I first heard about the murder of Abhijit Mahato, a Duke graduate student, on January 19 2008. He was shot in the head in his apartment. Robbery appeared to be the motive. There were no leads, and the case was rather cold until two months later.

Mr. Mahato was 29 years old. He was a native of India, seeking graduate school training at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke. He was a serious student, by all accounts, but he liked to joke around too. He had many friends. He seemed to be a very nice guy. At the time of his death, Abhijit was a second year graduate student and was planning to take his qualifying exams the next week. His adviser at Duke, Tod Laursen, characterized Mahato as an intellectually curious and exceptionally kind, outgoing man. “He made friends very easily and always had a smile on his face. Our research team was particularly close to Abhijit--he was such a pleasure to be around. He always went out of his way to engage with people and would stop whatever he was doing and help anyone who asked,” Laursen said. “I was particularly struck by how very well read in both poetry and literature Abhijit was and how much he enjoyed conversation with others about what they were reading.”

On March 5, 2008, I first heard about the murder of a young woman in Chapel Hill. The authorities could not identify her at first. Not until the next day March 6, did we learn that the body was that of Eve Carson, the student-body president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I believe that she was the first student-body president in the United States to be murdered while in office.

By all accounts, Eve Carson was an amazing young woman. A bio of Eve on the UNC website has the following: “A native of Athens, Ga., Eve was born Nov. 19, 1985. She came to Carolina in the fall of 2004 as the recipient of a prestigious Morehead Scholarship. A member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, she was a pre-medicine student majoring in both political science and biology. As a North Carolina Fellow, she was part of a four-year leadership development program for undergraduates.

While at UNC-Chapel Hill, she was extremely active in both leadership and service roles. As student body president, she was also a member of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees. She served as co-president of the Honors Program Student Executive Board and as a member of the Committee on Scholarships, Awards and Student Aide; the Academic Advising Program; and the Chancellor’s committee for University Teaching Awards.

Teaching and working with children were key service interests for Eve. In 2006, she taught science at Frank Porter Graham Elementary School in Chapel Hill as part of UNC’s INSPIRE program, whose mission is to encourage young students to pursue science as an interest. In her junior year, Carson was a tutor at Githens Middle School in Durham. She was also an assistant coach in the Girls on the Run of the Triangle, a character development program for girls ages 8-12 that uses running to teach values and a sense of self.

Eve's service extended well beyond the Triangle, however. In the spring of her sophomore year, she participated in a study abroad in Havana, Cuba, and she spent her summers working and volunteering in Ecuador, Egypt and Ghana as part of the Morehead Summer Enrichment program. "I credit my prior experiences, especially my past two Morehead summers, for preparing me to get along with pretty much whatever comes my way," she wrote in an e-mail posted on the Morehead Web site. On campus, she became involved in Nourish International, an organization started by UNC students in 2002 for hunger relief. Eve served as freshman volunteer coordinator (2004) and co-chair (2005) for the group.” Eve was full of energy, ideas, and absolute vitality. Like Mahato, her future was cut short by senseless violence.

Chapel Hill was stunned. We all were. As the days went by, we all watched the authorities develop their case, piece by piece. Her car was found at the intersection of Hillcrest Circle and Hillcrest Drive, abandoned. An ATM photograph of one of the defendants was also found. Of course, the accused had to come from Durham. Sigh… Yet another stain on the reputation of the Bull City.

When I am the judge in first appearance court at the Durham County jail, I usually watch the 10pm news the night before. I listen carefully to the body bag count to see who might be appearing in front of me the next morning. I learned that the authorities had arrested Lawrence Lovette and Demario Atwater for both the Carson and Mahato murders. Lovette would be appearing in front of me Friday morning for the murder of Abhijit Mahato.

“Lovely,” I thought to myself. “Just my luck.”

I wanted to reassure the public during the course of first appearance. To be safe, I called Judicial Standards in Raleigh when I got in that morning. Executive Director Paul Ross answered the phone. He told me to be careful.

Twenty minutes later, as I was leaving my office to go to the Durham County jail, the phone rang again. It was Ross for a second time. He was emphatic.

He told me not to say anything about the case, or the underlying facts. To not say a word about the lack of resources in the judicial branch, and that I should just do my job.

As I traveled by car to the Durham County jail, I thought about what Ross had said. The circumstances of the cases; two students, one a graduate and one an undergraduate; one from University of North Carolina and the other from Duke University, had been senselessly murdered. Chapel Hill and Durham were in a state of shock. I felt I had to say something.

As we came into view of the jail, traveling down Magnum Street, my judicial assistant Dougie Brick told me about the TV trucks outside the jail. I expected the media to be there. There had been too much media attention for them not to be.

When I walked into the judges’ chamber behind the courtroom, it was business as usual. I put on my robe, got my cup of coffee, and headed into the courtroom. Assistant District Attorney Tracey Kline was representing the State. Chief Public Defender Lawrence Campbell was representing the defendant. The only defendant in the courtroom was Laurence Lovette.

The purpose of a first appearance is pretty straightforward. The charges are read to the defendant. If a defendant is indigent, assigned council is appointed to represent them. A new court date is set, and the defendant’s bond, set by the criminal magistrate, is reviewed by the district court judge. In this case, me. Lovette was in front of me because of the murder of Abhijit Mahato, which had occurred in Durham County.

Investigator Jack Cates briefly summarized the evidence against him. The authorities had connected the two murders by a close review of each defendant’s cell phone records. Not to mention the ATM picture. Fingerprints too, I suspected.

“How long have you been up without rest?” I asked Cates.

“A couple of days,” he responded. I told him to go home and get some rest.

On behalf of the State, Tracey Kline requested a three million dollar secured bond. The defense did not object. So I set Lovette’s bond at 3 million dollars. Since he was only 17, I seriously doubted that he had the nearly half a million dollars that it would take to post bond. I also knew that he would be going before an Orange County Judge for the murder of Eve Carson. He would likely appear in front of Chief District Court Judge Joe Buckner, an old college friend of mine. I felt very confident that he would get no bond in Orange County.

Lovette’s arraignment was over. I briefly paused, taking in the moment. Then I stood up. I never knew that Lovette remained in the courtroom, after all, I am blind. I looked out toward the media audience behind the bulletproof glass in the courtroom. This is what I said, word for word:

“Before we stop here this morning with this first appearance, I do want to say a few things, and since I am going to be talking to Governor Easley and Lieutenant Governor Purdue, Attorney General Cooper, Speaker Hackney, and Senate Majority Leader Basnight, I’m going to stand up.

"This defendant is entitled to a lawyer under our law, he is entitled to receive a fair trial, he is entitled to have any crime proved against him beyond a reasonable doubt, and he is entitled to be tried by a jury of his peers. That’s the law of this land. And that’s what’s going to be followed here – in this courtroom - and in every courtroom.

"I don’t know if Mr. Lovett is it. That burden is on the State. But I do know that what has happened here is horrible. And we don’t just need to talk about this; we need to do something about it further. Now I am not a member of legislature, I am not a member of the executive. I am a judge. And I do know my place. But I am also a little bit crazy. And I am a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, and I want to offer a few thoughts: To them and to the citizens of North Carolina. Don’t worry this is going to be short.

"We absolutely positively need to have anti-gang legislation passed by the General Assembly. I respectfully and sincerely ask the governor to call a special session of the legislature. I am sending an SOS to Raleigh. I expect them to hear it.

"It is curious to me, that because the victim of one of these cases was such an amazing young lady, I am told that she was white, that the media has taken so much attention, but I guess I am not surprised. But I also wonder, when there are so many black victims of crime, why that is necessarily the case. But I am blind, and that doesn’t make any difference to me, and I am not taking this back any further than what I just said.

"But what I do mean to say, is that any anti-gang legislation that might pass in the vengeance of the moment needs to be balanced, thoughtful, and deal with not only punishment, but the underlying problems that cause our young people to become members of a gang in the first place.

"Now I am not going to have anything else to say, I know you all might think that is unusual, but this is a deadly serious matter. And again as I have said, I am not a member of the legislature, and I am not a member of the executive, I just do my job and I follow the laws of North Carolina, as I am required to do.

"But let’s not rush to judgment. Let’s be thoughtful and considerate in terms of anything that we do, whether it be in this particular case, or with respect to any legislation. From all I have heard of Eve Carson, and I’ve never met her, but from all I have heard, she would want balanced legislation. And I know… well, you can call it whatever you want but I think it would be wonderful if we called it Eve’s Law. Thank you very much.”

When I was done, I sat down. I didn’t know that my remarks had taken 4 minutes and 29 seconds. It seemed like a minute or two. I was well aware that I would pay for what I had to say. I have always been outspoken. I suppose that I am an activist judge, always trying to make the criminal justice system better. Carson’s murder was especially savage. It struck me as a gang initiation. I had good reason to think that. Besides the savageness of it all, there were two other clues. Lawrence Lovette had a website with a lot of gang graffiti, and on the night of the murder, Lovette had been photographed at a bank ATM wearing a Houston Astros baseball cap with Crip colors. It was strange headwear for early March. Gang activity is more serious than individual criminal activity because it involves multiple people in an organized fashion.

So why did I go off, you might ask? After all, I had represented more than a dozen murderers when I was in private practice. I tried two capital murder cases in Durham County to verdict. Over my 12 years on the district court bench, many defendants charged with murder had appeared in front of me. What made this case different? I’ve thought about my answer to that question a lot since it happened.

It’s all in the history, my personal history. Let me explain:

• Maybe it was because in 1978, I ran for student body president at Chapel Hill.
• Or maybe it was because I won the chancellor’s award for unique leadership in student government in 1979. As an undergraduate, I was involved in student government all four years I was at Chapel Hill.
• Or maybe it was because I researched and helped write Albert and Gladys Coates’ book on the history of student self governance at UNC Chapel Hill - 1795-1980. UNC Press published it in 1983. I am told that it remains the unofficial Bible of student government at Chapel Hill to this day.

But those are all in my distant past. They are part of my own history, but they alone did not cause me to pull the trigger. I had other reasons, too.

• Maybe it was because I had served as co-chair of the truancy and gang prevention committee in Durham from 1998-2003. I knew a lot about gangs and gang activity.

• Maybe it was because I began a nation-wide review of gang legislation and gang laws in the United States. My judicial assistant and I looked at gang laws in California, Texas, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and Florida. After the review, I felt that California’s laws were the most thorough. But I also knew that no California legislation would pass in North Carolina. Fortunately, the Georgia legislation was patterned after California. I gave a copy of the Georgia Law to then District Attorney Jim Hardin. In turn, he gave it to Durham House Representative Mickey Show, who introduced it in the State House in 2001.

• Or maybe it was because the proposed gang legislation sat in the General Assembly without action for more than six years. In the meantime, the gang problem only got worse. Even Raleigh was now admitting they had a gang problem too. Frankly, most of the urban areas in North Carolina had a growing gang problem as well.

• Or maybe it was because I was a short-termer. Nobody knew it yet, but I had already made a decision to resign my commission for medical reasons.

• Or maybe it was because I have two daughters about the age of Eve Carson.

• Or maybe it was because the savageness of Eve Carson’s murder ripped out my heart and gripped my soul.

Taken together, that’s why I went off. When I made them, I knew that the remarks were made in the right case, but at the wrong time and at the wrong place. I never intended to prejudice Laurence Lovette. As a former criminal defense attorney, I would simply never do that. As I said before, I did not even know he was still there. I hope that explains why I did what I did and when I did it. If I had the opportunity, I would say it again. Sometimes, you just have to stand up. Now it is high time for the state of North Carolina to enhance the new gang laws and to make significant reforms within the criminal justice system. It is a shame that it took the deaths of two young people to move the ground under these issues in North Carolina.