Roy Cooper issues four pardons, commutes one man's prison sentence

Gov. Roy Cooper pardoned four people who have gone on to become productive members of society years after leaving prison for felony convictions for robbery, drug dealing and other crimes, he announced Wednesday.

He also released a fifth man from prison: Darnell Cherry, a 42-year-old from Bertie County who has been in prison for his entire adult life after being convicted for being involved in two robberies and a murder when he was 16. Cooper said Cherry was scheduled to get out of prison in 2035, but that the state's Juvenile Sentence Review Board recommended that the governor commute his sentence now, and give him a new chance at life.

"While incarcerated, Mr. Cherry has been consistently employed and has participated in learning programs, including obtaining his [General Educational Development certification] and trade qualifications," Cooper wrote. "His sentence was commuted to time served."

To remain out of prison, Cooper ordered, Cherry will have to follow a number of rules including not having any contact with his victims or their families, not owning any guns, not committing any more felonies or serious misdemeanors, regularly checking in with a probation/parole officer and other requirements.

Those who obtained pardons are:

• W. Samuel Fagg, 43, convicted of selling cocaine in 2002 in Wake County when he was 21. Cooper said he has since gone to school, obtained a master’s degree and PhD, "and now conducts advanced scientific research related to regenerative medicine."
• Flemming Ragas, 45, convicted in 1999 of breaking and entering, larceny, and possession of stolen goods in Lee and Cumberland counties when he was 20. He went on to join the Army and served for years, which Cooper said included two deployments to Iraq that left him a decorated soldier: "For his service, Mr. Ragas received the Bronze Star and Meritorious Service Medal."
• Portia Bright-Pittman, 38, convicted of accessory after the fact to armed robbery in Orange County in 2008 when she was 22. Cooper said she has since worked in state government for many years.
• Tramayne Hinton, 42, who was convicted of robbery in Perquimans County in 1998 when he was 16. Cooper said he went back and got his high school diploma, and has worked in sales and marketing in addition to owning his own business.

Cooper has issued about 30 such orders as governor, including seven pardons for people who were wrongfully convicted of rape or murder. All of them came after he won reelection in 2020.

The most high-profile of his previous pardons were the cases of:

• Darryl Howard, a Durham man who spent 21 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of a double murder, based on evidence a jury would later determine had been faked by a Durham Police detective. He was awarded $6 million, but Durham has since refused to pay.
• Montoyae Sharpe, freed after 24 years behind bars when it came to light that his conviction for a Greenville murder rested on a "medically and scientifically impossible" theory of the crime by the police as well as a supposed eyewitness who later said she wasn't actually there.
• An Asheville murder case in which local sheriff's deputies withheld DNA evidence that connected the crime to people other than the four men they arrested, and taped over a key piece of video evidence that might have shown the faces of the real killers.
• Ronnie Long, who spent 44 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted in a rape case marred by allegations of racism. He was freed after investigators discovered that the police had DNA evidence and fingerprints from the crime scene that pointed to a different suspect or suspects, but that the evidence was either destroyed or hidden from him.

In an interview last week with WRAL, Cooper was asked whether he planned to issue more pardons or commutations and said several were in the works.

It's unclear if the ones announced Wednesday were all of those, or if more might still be coming later. The decisions to pardon someone, or commute a prison sentence, are often kept a tight secret until ready to be publicly announced.

"My legal office reviews all petitions," Cooper said in that interview. "And we look at them very seriously."