February 2023 Newsletter

The Durham County District Attorney’s Office newsletter highlights the work staff do in and out of the courthouse.

In the Office

Researchers at the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law School published the results of a year-long study looking at plea arrangements in the Durham DA’s Office. Although upwards of 90% of criminal convictions nationwide are obtained by plea, how prosecutors and defense attorneys negotiate these outcomes has not previously been studied. Through the Plea Tracker Project, prosecutors in the Durham DA’s Office submit to researchers the details of each Superior Court plea and complete an online survey responding to questions about the negotiation process and the factors they considered in reaching a resolution.

“We hope that what Durham has done provides a model for other offices. For years, academics and policymakers have called for meaningful data on the plea process. The leadership demonstrated by District Attorney Deberry during this year of impactful work shows that it is feasible and valuable to track pleas. We believe that this type of plea tracking should be the national standard practice.”

— Duke Law Professor Brandon L. Garrett, faculty director of the Wilson Center.

DA Deberry and Prof. Garrett were interviewed about the Plea Tracker Project on the NC Policy Watch radio show, News & Views.

Researchers studied more than 300 Superior Court pleas involving about 1,800 felony and misdemeanor charges. Each case had an average of six indicted charges. During the plea process, almost 90% of cases initially indicted as felonies resulted in a guilty plea to a felony. About a quarter of the cases involved violent crimes. The most common offenses included drugs, larceny, and robbery. The most commonly pled charge was possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Among the key findings:

• Prosecutors communicated with victims in the vast majority of cases and discussed plea terms before making an initial offer in 80% of cases with a person victim. Approximately 60% of cases studied involved a person victim, and about two-thirds of victims knew the defendant in their case.
• Prosecutors considered more mitigating factors in cases involving white defendants and more aggravating factors in cases involving Black defendants. Defense attorneys representing white clients were more likely to provide mitigating evidence and communicate with prosecutors earlier in the case.
• Additional sentencing conditions were incorporated in about three-quarters of cases, with no-contact orders, mental health treatment, and anger management most common in violent cases, and in nonviolent cases, substance abuse assessment and Cognitive Behavioral Interventions (CBI).

Read more in the press release and find the full study here.

In the Courts

Recently closed cases include:

• ADA Angela Garcia-Lamarca secured convictions at trial in a March 2018 rape case. The defendant was prosecuted as part of Durham’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative to bring closure to cold case sexual assaults including those with previously untested sexual assault evidence kits. After being presented with evidence that the defendant took the survivor to a park where he beat, strangled and raped her, the jury found him guilty on all counts, including first-degree rape. Read more in our press release.
• Assistant District Attorneys Mary Jude Darrow and Michael Wallace secured a guilty plea in a fatal shooting that occurred on April 4, 2016. ADA Darrow stated in court that the defendant, along with a co-defendant who previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2020, went to the victim’s home armed and fired when he opened the door. The defendant pleaded guilty on February 13 to voluntary manslaughter, which is a Class D felony.
• ADA Adam Williamson secured a conviction in a shooting that happened in the parking lot of Southpoint Mall shortly before Christmas in 2021. The defendant pleaded guilty to felony carrying a concealed gun on February 6, 2023. Surveillance cameras in the parking lot captured a man exchanging gunfire with three unidentified people. Inside, a camera clearly showed the defendant walking through a department store toward the parking lot just prior to the shooting, and re-entering the store shortly after. It’s unclear why the individuals were shooting at each other. No one was injured.
• ADA Montgomery-Blinn secured convictions in a domestic violence shooting that occurred on June 30, 2021. ADA Montgomery-Blinn stated in court that the defendant and one of the victims were previously in a romantic relationship. The defendant went to the victim’s house, where she lived with her boyfriend. As they tried to leave the house, the defendant fired a gun in their direction. He returned to the home again later and fired shots at the house while they were inside. After being arrested, he called the victim from jail and offered her money to get the charges dismissed. The defendant entered an Alford plea on February 9 to possession of a firearm by a felon, attempted interfering with a witness, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and conspiracy to discharge a firearm into an occupied dwelling.
• ADA Darrow secured convictions at trial in a September 2020 shooting at a car meet-up that killed one man and injured a woman. Two defendants were found guilty by a jury of second-degree murder. A third co-defendant’s case remains pending.

In the News

Several news outlets covered the release of the Wilson Center’s one-year study of plea arrangements in the Durham DA’s Office:

• CBS17: Duke Law ‘plea tracker’ aims to provide transparency in prosecutor’s plea bargaining decisions
• NC Policy Watch: Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry and Duke University Law School professor Brandon Garrett
• WRAL: Does race play a role in the justice system? Duke researchers study plea deals in Durham County.

The Wilson Center for Science and Justice released a separate study in February looking at arrest and court outcomes in shootings that occurred in Durham from 2017–2021. Researchers found that the majority of shooting cases in which an arrest was made resulted in prosecution — 89% of fatal shootings and 70% of non-fatal shootings. Because of the seriousness and complexity of these cases, many are still pending in the court system. Read more via ABC11.