Fact check: Is congressional candidate Pat Timmons-Goodson ‘soft’ on crime?
The issue: A political ad from the Congressional Leadership Fund has branded Democrat Pat Timmons-Goodson as being “soft on crime.” It claims that she opposed electronic monitoring of convicted sex offenders, disagreed with a court ruling to keep murderers off the streets, and is backed by those working to “defund the police.”
Why we’re checking this: As North Carolina is in the midst of the early voting period and gearing up for the general election, attack ads are heating up too.
The Congressional Leadership Fund contracted with FlexPoint Media, a third-party advertising agency, and released the TV advertisement last week. CLF paid roughly $94,000 to run the ad 45 times on WRAL, according to the contract.
According to its website, the group is “the super PAC dedicated exclusively to one goal: winning a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.”
Pat Timmons-Goodson is a Democrat running to represent NC’s 8th Congressional District. Prior to that, she was the first Black woman to serve on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Her opponent, Republican Rep. Richard Hudson, assumed office in 2013 and is running for reelection.
What you need to know:
The ad makes vague claims about real events, but lacks enough context for total accuracy. Let’s look at the claims individually.
Claim 1: Yes, Timmons-Goodson, along with Justice Robin Hudson, signed Chief Justice Sarah Parker’s dissent on an NC Supreme Court opinion that allowed satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of certain types of sex offenders.
What was in question was the effectiveness of SBM systems and if they could be imposed on sex offenders who had committed crimes prior to the legislation. The systems included an ankle bracelet, a tracking device, and a base unit.
The dissent explained that the issue was not with policy, but with principle.
“Sexual offenses are among the most disturbing and damaging of all crimes,” Parker wrote. “We all agree that innovative approaches are especially necessary to minimize, if not remove, any contact between vulnerable children and those who would prey on them.”
But, Parker argued, “that the satellite-based monitoring program has marginal, if any, efficacy in accomplishing that important purpose,” and retroactively applying this rule would impose “substantial interferences” on those monitored.
Claim 2: Yes, Timmons-Goodson disagreed with the 2010 majority opinion that bound Alford Jones to his lifetime sentence behind bars.
She didn’t object on account of all convicted murderers in North Carolina, like the ad might imply in its script that she “disagreed with a court ruling to keep murderers off of our streets.” She disagreed on account of a select few who had been convicted of first-degree murder more than three decades ago.
Timmons-Goodson dissented on the basis that Jones was experiencing unfair punishment due to a stipulation in a 1974 law that defined “life” in prison as 80 years. Those convicted under this law were unable to exchange good behavior credits for shorter sentences like other inmates serving term-of-years sentences for the same crime.
“The undisputed record reflects that Jones has fully served his term of imprisonment and is thereby entitled to immediate unconditional release,” Timmons-Goodson wrote in the dissent. “The decision to the contrary offends all notions of fundamental fairness.”
Claim 3: The CLF ad does not mention who supports Timmons-Goodson and is working to defund the police, but cites a video clip of a June virtual town hall where Timmons-Goodson was questioned by Cabarrus County Democratic Party chair Bobbi Hague for not supporting the defunding of police
Defunding the police has received national attention this election cycle in light of the patterns identified between policing and the killing of Black people. Some in support of defunding the police have called for a portion of police funds to be reallocated to community services that they say have the potential to better support public health and safety.
In the clip, Hague says Cabarrus County is working with Mecklenburg County to reallocate funds, but Hague does not openly endorse Timmons-Goodson. Hague questions how Timmons-Goodson plans to fund the different programs mentioned, like after-school curriculum, if she is not in support of defunding the police.
“I am not in favor of taking all of the money from law enforcement,” Timmons-Goodson says in the clip. “In terms of reallocating, I certainly would be in favor of taking a look at the priorities and doing whatever allocating of resources to accomplish those things.”
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREOur process
We check claims that are widely shared or published; are about a topic of concern to many of our readers; can be proven or disproven through facts; and could cause people to act or vote in a certain way. This topic met all the criteria.
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Find out more about our process here. And as always, we abide by our newsroom’s ethical guidelines.
Our sources. Here’s where we found information and research on this topic:
Congressional Leadership Fund advertisement “Define”, Oct. 16
Congressional Leadership Fund website “About”, Oct. 19
State v. Bowditch, Oct. 2010
Jones v. Keller, Aug. 2010
Timmons-Goodson, define defund the police clip, Sept. 28
Contract, Congressional Leadership Fund WRAL, Oct. 14
This story was produced by The News & Observer Fact-Checking Project, which shares fact-checks with newsrooms statewide. It was edited by Managing Editor Jane Elizabeth and Politics Editor Jordan Schrader. Submit a suggestion for what we should check, or a comment or suggestion about our fact-checking, at bit.ly/nandofactcheck.