[Dryerase] Victim’s parents ordered to compensate his killer for ‘slanderous’ remarks

[Asheville Global Report]

Victim’s parents ordered to compensate his killer for ‘slanderous’ remarks
By Allie Morris
Greensboro, North Carolina, Oct. 9 (AGR)— Superior Court Judge William 
Craig ruled that Jessie Barber and her husband Calvert “Butch” Stewart, 
parents of Gil Barber, must undergo sanctions for their violation of a July 
mediation agreement between them and Guilford County Sheriff’s Deputy 
Thomas Gordy, who shot Barber to death on May 18, 2001. During the 
proceedings Gordy’s attorney William Hill pleaded, “Judge, you can’t let 
[Barber and Stewart] get away with this.” The Judge responded by issuing a 
$500 fine and ordering that they pay Thomas Gordy for his share of the 
mediator’s fee, and the attorney fees that Gordy incurred in bringing this 
Motion of Sanctions to court.
Gordy took Jessie Barber to court after she refused to discontinue public 
reference to the Deputy as a murderer. Judge Craig concluded that “the 
Plaintiffs’ contention that they were forced to sign the agreement under 
pressure or duress are meritless,” despite the mediation session’s 
extraordinary length, 8 hours, and the trying circumstances that Barber’s 
parents reported, not the least of which was sitting in the vicinity of the 
man who killed their son.
Though Gordy does not deny killing Gil Barber the court ruled that Gil’s 
parents’ use of the term “murderer” to describe Gordy is not a right 
protected by the First Amendment and substituting the word “killer” is “a 
contrived and facile attempt to avoid calling the defendant Gordy a 
murderer, and in this Court’s view, were a reprehensible flouting of the 
mediated settlement agreement terms.” The judge went on to call Barber and 
Stewart’s language “bad faith actions in this matter.”
To date, Deputy Gordy has not been subject to sanctions within the 
department and remains on duty since shooting a naked, unarmed, and 
severely injured Gil Barber last year.