COOPER'S CALL

Attorney General Roy Cooper moves appropriately to calm troubled
waters by ordering the State Bureau of Investigation to check out
reports of cocaine in the office of former top courts administrator
John Kennedy, whose resignation was demanded last month. It simply
wouldn't do if traces of an illegal drug -- evidently enough to alert
a drug-sniffing dog, even if not enough to collect a sample -- were to
cost an important public official his job without prompting any
criminal investigation.

Kennedy's ex-boss, Supreme Court Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake Jr.,
said in a written statement this week that he asked and received
Kennedy's resignation in response to corroborated information about
possible cocaine use. Lake reported what he knew the same day to Wake
County District Attorney Colon Willoughby, who had known Kennedy well
during Kennedy's 16 years as Wake's elected clerk of courts. It was
Willoughby's call to let the matter drop for lack of material evidence.

The district attorney asserts that his relationship with Kennedy had
nothing to do with his handling of the matter, and he points to
friends he has prosecuted when the situation required it. But when his
decision with regard to Kennedy was not to investigate further, it
figured that some questions would remain.

As an objective third party, the SBI can interview all the witnesses,
examine all the records and get to the bottom of what was happening in
the director's office at the Administrative Office of the Courts. Then
its report will go to the attorney general, who is the proper official
to put the matter to rest.