Durham’s district attorney was reelected to a third term and an incumbent District Court judge was unseated in Tuesday’s primary election.
Sheriff Clarence Birkhead and Clerk of Superior Court Aminah Thompson both won resounding reelection bids, and District Court Judge Doretta Walker also won convincingly. District Court Judge Clayton Jones, after a rocky campaign, was defeated by challenger Christy Mallot. Myra Griffin won an open Superior Court seat.
The results mean there won’t be major changes around the Durham County courthouse. With no Republican primaries for these seats, Tuesday’s winners will almost assuredly be victorious in the general election in November.
District Attorney
Durham District Attorney Satana Deberry won reelection decisively over challenger Jonathan Wilson, capturing 61% of the vote.
The race was a rematch from 2022, when Deberry defeated Wilson with about 80% of the vote. She’s the only Durham DA to be reelected since Jim Hardin, who left the seat to become a judge in 2005, and will also become Durham’s longest-serving DA at the end of her third term.
The district attorney is the county’s most senior prosecutor. The office is in charge of evaluating evidence and making the case for pursuing charges brought by law enforcement, while judges ultimately hand down sentences. This gives the DA’s office significant sway in determining the destiny of a person charged with a crime.
In 2018, criminal justice reformers across the country pushed law enforcement and prosecutors to be less punitive toward low-level crimes like marijuana possession. Voters first elected Deberry to steward that new era of progressive criminal justice.
During her first campaign, Deberry cited overpolicing, specifically for low-level offenses, as the most important issue facing the Durham DA’s office. She has largely followed through on that campaign promise.
In collaboration with community partners and other municipal organizations, the district attorney’s office has created new diversion programs to support folks with substance abuse issues or those in need of mental health services. In doing so, Deberry said her office has been able to increase its focus on serious and violent crime.
“We do have serious and violent crime in Durham, just like you do in every city, but I felt like we were overindexed on low-level things,” Deberry told the INDY in January.
Tackling violent crime, which has been in decline in Durham since Deberry first took office, is still a major priority for the district attorney’s office and Durham residents. This election, Deberry said her plan is to continue employing “data-driven, transparent, and community-centered” methods to further reduce violent crime rates.
Though her policies have garnered support from many local leaders, a string of break-ins in downtown Durham in the last two years and a couple of high-profile cases have brought unwanted attention to the district attorney’s office, souring some residents on Deberry as Durham’s lead prosecutor.
But she is now the longest-serving district attorney in the Triangle. First-time candidate Wiley Nickel earned the Democratic nomination in Wake County on Tuesday, and Orange County DA Jeff Nieman is running unopposed this year after first taking office in 2022.
Deberry, dressed down in a tee, camo slacks, and brown sneakers, joined the People’s Alliance election night party on Tuesday. “I want to thank all the people of Durham for really believing in me,” Deberry said to the audience. “It has been the honor of my career to serve as your district attorney. I have never had a job so hard. I’ve never had a job so rewarding for people that I care about so much. So I love you all.”
Deberry’s opponent, Wilson, is a criminal defense attorney with about 15 years of courtroom experience working on cases from traffic violations to murder. He serves on the Durham County Juvenile Crime Prevention Council and the legal redress subcommittee for the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.
He earned a number of endorsements on the campaign trail, including from the Durham Committee. During the campaign, Wilson said he would focus on building stronger communication between the DA’s office and victims and neighborhoods affected by violent crime. He also said the DA’s office should play a bigger role in trying to reduce the truancy rate within Durham Public Schools, which has ballooned in recent years following COVID-19, attributing the rise in youth crime throughout Durham to chronic absenteeism.
Sheriff
Birkhead easily won reelection over challenger Johnny Hawkins, a former chief of detention services at the Durham County sheriff’s office.
Birkhead was first elected in 2018, promising to improve conditions at the jail and stop honoring ICE detainer requests to hold immigrants for the federal government. Since then, the state legislature has restricted sheriffs’ discretion on detainer requests, but Birkhead has said he will not participate in ICE’s 287(g) partnership or immigration task forces.
In his reelection bid, Birkhead emphasized that the agency has reduced response times and staff vacancies under his leadership. He also pointed to new policies banning no-knock warrants and the expansion of educational and substance use programs in the county jail.
“I think we’ve made some tremendous progress over the past almost eight years in my first two terms, but we’ve got more work to do,” Birkhead told the INDY in January. “We’re still having tremendous gun violence. Youth crime is on the rise. But we also got to address some of those root causes, and I like using the platform of the office of the sheriff to be in those different conversations, not just about crime abatement but about going upstream to try to attack some of the issues that lead to those bad decisions.”
A key player in addressing those upstream issues has been the city’s Community Safety department and, more specifically, the HEART team.
Birkhead’s critics say he has been less than helpful in efforts to expand Durham’s popular crisis response program to assist with mental health and quality-of-life calls. Birkhead has repeatedly said he supports the program but frequently specifies its co-response approach, which sends law enforcement officers out with clinicians. HEART also includes a call diversion team embedded in the city’s 911 center and an unarmed community response unit, which advocates say should be included in any expansion into the sheriff’s jurisdiction.
He has also drawn criticism from some criminal justice reform groups over policies and conditions in the jail. Birkhead says the Durham jail is among a small number with three major accreditations and says there have been no recent complaints from detainees about so-called “lock-backs” confining them to their cells most of the day.
Still, Birkhead locked in the major endorsements and won 85.8% percent of the vote, the second highest margin of victory in Durham County behind Clerk of Superior Court Aminah Thompson.
Hawkins ran on a campaign of improving staffing and morale within the sheriff’s office, investing more in crime prevention, providing transparency, and better collaborating with other agencies. Hawkins touted his decades of experience, as well as deep community roots outside of his public service. He coaches youth sports and previously worked with the Durham Housing Authority.
Judges
Griffin defeated Ameshia Cooper Chester for a Superior Court seat that Judge Michael O’Foghludha is vacating after more than 20 years. In that role, Griffin will preside over higher-level criminal and civil cases in Durham as well as throughout the region (Superior Court judges rotate within a district).
Griffin won 68.9% of the vote to clinch an eight-year term.
Griffin has served on the North Carolina Industrial Commission since 2005, presiding over workers’ compensation and tort claims appeals. She worked her way up the ranks to vice chair and previously worked as an assistant attorney general. Griffin quickly consolidated support in Durham, her home of 31 years, and won endorsements from the People’s Alliance, the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, and current and former elected officials.
Cooper Chester is a Durham native who serves as a special deputy attorney general. She was previously a prosecutor in the Durham DA’s office and emphasized her combination of criminal and civil law experience.
On the District Court, Judge Doretta Walker retained her seat with 75% of the vote to challenger Keith Bishop’s 25% vote share. Walker has been a judge since 2011 and had the endorsement of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People. The People’s Alliance, in an uncommon move, declined to endorse in this race.
Walker has faced criticism from community members and groups including Operation Stop CPS, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, and Emancipate NC for her handling of foster care cases.
Judge Clayton Jones was unseated on Tuesday, receiving only 32% of the vote. District Court judges hear lower-level criminal and civil cases.
Jones has served as a District Court judge since 2019 and was previously an assistant district attorney and an assistant public defender. He ran on his experience and a pledge to bring efficiency and fairness to the courtroom.
During the campaign season, Jones was arrested on misdemeanor domestic violence charges; he was found not guilty at trial.
On his campaign Facebook page, Jones thanked supporters and said the results “were not what we hoped for.”
“Though we did not win this election, I am incredibly proud. In spite of the obstacles, we continued to fight to serve the people of Durham,” he wrote. “We never gave up. Thank you for standing with me.”
His challenger, Christy Hamilton Malott, is a senior assistant attorney for Durham County with 20 years of experience in family law, including as a guardian ad litem staff attorney and former chair of Durham’s Child Fatality Prevention Team. Malott argued for the value of her family law experience: A large share of cases are civil matters involving children and families.
Malott thanked supporters and volunteers on social media.
“I am also grateful for the incredible judges who have served in this role before me and who serve now,” she wrote. “I look forward to working with our leaders, community partners, and the broader Durham community, to ensure our justice system is one that serves everyone fairly and equitably.”
Clerk of Court
Clerk of Superior Court Aminah Thompson had the biggest win of the night, receiving 87% of the vote. Voters reelected her to a second term over A. Beverly Ellis-Maclin. Thompson, who unseated a 20-year incumbent in 2022, touted her work leading the clerk’s office through the transition to eCourts and improving access to the clerk’s office through new forms and communications initiatives.
At the People’s Alliance election party on Tuesday night, Thompson was elated as she walked onstage to address the audience.
“I look forward to continuing the work that I’m doing, bringing accessibility, efficiency to our courts,” Thompson said. “The clerk of court, of course, provides record keeping administration, and I’m also a judge really protecting the lives and the legacies of our citizens here in Durham. And so I’m so excited to be able to continue the work and just thank you all for your support.”
Results are unofficial until certified.
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