Amnesty International placed nine of the convicts on its list of political prisoners. The chief prosecution witness had been sent to a mental hospital before his testimony. Foreign correspondents flew in, asking awkward questions about violations of human rights. The state insisted that the harsh sentences, averaging 28 years, were meted out for dangerous criminal activity, but the convicts' partisans accumulated evidence that the real motive was the stifling of dissent.
The Soviet Union? A Latin American dictatorship? Not this time. The unpleasant scenario is being played out on the sandy plains and flat farm land of eastern North Carolina. Nine young...
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