In a special session of the Student Government Association Senate last night, at approximately 7:30 p.m. in room 312 Marteena Hall, the Senate began to deliberate over whether or not to impeach Attorney General Daniel Davis.

Davis, elected last spring, was accused of embezzling SGA funds to print up fliers for the Mu Psi chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. in the month of October, just before homecoming. This is an offense which is punishable by North Carolina law, and is fewed as a felony.

Student fees are collected to fund the Student Government Association. Per this law, using the monies for any purpose other than official SGA business could be considered a violation, and since the SGA was not co sponsoring the programs, this could be viewed as a misuse of funds.

The Register obtained copies of documentation approximately three weeks prior which states that Davis authorized the use of a total of $58 to print 115 fliers for two seperate programs.

In a phone interview at the time of the receipt of the documents, Davis stated that he did not realize that he had done anything wrong, and thought he was just doing his job as attorney general to provide programs for students in regards to health and safety, which falls under his constitutional job description.

However, one of the fliers for which monies were allegedly misused states that the program will focus around “money management,” which is not a safety issue.

“Without permission I missappropriated funds and i understand that I was wrong in my course of action,” Davis said to the Senate last night in a written statement.

“I want to apologize to my e-board the Jasmin Administration for not coming to them all collectively as a board. Most importantly, I want to apologize to the students, if you feel that I, in anyway abused their trust I want to ask for their forgiveness one hundred fold.”

Despite the fact that Davis openly admitted to the offenses against him, the Senate voted in a split decision not to impeach him.

According to the SGA Constitution, a two-thirds majority must be obtained in order to carry a successful vote to impeach someone, and that was not done.

District One College of Arts and Sciences Senator Augustine Joesph said that he agreed that the Senate should not have impeached Davis because he felt the evidence was not clear.

“To me it did not seem like he broke any codes of the student conduct or the constitution,” Joesph said.

“I think that it has been a reoccuring issue with the Senate that we vote out of emotion. This whole meeting to me was out of emotion. This could have easily waited until we came back in January and everyone had time to sit down and concisely go through everything, and that wasn’t done tonight. If you’re looking at impeaching someone then that needs to be done.”

While Joesph may have felt that the Senate tended to behave in a rash manner, not all of the senators agreed.

Senator Raymon Beaman, also a district one senator, was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee that brought the impeachment before the senate body. Beamon says that he thinks he failed the students by not turning over an impeachment charge last night.

“I failed in my part of not convincing my fellow senators of his criminal acts,” Beamon said. “A lot of people felt like the option to only impeach him or not to impeach him [Davis] was not a viable solution, that’s why they didn’t vote to impeach.”

“At the matter at hand, the only thing in the constitution was impeachment. I feel like some were prepared to impeach, but more were concerned with ‘what would happen if we don’t have an Attorney General?'”

Davis had previously agreed to pay the monies back to the SGA, but said in written statements to other SGA members obtained by the Register that he didn’t think it would be appropriate to notify the Senate or Administration unless absolutely necessary as he felt this was an in house issue.

“I had the best intentions and I figured these programs fell under my duties as Attorney General so I just tried to help these organizations.”

Davis also went on to say that he would issue a formal apology to the student body and that he will relinquish his privilege to use the purchase order account at the University Print and Graphics business without prior consent.

Davis presented a copy of the receipt, showing that he had in fact repaid the monies removed prior to the meeting as he stated he would.

The Senate closed the session to deliberate for around two hours after hearing from Davis and making the decision to not impeach.

“I’m elated,” Davis said. “I feel like a burden has been lifted and a wieght has been moved. I’m just so grateful and so apologetic that this is going to be motivation for me to do an even better job. I acknowledge that this was a mistake and it will not happen again and I’m greatful.”

• Dexter R. Mullins