Durham District Attorney Satana Deberry is facing off against challenger Jonathan Wilson II in a rematch of the 2022 Democratic primary.
Deberry, who was first elected in 2018, is running because “there is still more to do,” she said, while Wilson said he believes the community wants a new voice inside the DA’s office.
Last election, Deberry dominated, securing 79% of the vote. In the interim, Deberry launched a failed bid for North Carolina attorney general, losing in the 2024 primary to army veteran turned social media influencer, and former congressperson, Jeff Jackson.
Durham voters elected Deberry in 2018 with the expectation that she would implement progressive policies. Deberry and her team faced challenges early, working through the COVID pandemic and the political unrest brought to bear by the murder of George Floyd Jr. at the hands of a police officer in 2020. Both disruptions heralded a reformed approach to criminal justice.
During her eight-year tenure, Deberry has made the DA’s office less punitive for low-level offenders, some of whom are caught up in what amount to crimes of poverty: Folks in need of food or shelter get arrested on purpose because their prospects are better inside the detention center.
Violent crime rates are down nationwide, and the same is true for Durham. Of the 30,000 cases filed to the office per year on average, roughly 10% are labeled serious and violent crimes, said Deberry. The DA’s office does get its fair share of traffic violations, though much to this reporter’s chagrin, parking in the bike lane does not get you hard time.
Even with violent crime declining, Deberry acknowledged there are still issues.
In the last couple of years, downtown Durham business owners have witnessed a flurry of break-ins and other public safety issues, causing disruptions to operations and making employees fearful of walking to and from work. Business owners, even the most progressive on criminal justice, are frustrated when their window is smashed or their product is damaged, Deberry said.
“I try to personally be in those conversations when business owners want to talk about it,” Deberry said, “or neighborhoods and community leaders say, ‘Hey, we’re having this problem.’ … I live here, too. … My kids went to public school here. I have a grandchild who’s growing up here. This is my home as well, and I want it to feel safe.”
Deberry has worked with Durham County officials and other organizations on new diversion programs to get people into treatment and receiving services that improve social outcomes. The policy shift is as much about correcting community harm as it is about resource management, Deberry said.
“We spent a lot of time churning through people who had mental health and substance abuse problems at the expense of the serious and violent crime,” Deberry said, “and so that stuff would take a long time to get done while we were just pummeling people who probably needed more community intervention, and that’s what the people of Durham County asked for.”
Those diversion programs, such as the Mental Health Court Diversion Program (MHC) and Post-Arrest Diversion Program, alleviate the burden on the system by low-level, nonviolent offenders, who Deberry said need health care and services, not jail time, to get them back on track.
Since Deberry first took office, the city of Durham has instituted the HEART program as part of its larger Community Safety Department, adding unarmed social workers and mental health clinicians to the roster of public safety personnel at the city’s disposal. HEART has largely been successful in offering alternatives to policing and providing resources to those in need. Deberry is a HEART proponent and said her office was involved in early conversations with Community Safety to create a unified vision across the justice system.
Deberry is clear about how prosecutors can support crisis response and diversion programs while acknowledging that it isn’t the DA’s role to manage them.
“My job is prosecution,” Deberry said. “All I have is a hammer. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and some of those people don’t need to be nailed.”
Downtown Durham Inc. also implemented a Downtown Ambassadors program to bolster the number of trained individuals on the ground to monitor activity downtown and also support those in need.
“As a community, we often get focused on what’s wrong and not what’s working,” Deberry said. “And there’s a lot that’s working.”
In addition to the diversion programs, Deberry said she’s most proud of continuing the driver’s license restoration initiative, which started under her predecessor Roger Echols and helps restore driving privileges for justice-involved individuals whose employment potential is limited when they can’t drive.
Additionally, the office has worked alongside local law enforcement to clear Durham’s backlog of sexual assault kits. In 2022, the Durham Police Department had 1,709 untested kits, the largest collection in the state. In two years, Durham became the first municipality in the state to record and test its entire backlog.
Whoever prevails in March—and likely November—will continue to face down a federal justice department that has become increasingly brazen with its operation tactics. The increased presence of federal immigration agents in the Triangle recently caused major disruptions to attendance at workplaces, businesses, schools, and the courthouse.
Durham Mayor Pro Tem Javiera Caballero said Deberry has been steadfast in establishing strong communication between prosecutors and defense attorneys to ensure residents feel safe showing up to court.
“When we had ICE agents [conducting operations], it was clear that [Deberry] has an understanding and relationship that is vital to immigrants being able to come and have their day and … do their business in the court,” Caballero said.
Caballero, whose family fled Chile during the 1973 military coup, speaks often about the impact of the experience and is an advocate for immigrant communities on the city council. Deberry said her office has worked hard to make immigrants feel comfortable seeking justice in an atmosphere where the federal government is undermining the rule of law “and in a sense operating more like [immigrants] are used to seeing governments operate where they are from.”
“We’ve done a lot of work being culturally competent with immigrant communities, with non-English speakers, especially with Spanish-as-a-first-language speakers,” Deberry said. “We work really hard to create trust.”
Following his 2022 defeat, Wilson said he resolved to increase his involvement in the community. He became chair of the legal redress subcommittee for the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People and a Durham County Bar Association board member and joined the Juvenile Crime Prevention Council. Despite Deberry’s policy victories, Wilson, a defense attorney who oversees an array of case types, said he believes there are enough voters looking for change to produce a favorable outcome in Round 2 of his primary clash.
“I have the experience, the knowledge, the trial skills, and the ability to meet people where they are,” Wilson said.
Wilson has also taken cases across neighboring counties—Wake, Granville, Person, Orange, and Alamance—where he picked up new ideas for how to make the Durham DA’s office more efficient. Too many people are awaiting trial with unresolved cases, Wilson said, due to lack of sufficient evidence and other setbacks that create a burden within the detention center and the courthouse.
While Wilson acknowledged Deberry’s accomplishments, and was reluctant to give a full-throated repudiation of the district attorney, he said he sees an opportunity to refocus the office on pressing matters like juvenile crime.
Chronic absenteeism, defined by a student missing 10% or more of school days, has spiked across the state since 2020. Last year, 37% of traditional Durham public school students met the threshold for chronic absenteeism, compared to 26% statewide, according to MyFutureNC. The rate was 15% in 2018.
“That’s a big jump and it’s scary, because you’ve seen juvenile crime going up,” Wilson said. “I have conversations with my clients and they all have different issues: mental health, drug abuse, poverty, and bad influences. I’m trying to see what we can do to put services in place to help them. I’m not trying to play social worker for everybody, but you want to put these kids and these people in the best position that they can be in.”
Other Deberry critics have taken issue with some elements of her job performance, something Wilson said may give Durham voters pause this time around, even those who supported her in the past.
Last year, WRAL reported that the district attorney was only in her office about 50% of the time, according to data from her office key card.
“I’ve had people at my gym that are like, ‘You know, originally, I was in support of her, but I didn’t know that she wasn’t showing up to work like that,’ and that’s a problem,” Wilson said.
Deberry shrugged off the incident, saying she tries to keep outside noise about her office’s work at a distance.
“I try to stay off social media as much as I can, not just because I don’t want to see the haters but because I do not want to be influenced by what popular opinion is,” Deberry said. “I take my job seriously. I take my law license seriously. I really do believe in justice, whether that’s economic justice, social justice, personal liberation, and freedom, that is my core value. That’s the only way that a little girl from Hamlet gets out right? And so I had to believe in it.”
Deberry and Wilson agree that victim services is an area of improvement for the office. The criminal justice system isn’t victim oriented, Deberry said, but set up to hold defendants accountable and protect their constitutional rights.
“When people are upset, it is always because they didn’t feel contacted, respected, taken care of as a victim,” Deberry said. “And that is also another hard balance. … We work really hard, but [some are] always going to fall through the cracks because of the volume of cases.”
Residents have conveyed this sentiment to Wilson in his work and on the campaign trail.
“There’s got to be better communication and availability,” Wilson said. “Courts are two-sided. You have your defendants and you have your state or the prosecutor, but the prosecutor has victims, and you want to make sure those voices are heard.”
There are early signs that Wilson may have more momentum than he did four years ago. Deberry and Wilson split the major endorsements—Deberry won the People’s Alliance, while Wilson won the Durham Committee—but Wilson has also racked up endorsements from the Friends of Durham, the Durham Black PAC, and Yes for Durham.
In its endorsement of Deberry, the People’s Alliance wrote that she “brings fairness, community‑centered justice, and accountability” to the district attorney’s office and it appreciates “her commitment to humane prosecution, reducing racial disparities, and supporting victims.”
A summary of the endorsements in favor of Wilson call out Deberry for a lack of accountability for in-office time and her inconsistent conviction record.
Dan Jewell, chair of the Friends of Durham PAC, worked in downtown Durham for decades. He said PAC members, including a number of local business owners, attribute the recent spike in robberies and break-ins downtown to an absence of police patrols, and an unwillingness by Deberry to prosecute repeat offenders who cycle in and out of the courthouse.
“We’re missing things like the downtown bike patrol we used to have, and now we’ve got people that just feel like they can get away with stuff with impunity,” Jewell said. “We feel that that all goes back to the culture and the tone that’s being set.”
Friends of Durham also endorsed Wilson during his 2022 campaign. Jewell said Durham residents are ready for a stronger hand inside the DA’s office.
“Smaller crimes just are not being prosecuted, and that is directly attributable to the district attorney,” Jewell says. “People out there say, ‘Well, maybe I’ll get away with it, and even if I get caught, I’ll be back on the street again, and I can do it again.’”
Deberry maintained that she runs a tight ship, that staff excel before leaving for bigger and better opportunities, and that her office serves the people it needs to, inside and out.
“If you talk to the people who work for me, they will say that not only do I run a good and competent office but that I take their careers as seriously as I take mine,” she said. “I’m pretty satisfied with the work that we do. Could we do better? You can always do better. I’m still a human being. I make mistakes all the time. I own up to my mistakes when I make them, and I try to get better from them.”
Disclosure: INDY Editor-in-chief Sarah Willets formerly worked in Durham District Attorney Satana Deberry’s office. She was not involved in the reporting or editing of this story.
Comment on this story at [email protected].
You must be logged in to post a comment.