Special prosecutor
Rowan County District Attorney Bill Kenerly just caught the political hot potato of the year, the job of being special prosecutor in former Gov. Mike Easley’s case. The Wake County district attorney, a Democrat like Easley, had too many ties to the former governor to handle the case himself, so he asked Kenerly to take it on.
A Republican, Kenerly is probably better known as a hard-working D.A. than as a political animal. That this case would be entrusted to him speaks volumes. A former Marine and a Vietnam veteran, Kenerly has been district attorney here since 1991. He serves on the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission.
Kenerly now will examine whether crimes occurred in the Easley campaign, or if Easley is as innocent of wrongdoing as his attorney says. The people of North Carolina want the truth. They can feel confident that Bill Kenerly wants the very same thing.