April 2023 Newsletter
The Durham County District Attorney’s Office newsletter highlights the work staff do in and out of the courthouse.
In the Community
April was a busy month for the Durham DA’s Office as Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Crime Victims Rights’ Week, and Second Chance Month took place.
For Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Durham DA’s Office staff visited North Carolina Central University campus during the 10:40 break on April 4. Special Victims Unit ADAs Erika Johnson and Joshua Sotomayor spoke on a panel with NCCU, Durham Crisis Response Center and Durham Police Department representatives. ADAs Johnson and Sotomayor (who are both NCCU alumni) discussed the reporting and court process for sexual assaults. District Court Lead ADA Monica Burnette and Communication Specialist Sarah Willets shared information about the office and resources for crime victims.
On April 24, DA Deberry participated in the grand opening of the new Durham Family Justice Center. Operated by the Durham Crisis Response Center (DCRC), this new facility in downtown Durham will bring many critical services for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking under one roof. The DA’s Office and DCRC work closely together to ensure survivors are connected to services and supported throughout the court process. DA Deberry was one of several speakers at the ribbon cutting:
“It is transformative to be able to refer survivors to a single place and say ‘they can help.’” — DA Deberry
The Durham DA’s Office co-sponsored two events as part of Second Chance Month, a time to raise awareness about the experiences of people returning from prison and how support during re-entry can benefit communities. We thank our co-sponsors and all those who attended.
You can read about both events in INDY Week and NC Newsline.
The first event was a panel discussion on April 26 co-sponsored with the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law School. The panel was moderated by Brian Scott, executive director of OurJourney, a Rocky Mount-based reentry organization. The panelists — Tyrone Baker, Scellarneize Holloman and Randall Jenkins — were all people who have returned to Durham after prison. They discussed the challenges and successes they have experienced during re-entry and their insights into how systems and communities can help ensure people are successful post-release.
“The overall quality of the community depends on its individual members … The community chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” — Panelist Tyrone Baker
The second event was a special performance of Motus Theater’s JustUs Project, which features poignant monologues written by formerly incarcerated people. During the event, DA Deberry, St. Joseph AME Senior Pastor Jay Augustine, and RCND volunteer/retired broadcaster Frank Stasio joined the monologists on stage to share in the reading of their stories about the criminal legal system. Monologues were interwoven with inspiring musical responses by nationally acclaimed singers, The ReMINDers. This event was co-sponsored with the Wilson Center and the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham.
DA Deberry helped to facilitate a trip for prosecutors to civil rights sites and museums in Montgomery, Alabama. They visited the Edmund Pettis Bridge, the Legacy Museum, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, among other sites. Organized by Fair and Just Prosecution, the trip educated more than 20 prosecutors from around the country on the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, and how those legacies connect to the modern criminal legal system.
In the Office
ADA Angela Garcia-Lamarca received the Victim Services Award for Distinguished Prosecutor from the US Attorney’s Offices for the Eastern and Middle Districts of North Carolina and the Victim Services Interagency Council of North Carolina.
The award was presented to Garcia-Lamarca as part of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week. It is the second time in three years a member of the Durham DA’s Office has received the honor.
Garcia-Lamarca was recognized for her work as part of Durham’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) — a trauma-informed and survivor-centered effort to revisit and resolve cases with previously untested sexual assault evidence kits. She joined the Durham County District Attorney’s Office Special Victims Unit in January 2022 as the office’s designated SAKI prosecutor.
As SAKI prosecutor, Garcia-Lamarca has worked directly with the Durham Police Department Cold Case Sexual Assault Unit to engage survivors and prosecute cases. Through this partnership, since July 2020, the Durham DA’s Office has obtained convictions against nine SAKI defendants — some repeat offenders — in connection with 12 sexual assaults going back to 2005.
DA Deberry, ADA Kendra Montgomery-Blinn and ADA Monica Burnette joined ADA Garcia-Lamarca at the ceremony, which featured Governor Roy Cooper as guest speaker.
Read more about ADA Garcia-Lamarca and the award here.
Lamar Proctor joined the office as an assistant district attorney on the Homicide & Violent Crimes Team.
Proctor served as an attorney in the Office of the Capital Defender since 2017. Prior to that, he served as a prosecutor in the Orange & Chatham County District Attorney’s Office for thirteen years, including time as the senior assistant district attorney. He began his legal career prosecuting cases in the Brooklyn DA’s Office. Proctor attended the University of South Carolina School of Law and Wofford College.
In the Courts
Recently closed cases include:
Assistant District Attorney Michael Wallace secured a conviction related to a woman’s death on October 27, 2022. The victim was a passenger in the defendant’s vehicle when she was fatally shot. The defendant, who was not involved in the shooting, pleaded guilty to concealing/failing to report a death for pushing her body out of the vehicle after she was shot. The offense is a Class I felony. A separate defendant has been charged with murder in the shooting, and that case remains pending.
Assistant Attorney General Boz Zellinger secured a guilty plea in homicide that occurred on August 24, 2015, in which one teenager was fatally shot and another injured in dispute over marijuana. The defendant — the last of five co-defendants convicted — pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree kidnapping on April 25. Another co-defendant was found guilty of first-degree murder (among other charges) at trial in 2020, and the others entered guilty pleas to various charges earlier this year. The case was among a small number of homicide cases prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office at the request of the DA’s Office.
Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Ingram obtained convictions related to two assaults. In one incident, on February 10, 2022, the victim reported the defendant provides rides for people for money and had given him a ride. Afterward, the victim got in a fight with a third party. The victim reported the defendant came up behind him and he felt something hit him in the back and started bleeding. In the second incident, on March 8, 2022, the victim and the defendant were at an abandoned house doing drugs. The victim reported that they left the house to go outside, and the defendant stabbed him in the back of the neck. Neither victim sustained serious injuries. The defendant pleaded guilty on April 3 to two counts of common law mayhem, a Class H felony.
In the News
DA Deberry was featured as part of a News & Observer series on the many Black women officials holding leadership roles in Durham. Other installments spotlighted Black women leading the city, county, and schools. From the article:
“I think Black women are uniquely situated to really understand the criminal legal system and to really be policymakers within it. And the reason I say that is because we are the ones who I think are most likely to be victims of violent crime. We are the parents of Black children. Whenever you see a young Black person who has been killed by the police, the very first person that you hear speak about it, generally, is the mother.
And as the Black mother of Black children, I have more invested in a fairer, more just system than almost anybody else.” — DA Deberry
