‘Jaleeyah’s Law,’ named for 13-year-old girl shot and killed in NC, passes House
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- The North Carolina House passed Jaleeyah’s Law 110-3 and sent it to the Senate.
- The bill reduces gang member criteria to two and broadens gang definitions.
- The bill allocates more than $500,000 for two prosecutors and one investigator.
Anti-gang legislation honoring a 13-year-old girl who was killed in Goldsboro last year passed the state’s House of Representatives on Wednesday.
The bill would update several definitions of criminal gang-related terms and require stricter punishments for related crimes, such as providing guns to minors. After a 110-3 vote, it now moves to the Senate for consideration.
The bill, known as Jaleeyah’s Law, is named after Jaleeyah “Lee Lee” Tune who was killed in Goldsboro the week before Christmas last year. Three teenagers were arrested and charged in connection to her death, ABC 11 reported.
Family members of Jaleeyah, including her mother Whitney Brown-Tune, were seated in the gallery as the House passed the bill and were recognized by the representatives.
Brown-Tune told lawmakers in committee last week that the family’s lives “are forever changed.”
“ ... We’re hoping to make change, save lives with prevention, intervention and being aware. And bringing spaces for these kids so that we can try to make a difference within our community,” she said.
Rep. John Bell, a Goldsboro Republican and a primary sponsor of the bill, said “no family should ever endure what has happened and the pain of losing a child to gang violence.”
Bell said Jaleeyah was walking home with her family when she was struck by a bullet “intended for a different person.”
Reps. Shelly Willingham, Pricey Harrison and Marcia Morey — all Democrats — voted against the bill.
Morey said that while what happened was a tragedy, the bill “doesn’t look at the cause. It doesn’t look at the prevention.”
Bill specifics
Rep. Sarah Stevens, a Republican co-sponsor, explained the different provisions in the bill.
She said the bill would appropriate more than $500,000 to the Conference of District Attorneys for two special resource prosecutors and one new district attorney investigator “to focus on criminal gang activity.”
The bill would also reduce the number of criteria it takes to be labeled as a gang member from three to two. Some of the criteria include using symbols or hand signs associated with a criminal gang, wearing colors or a style associated with a gang and appearing on social media “to promote a criminal gang.”
First Amendment concerns were raised in a committee hearing about that section of the bill, on the grounds that broadening the definitions and reducing criteria could create a dragnet that targets people merely associated with gangs.
Bell said in the hearing the bill would not convict people for simply being a gang member, which is “just one element of the crime, and that conviction requires that a member engage in a criminal gang activity.”
The bill would also bump up the felony class of crimes already enshrined in state law, such as soliciting or coercing a minor to participate in criminal gang activity, or a criminal gang member giving or selling a firearm to someone under the age of 18.
Session discussion
Morey said Wednesday during the House session that North Carolina already has an enhanced punishment for people participating in criminal gangs.
“This is it on steroids,” she said.
Morey also asked why bill sponsors didn’t look at recommendations from the Governor’s Crime Commission, the State Highway Patrol and the State Bureau of Investigation.
“The way they see we prevent gang violence [is] we expand training kids on guns, gang violence training curriculum, then gang information, teaching at-risk students, enhance law enforcement collaboration communication,” she said. “Not one says, ‘let’s increase tenfold the sentence for a crime if someone’s a gang member.’”
Rep. Phil Rubin, a Wake County Democrat, proposed amending a section on a gang member using or carrying a firearm in relation to a drug or violent crime or a “serious felony.”
He said the U.S. Supreme Court, out of about 70 cases a year, often heard one or two about the exact meaning of a violent crime.
He said the amendment “tweaks that definition so that we don’t end up in a place where ... thousands of convictions were amended, sentences were amended because the underlying definitions got thrown out eventually by the courts.”
The amendment passed unanimously.
Bell said that while the bill is named after Jaleeyah, “it’s actually a mom on a mission ... to make sure that we’re protecting our communities and ensuring that fewer families experience the heartbreak that this family has.”
