Wake DA Freeman under fire from local, outside groups as primary election nears
As Lorrin Freeman seeks a third term as Wake County district attorney, she not only faces a primary challenger, but groups pushing for a more progressive prosecutor in one of North Carolina’s highest profile judicial districts.
Freeman had raised nearly $161,000 through the end of April. Democratic challenger Damon Chetson raised more than $110,000. The Democratic primary is Tuesday. The winner will face Republican Jeff Dobson in the Nov. 8 general election.
But the candidates aren’t the only ones seeking to influence the outcome.
Local, regional, state and national groups are also holding press conferences and debates, creating newsletters and websites and, in some cases, spending big money on mailers, billboards and canvassing.
“What is at stake in this election is nothing short of the soul of Wake County, the criminal justice system,” said Dawn Blagrove, a Freeman critic and the executive director of Emancipate NC, a criminal justice reform group that works to end mass incarceration and structural racism. “Our district attorney is the most powerful person in any criminal justice ecosystem.”
Freeman, obviously, has a much different take.
“It is critically important that the district attorney in Wake County not be driven by political agendas but instead be independent and carefully steer the power of that office in a steady way that keeps our community safe, consistently applies the facts to the law in each case and continually works to ensure fairness,” Freeman said in an interview with The News & Observer. “Allowing special-interest groups to buy this office risks a serious undermining of that work.”
Too often, Freeman said, policies embraced by reform groups ignore the harm suffered by victims of crime, the majority of whom are people of color.
Blagrove, however, said outside money isn’t problematic if the groups spending it align with “the wants and needs of people locally.”
Freeman vs. Chetson
Chetson, a defense attorney for more than 12 years, has criticized a lack of diversity in Freeman’s office. He also has pledged to not seek the death penalty, not prosecute low-level marijuana offenses and not seek life sentences for young people under 18.
“My message of ending the death penalty particularly for the severely mentally ill, ending prosecution of adult-use quantities of marijuana, and pushing to increase the size of the Wake County DA’s office to make us all safe is resonating with voters across Wake,” Chetson wrote in a text.
Freeman, whose office has sought the death penalty in certain cases, disagrees with dismissing low-level marijuana charges and banning use of capital punishment. Marijuana prosecutions have declined, she said, now making up less than 1% of her office’s caseload. She has also increased deferral programs, she said.
“Absolutely prosecutors have an obligation and duty to constantly be looking for ways to correct disparities in the system and improve the fairness, but we also have the responsibility to uphold the law and keep the community safe,” Freeman said.
Freeman won’t pledge to not seek the death penalty, she said, because it would be unfair to not be able to discuss that option with families whose loves ones have been murdered.
To make such a statement during a political campaign “devalues our ability to engage in those conversations with those victims, and it is just not something that I have been willing to do,” she said.
The reality of the situation is that crime, and especially violent crime, disproportionately impacts communities of color, Freeman said.
“Some idea that the answer here is to simply say we are not going to enforce the law anymore and that is going to correct the problems is inaccurate and short sighted,” she said. “It takes a more comprehensive deliberative approach to bring about change that is going to last and that is not going to create more harm.”
Emancipate NC, ACLU, others
Emancipate Votes, along with other groups, are pushing for transformative change they say will address the racial disparities across all levels of the criminal justice system.
Late last month, Emancipate Votes, the political arm of Emancipate NC, along with seven other groups held a press conference outlining concerns about the District Attorney’s Office.
“We all stand here together to say that we are tired of pretend progressives,” Blagrove said during the press conference.
Those who spoke or stood with signs that said “End Cash Bail” and “Stop Throwing Kids Away” included representatives from the ACLU of North Carolina, Forward Justice Action Network, and national groups Color of Change PAC and Working Families Party.
Some of those groups are stepping up in other ways.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of North Carolina launched a campaign to educate voters earlier this year.
While the non-partisan organization isn’t endorsing a candidate, it is spending about $200,000 “to inform the public about the stakes of this election,” a release on its website states.
“We felt compelled to get involved in this election because there is much at stake for civil liberties, civil rights, and vulnerable communities at this time,” Chantal Stevens, ACLU of NC executive director, said in the media release.
The front of one of the ACLU mailers asks, “Does your DA candidates share your values?”
The back has three questions that include the candidates stances on seeking life sentences for youth and misdemeanor marijuana prosecution.
In 2018, the ACLU also spent $100,000 in the Wake County Sheriff’s Office race, criticizing then Republican Sheriff Donnie Harrison, who lost to Gerald Baker, for participating in a controversial immigration program.
Forward Justice Action Network
The Forward Justice Action Network also spent nearly $105,000 last month to educate voters about the candidates’ positions via mailers, billboards, radio ads and paid canvassing, its campaign finance filings show.
The network is the lobbying arm of Forward Justice, a Triangle-based civil rights advocacy nonprofit.
The network wants a district attorney who will seek to mitigate racial disparities in the jail and legal system through actions like declining to prosecute misdemeanor marijuana charges and not seeking the death penalty, and won’t seek life sentences for children under 18, said Daryl V. Atkinson, co-director of the network.
“The DA’s office though policy and practice can chose to impact racial disparities or not, and we haven’t had a district attorney that has chosen to do so,” Atkinson said.
Raleigh Watch
And then there have been less transparent efforts, like a campaign in which individuals lobbied reporters and established website and newsletter critical of Freeman.
The newsletter didn’t say who was responsible for it, or a related billboard campaign that directed people to the landing page for the campaign.
WRAL did a story on the billboards that quoted Matt Ferner, whose Twitter profile says he is based in California.
Ferner was editor in chief for The Appeal, a nonprofit criminal justice news site, for two years before employees took it over and cut ties with liberal funding firm Tides Advocacy and a related nonprofit The Justice Collaborative.
Meanwhile, Dawn Milam, a former deputy managing editor of The Appeal whose Twitter profile indicates she is based in Charlotte, started emailing reporters last year.
“Did you catch the panel on Wake County justice last night with DA Lorrin Freeman?” Milan wrote in a September email to a reporter. “It got absolutely wild. Lots of anger about the RPD’s use of lying informants and Freeman not having any real response on why she has such a poor record on police accountability.”
Milam, who said in emails she was senior counsel with the Justice Research Group, pitched a voter poll to a reporter and introduced Rob Smith, former executive director of The Appeal, to provide more information about the poll that Raleigh Watch eventually published.
On Twitter, Smith and Ferner have been sharing articles from websites similar to Raleigh Watch, but about prosecutor races in other state, including Memphis Watch, Vegas Watch and Orange County (Calif.) Watch.
The News & Observer tried to reach the three individuals through emails, Twitter messages and phone calls, but none responded.
This story was originally published May 13, 2022 at 12:59 PM.
