanked by the ever-present elderly bailiff. He tries to appear intimidating and most of us in the courtroom try not to laugh.
Then the tactic… Baddour will ask a couple of questions on some side topic…for instance, “Was it Mrs. Kennedy that chose to ride in the convertible or was it the only car available?” Attorney responds. “No, that decision was made by the Secret Service.” Baddour then asks, “Could she have insisted on a closed roof vehicle?” Attorney states, “Those decisions were not hers to make judge.” Baddour says, “Anything else?”
Now the attorney or other party believes that Baddour is asking if there is anything else concerning this line of inquiry and so he replies, “No your honor.” After some procedural issues, the attorney says, “Your Honor, if I may, I have six citizens here that have taken off from their jobs and traveled to your court, risking public scrutiny, but they believe in this issue strongly enough to want to testify about the shooter’s actions.” Baddour then says, “Oops! I asked you before if you had anything else! So sad, so sorry! Ha, Ha, Ha!”
Baddour does this kind of thing repeatedly. In a recent case, he found a defendant guilty of failure to pay a fine. The attorney stated at the end of the hearing, “But Your Honor, he did begin to make payments…” Baddour replied, “You didn’t give me any evidence (10 minutes ago when we were discussing it) so I find him in contempt and sentence him to 45 days in jail.”
This guy is a clown. He’s playing clown games with people’s lives. He needs to take himself off of the public stage before he runs into someone who, unlike the ones that have already been harmed by him, decides to take him off the stage themselves. You sentence someone to prison on a “gotcha” technicality, they will be sitting there for years contemplating payback. Although, I wouldn’t do it, there are some very bad dudes out there that are more cerebral than to attack a judge in a courtroom with tons of bailiffs present…they’d simply Google him. Show Baddour the Door!
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