Justice delayed, justice denied

If Chris McNair has taught us anything here in Birmingham, it’s this old adage:

Justice delayed is justice denied.

McNair is the father of Denise McNair, one of the four little girls killed in the Klan bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church 50 years ago this month. For decades afterward, an alabaster wall of silence, coupled with federal government complicity, delayed bringing the bombers to justice.

McNair also is a former Jefferson County commissioner and one of the reasons county sewer rates are so high. Commissioner McNair was a central figure in a bribery-for-contracts scheme during the early years of Jefferson County’s court-ordered sewer rehabilitation program that began in 1996.

McNair was the only elected official among more than a dozen county employees, construction contractors and engineers who went to prison for their roles in rigging sewer contracts. The corruption added at least $336 million to the cost of what became a $3.2 billion program funded solely by sewer customers.

In 2006, McNair was convicted of some bribery charges, and in February 2007 he pleaded guilty in connection to others. On Sept. 19, 2007, a federal judge sentenced McNair to five years and ordered nearly $852,000 in restitution.

McNair was 80 years old then. But legal wrangling allowed him to delay reporting to prison until June 2011. The 87-year-old was released last month under just-expanded medical hardship rules, after serving only 26 months of a 60-month sentence.

Normally in federal prisons, defendants must serve at least 85 percent of their terms; under those circumstances McNair would have spent nearly twice as long behind bars than he actually did.

Chris McNair was 85 when he finally went to prison. Had he accepted his punishment when he was sentenced in 2007, he would have served his full term of 51-60 months and still have been freed many months before the planned ceremonies marking his daughter’s supremely tragic death.

McNair’s was a cynical crime. At the time, commissioners oversaw county departments (the struggle to end that practice continues even now). As a result, elected members of the legislative branch also performed executive-branch roles as super department heads.

Commissioners then didn’t meddle in each other’s fiefdoms – a professional courtesy that helps explain why so many former Jefferson County commissioners are now convicted felons. McNair ran the sewer department, and therefore the court-ordered sewer rehabilitation program that was begun in 1995 to settle a lawsuit over excessive sewer discharges.

If McNair said a sewer bidding policy or contract was OK, the other commissioners broke out the rubber stamp.

When county sewer department officials took care of their buddies by steering them no-bid engineering contracts, McNair signed off on them. When the sewer department officials created a system that limited construction bids to their buddies, McNair signed off on it. And he willingly went along when county sewer officials dragged their feet to expand the list of qualified contractors so construction bidding would be more competitive. McNair didn’t say a word when county employees routinely allowed contractors to bypass the bidding process and award new, lucrative work at inflated prices.

In return, those engineers and construction companies helped rebuild and outfit a photography studio for McNair, a state-of-the-art showcase for the professional photographer. The charges against him included receiving cash and construction services for a lake house in his native Arkansas.

Under McNair’s watch, the estimated cost of the sewer rehabilitation program nearly tripled to $3.2 billion. Financing schemes to pay for all that led to another round of federal corruption convictions and ultimately to the county’s bankruptcy. With government services cut beyond the bone, residents now spend hours in line waiting to renew a car tag or register new property. Part of that wait ultimately is attributable to McNair’s corruption.

Chris McNair deserves sympathy. Few can look at the bombing on Sept. 15, 1963, and not feel at least some of the pain he and the families must have endured all of those years while waiting for the men who killed Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley to be brought to justice.

Delay in bringing 16th Street bombers Robert Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton to court was a denial of justice, not only for the McNairs and the other victims’ families but for society as a whole. A fourth suspect died before he could be brought to face a jury.

In the same vein, delay in McNair’s imprisonment also was justice denied to the Jefferson County residents who, decades from now, still will be paying off the bonds sold to fund the county’s sewer rehabilitation program.

Chris McNair should not be denied a prominent spot on the podium this month when his daughter’s death is properly remembered as a clarion call for civil rights. Five decades ago, his was a powerful voice for nonviolence amid the anger many felt over those four girls’ horrible deaths.

But the reputation McNair built after the bombing is part of why he was elected to the state legislature in 1973 and to the Jefferson County Commission in 1986. It was why he was in a position to profit from corruption in the sewer program in the years leading to his sudden resignation in 2001.

He took the bribes and he admitted guilt. His delay in reporting to prison allowed him to escape full justice.

On a day commemorating the four little girls killed in that terrorist attack, the concept of justice should be black and white. But sadly, it also will be shrouded to a small degree in shades of gray.