Vickory looks back, ahead
By Steve Herring
Published in News on January 3, 2015 10:55 PM
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Branny Vickory talks about the road that led him to the office of district attorney and his journey since then. Vickory retired this past December after 16 years as DA.
Cowboy? Garbage truck driver?
Both are unrealized dreams for a youthful Branny Vickory of Mount Olive.
He spent 16 years as the county's top prosecutor instead.
Vickory, 58, served as an assistant district attorney from 1984 until 1998 before being elected to the top job for the first time in 1998. He did not seek re-election in 2014 and, upon completion of his last term in office, retired at the end of December.
Matt Delbridge, who worked with Vickory for many years, was elected district attorney in November. His first official day was New Year's Day.
After earning his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and then his law degree from Wake Forest University in 1981, Vickory returned home to Mount Olive to work with his father, the late Branson Vickory, who was also an attorney.
He had other plans as a youngster, but as he got older, his father's career path caught his eye.
"Dad was a lawyer and the older I got, I guess I thought more that was what I wanted to do, but I wasn't exactly sure," he said. "My mother (Alice Vickory) was always interested in me heading in that direction. Dad always encouraged me, but didn't say, 'This is what you are going to do.'"
After returning home, Vickory went to work with his father. But he wanted to do more trial work than the practice provided.
Vickory's father suggested he get on the court-appointed attorney list so that he could start getting some criminal cases.
"So I started doing that and enjoyed the work," Vickory said. "I did that for three years. Reggie Kenan and Joe Setzer ran against each other for district court judge, they were assistant DAs."
Vickory said he knew that would mean an opening in the DA's office so he talked with then-District Attorney Don Jacobs about a job.
Jacobs was agreeable and told Vickory he liked to hire people who wanted to live in the county.
"So we kind of worked a deal out -- whoever won, I would take their position," Vickory said. "I really did mean to do it just three or four years. I never thought I would do it for five years, but I loved it. I stuck with it, and the next thing you know it is 30 years later, and I am still here, still hanging on."
Jacobs was a "really good" trial lawyer, Vickory said.
"He investigated cases," Vickory said. "He went deep into them. I kind of watched him and how he prepared for a trial. When I started trying bigger cases, that is how I tried to do it."
Jacobs told Vickory two years in advance that he would not seek re-election in 1998.
Vickory filed, ran and won.
Jacobs left office early to accept an appointment to the Superior Court seat left vacant by the sudden retirement of Paul Wright.
Gov. Jim Hunt appointed Vickory in early August 1998 to complete Jacobs' term.
Then he was elected three times after that.
"I like the job," Vickory said. "I like the people that I work with. It is kind of like a family.
"You have a lot of people working in this who just want to be working for the right things."
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Not every day is a good one in the office of the District Attorney, District 8A, covering Sampson, Lenoir and Wayne counties.
And a few were so stressful, Vickory questioned going back to work.
"They fall under two categories," he said. "One, where you have been sitting there dealing with a family, and they have been crying all of the time. Man that will drain you. That is tough. I am trying to tell them we have problems with the case and we will probably have to do it as a second-degree murder rather than first.
"Sometime it drifts off to mental health, where the best thing that I can do for the family is to listen to them. I have come off of those an emotional wreck so to speak. They are tough."
Vickory said the other kind is where he is just "mad as hell," but that does not happen as much as it probably did when he was younger.
"A lot of times it is the frustrations of government," he said. "I have been as mad at the AOC (state Administrative Office of the Courts) as I have any criminal because they wouldn't do this or they wouldn't do that."
Vickory said it is usually not the person's fault he is talking with.
"It is more of a grand scheme of things," he said. "I hate to keep saying money. When I say money I don't mean like cash, I mean money in the sense that we need more people working that (state crime) lab."
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Vickory's toughest battles have not been confined to the courtroom. An underfunded judicial branch of government, a broken mental health system, a chronically overcrowded jail and a slow and problem-riddled crime lab top the list.
Delbridge, whom Vickory praises as a "first-class lawyer," can expect the same challenges.
"I can tell you things that need to be fixed, based on my observations," Vickory said. "One of them is funding. It is on the county to give us office space.
"I work for the state, but everything in this room is owned by the county. The county is my landlord. Court costs go to the payment of the rent, so to speak. It is not a money-making proposition for the county, I can tell you that, to keep us up.
The judicial branch is "grossly underfunded," he said.
"We are supposed to be the third branch of government -- executive, legislative and judicial," Vickory said. "We account for less than two percent of the budget in North Carolina. Less than 2 percent. That is absolutely ridiculous."
Vickory's other major concern is overcrowding in the local jails and in the state prison system, a problem compounded by the government's inability to deal with mental health issues.
People with mental health problems revolve in and out of jail as well as mental health facilities, Vickory said.
"We are underfunded and the mental health system is underfunded. It is like we haven't done much since ancient days as far as I am concerned."
Sheriff's offices are burdened with cases involving offenders with mental health problems despite the good job the local mental health agencies are doing, Vickory said.
"(Law enforcement) are dealing more with mental health issues than they are criminals," he said.
Whatever the reason, it contributes to jail overcrowding.
"Ever since I started, and before I started, it has been the jail," Vickory said. "The local jail is always full. That is a risk business. How much risk do you want to take?
"We set these policies up, but I guarantee if somebody out on bond kills somebody, the risk level is going to change dramatically. Then the jail will explode."
All of that aside, Vickory said he is proud of the office's disposition of cases rate.
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The hardest thing for Delbridge will be to deal with the slow pace of getting evidence tested by the state crime lab, Vickory said.
And jurors want physical evidence, he said.
Keeping those cases moving is thwarted because of the state crime lab, he said.
"In order to fix these problems we have with the lab, the legislature implemented this system to make it the best public lab in the country," he said. "They added requirements in the law that (crime lab personnel) be certified in every field in which they go in."
The legislators' requirements are unrealistic, even asking for credentials for areas where none exist, Vickory said.
And continually shrinking state budgets are forcing experienced personnel to seek jobs in other agencies that pay more, necessitating the hiring of new recruits, who then have to be certified themselves.
"Sometimes these shortsighted decisions are mind-boggling," Vickory said. "So we are constantly getting notices that these lab folks are gone."
And that turnover slows down the lab, which means it can take two years to get a report on a DWI blood test, he said.
"Now you talk about being charged with a misdemeanor, but every time that case comes up on the calendar somebody in this office has to ask for a continuance," Vickory said. "Well, at some point the judges are saying, 'Too bad. I am not going to continue it.'
"So we either have to try it without the evidence, and the defense a lot of times might object because the evidence could be good for them. Or we just dismiss it."
If the case is 2 years old, the statute of limitations has been reached and the case cannot be filed after the evidence comes back because it has been longer than two years, he said.
"They put more into DNA, which is a good thing because that is where your big crimes are," Vickory said. "But don't tell the person whose child got killed by a drunk driver that it is not an important area -- it is real important.
"It is frustrating as well. We have a lot of good laws out there, and we have a lot of good people enforcing them, but we just don't have the ability to do these things that are required of us, particularly when it comes to the science."
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For all his grievances with the system, the former top prosecutor said his heart is still in the courtroom and that he cannot give up the law.
"I think I am going to join a (law) firm," he said. "I am 58. I don't want to quit. I am not going to get on the appointed (attorney) list or anything like that. I am not looking for that kind of defense work. I am definitely more geared toward prosecution than I am defense."
Vickory said he has not taken a lot of time off since being elected.
He plans to use some of his time off now to travel with his 83-year-old mother.
"One of the first things I am going to do is to take her to visit some of her family in Mississippi, that is where she grew up," he said. "She has been wanting to go on a trip."