Decorated veteran joins cause of Fayetteville man seeking to clear name

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06-03-2025

In 2023, Retired Army Maj. Willie Merkerson Jr. earned the Distinguished Service Cross for his valor in Vietnam. His children have been among those who have campaigned for the distinction to be upgraded to the Medal of Honor.
Merkerson, who lives in Fayetteville, says he only did his mission and was not seeking medals. But he believes in justice.
He has thrown his support behind another Fayetteville man, Lamont McKoy, convicted of a murder 35 years ago that evidence strongly suggests he did not commit.
Merkerson says McKoy, who was paroled in 2017 but is still seeking to clear his name, deserves the benefit of another look at the case 'to ensure justice is done.'
'What's to be lost?' he asks. 'The least they can do is give it another look to see if there's something that needs to be reinvestigated.'
Veterans' involvement in the case of McKoy has been sought and facilitated by McKoy's cousin, Lamont Saxon, a veteran of the 82nd Airborne who lives in the Washington, D.C. area. Saxon has been back and forth for decades between Maryland and Fayetteville to help clear the name of McKoy, with whom he grew up and considers to be like a brother.
McKoy's late father was a veteran of the Vietnam War who the family believes may have died from complications related to Agent Orange. Saxon is frank in saying he hopes that this connection helps humanize McKoy for the judge who is handling the most current phase of McKoy's case. Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons' father served as a Marine, Saxon says.
McKoy and his legal team with Duke Law's Wrongful Convictions Clinic are scheduled to appear before Ammons in Courtroom 4A Thursday morning.
McKoy is seeking a motion for appropriate relief, often shortened to MAR, to show he is innocent in the murder, an assertion that is supported by evidence presented at a federal trial. His lawyers want Ammons to remove himself because the judge ruled against McKoy in a previous MAR.
Ammons is the one to determine if his own recusal is warranted.
At a hearing in January, McKoy and Saxon felt the judge was dismissive of McKoy in how he talked to him.
Opinion Pitts: 'A raw deal': Decades later, a Fayetteville man still fights to clear his name
Saxon says: 'My purpose for highlighting that Lamont's father was a Vietnam veteran is because Ammons acted as if he was a thug with no family.'
Ammons said on Wednesday he could not comment on McKoy and Saxon's impression of his court demeanor. Nor did he think it was appropriate to hear additional biographical details about McKoy and his family before hearing the case.
While he did not think it appropriate either to discuss McKoy's specific MAR request, he said that senior resident judges receive many such requests.
'For years and years, I'm aware of senior residents who have handled multiple MARs, which there's no problem with that, in general,' he said. 'Some defendants file a half-dozen or more.'
Ammons is not above recusing himself in cases when he believes the situation demands it. He is also not above taking umbrage when lawyers formally ask him to remove himself.
In 2016, the judge removed himself from a case of four defendants who had been convicted of murder and were seeking to have their death penalty convictions commuted to life in prison under the Racial Justice Act. Under the act, which has since been overturned by the state legislature, defendants could get their sentences commuted if they could show evidence of racial bias in their trials.
Ammons denied the defendants' lawyers recusal request, his voice rising at times 'in apparent anger,' according to a Fayetteville Observer account at the time.
'I have sworn to administer judgment without favoritism to anyone or to the state,' he said. 'I will not violate those oaths for anyone or anything.'
Moments later, he made the decision to step aside — but not without a lecture to the defense lawyers who he said spent 'enormous time, effort and expense … to the sole issue of replacing me with another judge.'
McKoy was 17 when he was questioned by Fayetteville police officers in the death of Myron Hailey, whose body was found in his car not far from where the N.C. State Veterans Park is located downtown today. McKoy had sold drugs and was familiar to police; he has said his smart-aleck responses to questions is what led police to claim he confessed — but no such confession was introduced at trial.
Over the years, he turned down plea agreements that would have gotten him out of prison earlier. Meanwhile, federal authorities identified another man as Hailey's shooter in an unrelated federal trial over a drug conspiracy.
McKoy has said the role played in his case by now-deceased police officer Robert Parker has never been explored in court. In 1995, Parker was sentenced to six months in jail for telling drug dealers he'd get them out of trouble if they paid him.
McKoy believes that kind of record should have further raised questions in his own case. McKoy says Parker was the investigator who found a witness that gave questionable testimony against McKoy.
'He went rogue,' McKoy said of Parker. 'It's kind of funny that when I went to the trial — he never was present during the court proceedings.'
McKoy said he is grateful for the support of veterans like Merkerson and for the continued support of his family.
For Merkerson, the situation is cut and dried.
'We're human and oftentimes, humans make mistakes,' he said of the original investigation. 'And a man who served that much time honestly and faithfully deserves another chance.'
Opinion Editor Myron B. Pitts can be reached at [e-mail].
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville man trying to clear name gets major veteran backer | Opinion