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What you should know on crime victims’ rights
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Stein wants ‘fentanyl control unit’ of prosecutors and drug agents. How it would work.
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Welcome to the Sunday edition of our Under the Dome newsletter, which focuses on the governor. I’m Avi Bajpai, filling in for Dawn Vaughan this week.
The budget proposal Gov. Josh Stein unveiled last month renews his request, now for the third year in a row, for a special unit of state prosecutors and law enforcement agents focused on combating fentanyl trafficking.
Stein first called on the General Assembly to create a fentanyl control unit within the N.C. Department of Justice in February 2023. As head of the department in his role as attorney general at the time, Stein said there was a need for additional prosecutors dedicated to helping local district attorneys go after large-scale trafficking, wiretap, and overdose cases.
His first recommended budget as governor this year includes a funding request for a fentanyl control unit with attorney positions at the DOJ, and law enforcement positions at the State Bureau of Investigation.
Asked about the proposal this week, Stein told reporters that even though initial data appeared to show a downturn in overdose deaths in North Carolina last year, it remains a priority for the state to “dedicate resources to getting this poison out of our communities to the fullest extent possible.”
Continue reading “Stein wants ‘fentanyl control unit’ of prosecutors and drug agents. How it would work.”Woman went to hotel to reset her life, family says. NC man now charged in her death.
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Ashley Lane was happy being a stylist, but she also was a friend and a therapist to people who were struggling, even when her own mental health and substance abuse got the better of her, her family said.
On Monday, a Durham man was accused of selling the fentanyl that caused Lane, 39, to overdose Dec. 28 at The Graduate Hotel in downtown Chapel Hill. She died on Dec. 31 at UNC Hospitals.
Aaron Donald Brooks, 40, is charged with felony death by distribution sale, possession with intent to sell and deliver a controlled substance, sale or delivery of a controlled substance, and possession of a controlled substance, court records show.
He is being held in the Orange County jail under $300,000 secured bail, records show.
Continue reading “Woman went to hotel to reset her life, family says. NC man now charged in her death.”Durham man charged with death by distribution in overdose case. Is that common in NC?
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More than a year after a Carrboro man fatally overdosed, a Durham man has been accused of selling him the fentanyl that killed him, police said Tuesday.
David Allen Bonita, 34, is charged with death by distribution in the March 29, 2023, death of Arman Guerra Imani, 32, according to a Carrboro Police Department news release. Bonita allegedly sold and delivered fentanyl to Imani, who died after injecting it, Bonita’s arrest warrant states.
Imani was found unresponsive by his mother in the bathroom of his East Winmore Avenue home shortly before 3 p.m. that day, according to an investigative report from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. He was last known to be alive around midnight.
Imani’s cause of death was an accidental overdose due to “acute ethanol, fentanyl, gabapentin, methadone and mitragynine toxicity,” the medical examiner’s investigative report states.
Bonita’s arrest warrant was issued on Oct. 31, but he was not arrested by members of the Carolinas Regional U.S. Marshals Task Force until Tuesday, police said. He is being held in the Orange County Detention Center on $150,000 secured bond, records show.
Fentanyl deaths, death by distribution charges in the Triangle
Bonita’s arrest mirrors another recent case in Carrboro in which Jeremiah Hargrove, 20, of Selma was charged with death by distribution in the June 27, 2023, death of Serguei Ndinga Momo, 21, The News & Observer previously reported. Momo also overdosed on fentanyl, police said.
The most recent data from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services shows that as of July, there were 169 fentanyl-positive deaths throughout the state, a decrease from the 262 fentanyl-positive deaths North Carolina had seen by July 2023. In Orange County, there had been nine fentanyl-positive deaths as of Nov. 25., the department reported. That’s a decline from the 26 fentanyl-positive deaths in the county from January to August 2023, data shows.
Death by distribution charges remain relatively uncommon throughout the state and the Triangle, statewide data shows.
Throughout North Carolina, 54 death by distribution charges were filed from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, according to data obtained by The N&O from the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts. During that same period, no new death by distribution charges were filed in Orange or Durham counties, and only one new charge was filed in Wake County.
A born naturalist and animal lover
Imani, a graduate of East Chapel Hill High School who attended UNC-Wilmington, was described by loved ones in his obituary as “a born naturalist.” The 32-year-old animal lover was passionate about politics and social justice and enjoyed gardening, fishing, cooking and searching for edible plants in the woods, according to his obituary.
“He wanted to change the paradigm on how Substance Use Disorder (SUD) is treated in the US, allowing for a more open spectrum of treatment options,” the obituary states.
Above all, Imani’s legacy is the kindness he showed to those around him, his obituary says.
“The one enduring trait that people will remember about Arman was his kindness,” the obituary said. “In keeping with Arman’s way of life, in lieu of flowers or gifts, we ask that you convey kindness unto others, especially those who are in need.”
Wake County to take fight against opioid addiction and overdoses to the streets
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Lindsey Humphreys has been recovering from opioid addiction for the last five years, she said.
She’s known people in Wake County who have died from opioids because they didn’t have access to naloxone, a life-saving drug that reverses the effects of opioid overdose.
“I decided to be part of the solution and just started to distribute this,” she said. “I have been doing it for the last couple of years in the memory of some of my friends who passed.”
Humphreys is the executive director of Illuminate NC, an organization that helps distribute naloxone in Wake and Vance counties. Illuminate distributes about 300 naloxone units a month, she said.
Continue reading “Wake County to take fight against opioid addiction and overdoses to the streets”‘Fentanyl is everywhere.’ Wake schools wants to be ready to treat opioid overdoses.
Wake County schools will now be required to make sure that they’ve got employees who can treat opioid overdoses on campus.
The Wake County school board approved Tuesday a new policy on the emergency use of Naloxone, which can reverse an opioid overdose when given in time. Every Wake school will be required to have at least three employees who are trained in how to administer Naloxone, which is the generic name for the drug Narcan.
The policy comes as opioid overdoses and addiction have surged nationally.
In 2022, 219 people died from drug overdoses in Wake County, The News & Observer previously reported. Opioids — medicines prescribed for pain like codeine, fentanyl, oxycodone and morphine — were responsible in three-quarters of the deaths.
“Fentanyl is everywhere,” said school board member Wing Ng. “Fentanyl is a crisis. We all have to be aware of the signs and symptoms.”
STOCKING NALOXONE IN SCHOOLS
The policy directs Superintendent Robert Taylor to develop a program to place Naloxone at schools, early learning centers and district administrative offices. There’s currently no money in the budget to purchase Naloxone. The district estimates that it could cost $6,500 to $30,000 to place two Naloxone doses at each school. The board accelerated adoption of the policy to get it in place before a June 5 deadline to apply for funding from the county.
Read the full article on the Raleigh News & Observer website.
Bill would limit public access to autopsy records
A new proposal would reduce public access to autopsy reports in North Carolina.
On Tuesday, state lawmakers tacked a slew of new provisions onto House Bill 250, which previously focused on reworking the offenses for distributing drugs.
Changes include no longer allowing the public access to photographs, video or audio recordings in autopsy reports. Current law generally allows people to inspect and examine these under supervision. Only certain public officials are allowed to obtain copies.
Written reports could be limited as well, by another section dealing with criminal investigation records. The change would expand the definition of those records, which are not typically public, to include autopsy records.
A spokesperson for the state agency charged with investigating suspicious deaths said the proposal “compromises the ability to conduct thousands of investigations and limits the ability to share information with families.”
Read more: Bill would limit public access to autopsy recordsThe bill would also change the makeup of the state’s office tasked with providing help to indigent defendants.
WHAT IS PUBLIC NOW?
Currently, North Carolina death certificates, autopsy, investigation and toxicology reports are public records and once finalized may be obtained from the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME), part of the Department of Health and Human Services.
This bill would designate records compiled by OCME as records of criminal investigation, which are not public under state law.
Currently, records of criminal investigations conducted by public law enforcement agencies and by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission are not public. These include records compiled by the North Carolina State Crime Laboratory. The bill would add to this definition records compiled by OCME. If the bill is passed, this would become effective July 1.
Sen. Danny Britt, a Robeson County Republican, presented the bill on Tuesday. He said the bill “clarifies that all photos and videos of autopsy shall not be released to the public while a crime is being investigated or prosecuted.”
“There may be some concern for availability of these autopsy reports and photos being made available for press and things like that,” Britt acknowledged. “What this does is it ensures that these items are not released outside of the chain that may improperly influence the jury and, again, potentially lead to a case being overturned on appeal where a death is involved.”
He also said that the medical examiner’s records that the bill would treat as criminal investigation records would be accessible to the public at the conclusion of a criminal investigation and prosecution.
The bill would apply “just to those particular cases that are being prosecuted criminally,” not to other cases, Britt said in response to a question from Democratic Sen. Sydney Batch.
He also said these restrictions would apply to family members, though district attorneys could sit down with the family and show the records.
WHO PERFORMS AUTOPSIES?
When someone dies in a violent, suspicious or unexpected way in North Carolina, part-time medical examiners inspect the bodies. If the cause of death is not clear, they request autopsies.
An investigation by The Charlotte Observer and News & Observer found that it often takes many months — and sometimes more than a year — for autopsies to be completed. That can cause financial crises for families who need autopsies and death certificates to access life insurance and other assets they’re entitled to inherit.
The system is backlogged chiefly because there are too many bodies and too few pathologists and toxicologists to perform autopsies, the newspapers’ investigation found.
The medical examiner system faces challenges, and “this bill as currently written, would make those challenges much, much more difficult,” Mark Benton, chief deputy secretary for health with DHHS, told lawmakers Tuesday.
Asked for further details on concerns with the bill, DHHS spokesperson Kelly Haight Connor wrote that “the proposed language weakens the independent nature of North Carolina’s medical examiner system, compromises the ability to conduct thousands of investigations and limits the ability to share information with families.”
In addition to the changes on public access, the bill adds “continuing education” training requirements for county medical examiners. It also details how examiners can request and obtain a deceased person’s personal belongings.
Haight Connor said DHHS had ongoing concerns with staff vacancies and high turnover at the OCME and “any changes in process or caseloads needs to be thoughtfully considered given these staffing concerns.”
Autopsy reports from shootings and other violent incidents are often requested by the news media to glean details that otherwise may have not been released on what occurred in the incidents.
South Carolina does not allow access to autopsy reports; its state Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that these reports are not public records and fall under privacy provisions of the state’s open records law.
In 2020, a bill shielding some death investigation records from the public was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. The General Assembly currently is controlled by Republicans and has a veto-proof supermajority.
Britt said the new bill was being worked on and should be ready by next Tuesday for votes.
District attorneys want to ”narrow this down to a workable piece that involves just the pending criminal cases,” said Chuck Spahos, a lobbyist for the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys.
INDIGENT DEFENSE SERVICES REWORK
The bill also cuts the membership of North Carolina’s Commission on Indigent Defense Services from 13 members to nine.
It also grants two new appointments to the commission to the chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and four to House and Senate leaders. All of those offices are currently held by Republicans.
It cuts the governor’s one appointment and that of various state associations. Gov. Roy Cooper is a Democrat.
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