Ellis hearing postponed amid no-show
By John Joyce
Published in News on November 21, 2014 1:46 PM
NEW BERN -- All parties were present and accounted for in Craven County Superior Court Thursday for a hearing in the motion for appropriate relief in the murder case of Javonta Ellis, 17.
Everyone but the defendant.
Judge John Nobles rescheduled the matter for Monday at 10 a.m. and moved the hearing back to Wayne County.
Ellis is one of two Wayne County teens convicted of first-degree murder in September on charges stemming from a 2012 shooting death of Kevin Bell.
After seeing his client sentenced to life in prison, defense attorney Charles Gurley filed a motion on Ellis' behalf seeking a new trial due to the discovery of three new witnesses who gave statements allegedly testifying to Ellis' innocence.
That motion has to be heard by the trial judge -- Nobles -- who's schedule had him in Craven County Thursday.
Despite a court order instructing the state prison system to transfer Ellis from the Foot Hills Correctional Institute in Morganton to the Craven County Courthouse by 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Gurley told the court he had learned that his client would not be arriving until 3 or 4 p.m.
"I contacted my office this morning and my office contacted Michelle Marks, head of Superior," Gurley told the judge.
"The writ was never sent," he said.
Mrs. Marks, supervisor of the Superior Court section of the Wayne County Clerk of Courts addressed the matter of the missing writ later that day.
Mrs. Marks said Gurley did provide the original copy of the writ ordering Ellis' transfer to the clerks office on Oct. 24 to be added to his clients file.
"Under normal procedure, the District Attorney's office sends us the writ, and that only happens after they have sent two copies of the writ to the writ office in Raleigh," she said.
Wayne County Clerk of Courts Pam Minshew confirmed it is not the norm for the defense attorney in a case to bring the writ to the clerk's office and if that does happen, as it did in this case, it is only to be filed.
Mrs. Minshew said that if a defense attorney asked the clerk's office to then forward the necessary copies of the writ to the writ office, her office would have obliged, but that request was never made.
Mrs. Marks said she was in fact contacted by Gurley's office Thursday morning, but said she was told by his office that the writ had been faxed.
"When it was faxed, I couldn't tell you. They must have faxed it," she said.
With the hearing returned to Wayne County, members of the Ellis family who were in attendance Thursday said the new witnesses might be reluctant to tell the truth for fear of reprisal.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one family member said that a key witness might freeze up on the stand if certain members of the community show up to the open court.
"I don't think it's going to be fair," he said.
Maj. Fane Greenfield, jail administrator for the Wayne County Detention Center, said neither he nor the Wayne County Sheriff's Office had been made aware of any threats against the witnesses in the Ellis case, one of whom is a Wayne County inmate.
Greenfield said his office had done its job by transferring that prisoner/witness to Craven County.
"This is the first I have had anything to do with this case since the trial," he said.
He also said his office had nothing to do with Ellis' transfer, and none of the paperwork having to do with that order would have come through his office.
"We had nothing to do with that. Our inmate was there."