Still can't escape those old private-prison blues.

Try as they might, lawmakers just can't keep privately owned prisons out of the state. It doesn't help when your own lawyer thwarts you.

Earlier this year, the Department of Corrections said it was ending private contracts for the operation of two prisons for state convicts, part of an experiment lawmakers began in 1997. Back then, they also banned new private prisons for out-of-state inmates. At least they thought they had until Wackenhut Corrections Corp., a Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based prison operator, came calling. Wackenhut is putting a prison near Winton, in Hertford County, for 1,200 federal inmates from Washington, D.C.

In 1998, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons rejected Wackenhut's application, citing North Carolina's moratorium. Wackenhut sued, saying that, under the Constitution, states can't restrict the federal government.

The $50 million prison would employ 300 and is seen as an economic boon in northeastern North Carolina. So Rep. Howard Hunter, a Conway Democrat, asked the state's lawyer -- the attorney general -- for an opinion. In July '98, Deputy Attorney General Dale Talbert said the state couldn't bar Wackenhut, with logic echoing Wackenhut's.

Lawmakers amended the moratorium, trying to clarify their intent, but their lawyer undercut them again. In December '98, Talbert, who declined comment for this article, wrote that amendment didn't affect his earlier opinion. He even wrote that the very fact that the lawmakers tweaked...