Somebody, do something!: WNC leaders plead for fixes to broken justice system

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Somebody, do something!: WNC leaders plead for fixes to broken justice system

Ellen Pitt (front, left of the banner) brought more than two dozen local leaders together to discuss public safety reform. Cory Vaillancourt photo

It was supposed to be a routine public safety forum, and in a way, it was — the faces were familiar, the frustrations all the same.

Elected officials, troopers, prosecutors and politicians once again took turns describing a justice system straining under its own weight, a system where clogged courts, half-hearted drug treatment, mental health failures and chronic underfunding blur the thin blue line between order and chaos. Their words carried a sense of urgency, tinged with exhaustion.

Haywood County resident Ellen Pitt, a tireless crusader for stricter drink-drive laws and more diligent pretrial monitoring of defendants with alcohol-related offenses, organized the Oct. 12 forum in the Maggie Valley pavilion, where more than two dozen people — all involved in public safety, in some way, from Murphy to McDowell County — rehashed old grievances repeated over years. They’re still waiting for somebody to listen, for somebody to do something.

“Nobody gets along about anything these days, but we have a lot of public safety issues. Some of them are like horror stories,” Pitt said. “We want people to come together, but not at a $6,000 fundraiser. We want the people that are campaigning for office and those that are already in office to listen to the public safety community.”

The cops

Across Western North Carolina, law enforcement officials described a system strained by low pay, personnel shortages, a broken mental health system and an overwhelmed judiciary — a combination that leaves deputies burned out, jails overcrowded and serious offenders walking free. They called for stronger interagency collaboration, more treatment and diversion programs and higher pay to attract and retain officers.

Haywood County Sheriff Bill Wilke said his agency built specialized patrol and escort teams from existing staff rather than waiting for new funding, proving that collaboration can stretch limited resources.

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“We can’t operate in a vacuum,” Wilke said. “The most important thing that we can do is work collaboratively.”

Since his election in 2022, Wilke has taken a strong public stance against drug traffickers and said that hitting them “at the highest level” disrupts far-ranging supply chains. He added that the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association supports Pitt’s Sober Operator Act, which among other things would lower the threshold for DWI from .08% blood-alcohol content to .05%.

Data presented by Pitt from the National Transportation Safety Board shows that in Utah, where the .05% BAC limit was implemented in 2018, fatal crashes dropped 19.8% from 2016 to 2019 without an increase in DWI arrests and without a decrease in alcohol sales, alcohol consumption or tourism revenue. That corresponds with the 1 in 5 drinkers who changed their behaviors to include alternative transportation when indulging outside the home.

Dustin Smith, sheriff of Cherokee County, said policing a two-state border is complicated by Georgia’s restrictions on interstate mutual aid, and that he’d spoken with a member of the Georgia House of Representatives about increased collaboration.

Smith also said his county’s programs give inmates a second chance through treatment and medication-assisted recovery but warned that law enforcement bears the burden for mental health failures.

“We’re taking care of people inside of our jails that should not be in our jails,” Smith said. “Those burdens are burning out your detention officers and your law enforcement officers.”

Jackson County Sheriff Doug Farmer pointed to systemic backlogs that delay justice for years. Officers leave before cases go to trial, he said, and repeat offenders bond out only to reoffend within a day.

“We’re sitting on a DWI three, four years at a time,” Farmer said. “Somebody’s got to say, ‘Hey, one continuance for each side, and let’s take it to trial.’”

Maggie Valley presented Ellen Pitt with a check for $2,000 to go toward a CAM bracelet pilot program. Kyle Perrotti photo

Like Smith, Farmer praised the county’s MAT programs but said relief won’t come until courts clear their dockets and stop cycling offenders in and out.

Trooper Courtney Barker of the State Highway Patrol said no amount of classroom training substitutes for firsthand experience, while urging prosecutors — and officers — to participate in ride-alongs and spend time in court learning from veteran troopers.

“It took me getting embarrassed on the stand in superior court before it made me want to be better,” Barker said.

Brent Hipp, also with the SHP, warned that Western North Carolina is short more than 40 troopers. He said the state ranks second in the nation for miles of state-maintained roads but forty-eighth in law-enforcement pay.

“We can make all the laws you want,” Hipp said, “but if we don’t have anybody out there enforcing them, you’re not going to get them enforced.”

Sergeant Chris Sherry of the SHP said the impact is already visible on the ground.

“The majority of the time in Haywood County and Jackson, we got one trooper working covering the entire place,” Sherry said. “You got one trooper covering two counties out there.”

He said the solution is simple, and pressing — “Get more money and get more troopers on the road to better protect the public.”

The courts

Prosecutors and court staff said DWI enforcement falters without proper training, coordination and mental health infrastructure. They described how weak testimony and scheduling chaos let repeat offenders slip through the cracks, while a lack of treatment options keeps mentally ill defendants trapped in endless jail cycles.

Assistant District Attorney Jessica Huskey said local sheriffs have made progress against drug trafficking but that the same focus must be applied to impaired driving. Echoing Barker’s remarks, officers, Huskey said, need stronger courtroom and field training so prosecutors can secure convictions against repeat offenders.

“The training that goes into these officers — I can’t stress that enough,” she said. “If you can’t put an officer up there [on the stand] to get me to a guilty verdict, what good is it?”

Huskey added that many prosecutors underestimate the complexity of DWI cases until they experience enforcement firsthand.

“I hated DWIs when I first started,” she said. “I hated them because they are so hard. But like [Barker] was talking about the ride-alongs, I started riding with troopers and I learned so much. Every single ADA should be riding with troopers.”

Assistant District Attorney Shelley Buckner agreed that ride-alongs build essential understanding for prosecutors and deputies alike. She said earlier, deeper training would allow deputies to handle DWI cases on their own, reducing delays and scheduling conflicts that arise when multiple officers are tied to a single case.

“We call them DWIs by committee,” Buckner said. “When newer deputies don’t have enough training, cases get complicated. The sooner they get educated, the smoother it goes for everyone. If Courtney [Barker] stopped somebody, I know she can see that case through from start to finish; however, some of our newer deputies don’t have the training sufficient to be able to effectuate a DWI arrest.”

Allyson Barnes, a longtime Swain County court clerk running for clerk of superior court in 2026 said new prosecutorial staff have helped reduce local backlogs and hold regular DWI trials instead of endless continuances, but she said the mental health crisis remains the court’s greatest burden.

“These people are serving life sentences 20 days at a time,” Barnes said. “They need mental health treatment, not jail.”

The candidates

From sheriff to Congress to courts, candidates running for office recognize that jails and treatment systems are breaking under the weight of mental health crises, understaffed agencies and inconsistent enforcement. They argued that real reform requires coordination among lawmakers, law enforcement and the courts — not just political slogans.

Congressional candidate Adam Smith, a Republican running against incumbent Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-Henderson) in the 2026 Primary Election, said courts are failing to uphold the law and that bail reform doesn’t address the deeper roots of crime. He said his Army experience training police across the country taught him that mental health breakdowns and veterans’ issues drive much of the recidivism now overwhelming local jails.

“We’re actively watching a failure of the courts to uphold law,” he said.

Smith added that lawmakers must start working with law enforcement on long-term treatment and rehabilitation.

“One of the biggest things that we’re good at is being problem finders, but we suck at being problem solvers, nine times out of 10,” he said.

Pitt said Edwards was invited to the forum, but he didn’t attend and didn’t send a representative.

Ken Brown, a Republican candidate for House District 118 who will meet incumbent Rep. Mark Pless (R-Haywood) in the 2026 Primary, said his top priority is empowering courts to detain dangerous offenders and improving efficiency by splitting district court boundaries to align with superior court lines.

“We’ve got to make sure the court system is empowered to keep people off the streets that ought to be off the streets,” Brown said.

He also called for better funding access for small-town departments that are too small to qualify for state grants.

David Norris, a longtime prosecutor and defense attorney now running for district attorney in Rutherford and McDowell counties, said court congestion has crippled DWI enforcement and left serious cases stalled for years.

“You can’t have thousands of cases backed up,” Norris said. “The court system needs to function more like a court system that’s efficient.”

He said prosecutors and officers should train together so neither side faces trial unprepared.

Speaking for Canton alderman candidate Adam Hatton, Jennifer Robertson said Hatton’s priorities are transparency, disaster readiness and tougher enforcement of the “Move Over” law to protect roadside workers. Hatton owns a towing service that employs a few dozen drivers and is thus well aware of roadside hazards for emergency services personnel — even tow truck drivers.

Mark Mease, a narcotics investigator with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and former Haywood County Sherriff’s Office detective now running for sheriff against Wilke in the Republican Primary Election said law enforcement must attack both traffickers and the neighborhood demand that sustains them.

“You have to go to the customer — disrupt that business,” Mease said.

He also proposed a GPS-tracking requirement for violent or repeat offenders on pre-trial release, stronger distracted-driving penalties and a revived multi-agency drug task force because “criminals don’t have boundaries.”

Leon Allen, running for sheriff in Graham County, described his county as “a land that time has forgot,” citing an eight-bed jail, a stalled justice-center project and little drug enforcement.

“They don’t want to progress,” Allen said. “Drugs are running rampant in Graham County.”

Allen said he has sought mentorship from other sheriffs to prepare for the job and pledged collaboration if elected.

Gary Parris, a candidate for Buncombe County sheriff, said he would create a service office to help victims navigate the justice system and that he would rebuild the county’s DWI Task Force, which has dwindled from six officers to two. Parris is one of few public figures in recent memory to acknowledge explicitly the effect Asheville’s criminal justice failures have on the region as a whole.

“We have to have a joint effort. Everything that happens in Buncombe County,” he said, pointing at attendees who represented communities from the far west to the foothills, “ripples into your county, and your county, and your county.”

The community leaders

Elected officials and political organizers said Western North Carolina’s public-safety challenges require collaboration that crosses both jurisdictional and partisan boundaries, describing efforts to strengthen local partnerships, expand legislative support and connect communities to the real-world impact of impaired driving and criminal-justice reform.

Maggie Valley Alderman Jim Owens said his town will continue financially supporting pre-trial continuous alcohol monitoring — a partnership he called “visionary” for promoting accountability and recovery. On Oct. 8, Mayor Mike Eveland presented Pitt with a check for $2,000 to affirm the town’s commitment.

“I’m here to listen, learn and support — where Maggie’s always been, and we will continue to be,” Owens said at the Oct. 12 forum.

Rep. Eric Ager (D-Buncombe) said the forum offered lawmakers a clearer view of on-the-ground realities than they often get from lobbyists in Raleigh. A bipartisan alliance between Ager and Rep. Mike Clampitt (R-Swain) has established both men as the primary proponents of the Sober Operator Act in the General Assembly, but for Ager, improving law enforcement pay remains a priority.

“You know that the motto of North Carolina is ‘to be rather than to seem,’ and that’s what our law enforcement folks do every day. They’re not out there on Instagram and Twitter trying to show how amazing they are,” he said. “They’re just keeping us safe every day out there, so we’ve got to reward that.”

Murphy Mayor Tim Radford described how border-town departments like his — Murphy sits on Sheriff Dustin Smith’s Cherokee County turf — compete for officers with higher-paying agencies in Tennessee and Georgia. He said pay disparities make retention difficult and questioned whether communities are investing enough in prevention and youth engagement.

“All of our law enforcement folks need more pay,” Radford said. “But are we doing enough to stop this from happening in our next generation?”

Canton Alderwoman Kristina Proctor, running for reelection along with fellow incumbent Tim Shepard, said she’d attended to learn and listen. Proctor shared a personal story about a family member’s recovery through substance abuse monitoring and counseling programs and praised the region’s collaborative spirit.

“I’ve seen the system work for a family member of mine,” she said. “Within a year, they were back to being able to hold down a job and function in society. That holistic care was mind-blowing.”

Susan Cavanaugh, president of the High Country Republican Women, believes public-safety and DWI policy should rise above party politics. She said her organization hopes to help educate citizens and lawmakers about how courts and enforcement systems actually work.

“This isn’t a blue, red, left, right issue,” Cavanaugh said. “We’ve got to get away from that.”

The experts

Specialists in forensic testing, monitoring and training said impaired-driving enforcement depends on science, funding and cooperation as much as on manpower. They urged stronger use of technology, better magistrate oversight and full legislative funding for pilot programs that could modernize the state’s response.

Jeff Gilstrap, a 32-year traffic enforcement veteran who operates one of the state’s mobile breath-testing and field sobriety units funded by the N.C. Division of Public Health and the Governor’s Highway Safety Program, said marijuana impairment can’t be measured by a fixed number like alcohol and called for larger, multi-agency enforcement operations — a critical issue for communities that border the Qualla Boundary, where recreational cannabis is legal and sold at retail.

“It varies so widely,” Gilstrap said. “Somebody can smoke some THC and be fine, and the next person beside them is totally messed up.”

He said deploying the mobile DWI van raises awareness and deters repeat offenses.

Douglas Oliver, a former corrections officer who provides GPS and continuous alcohol monitoring services, said CAM bracelet technology works if judges and magistrates consistently order it. Along with town governments in Maggie Valley and Waynesville — and Pitt — Oliver has been a major proponent of the bracelets.

He said his data show near-total success in preventing relapse and repeat arrests for pretrial defendants accused of extreme or repeated DWI offenses.

“We need to educate court systems, DAs, attorneys, law enforcement, everybody,” Oliver said. I guarantee you, I will prove it to anybody in this room, I will get you sober. This thing is running 99 — listen to this now — 99.8% successful. How do you argue with that?”

Oliver urged counties to hold magistrates accountable for enforcing existing laws and offered free training to agencies interested in using the devices, which aren’t cheap — but are cheaper than allowing dangerous drivers to take to the roads while awaiting trial.

Pitt has proposed legislation allocating a small portion of revenue from local Alcoholic Beverage Commissions to pay for the devices, which would take the burden off already-stretched municipal governments.

Anthony Burnett, a state forensic-alcohol instructor, said his branch trains officers in sobriety testing, breath analysis and screening, and that new oral fluid and law enforcement phlebotomy pilots are ready to launch if lawmakers fund them.

“We have a pilot program ready to go for oral fluid testing,” Burnett said. “If there’s a way of getting that budget change through, it would really help all of us.”

He said doubling the $25 DWI license restoration allocation for both sheriffs and the state branch would pay for the training and equipment those programs require.

By the end of the two-hour forum, the faces remained familiar, the frustrations unchanged. Another forum, another call to action — and another plea that someday, somewhere, somebody might finally do something.

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