The Marshall Project

How Prosecutor Reform Is Shaking Up Small DA Races

A national movement is trickling down.

In North Carolina, campaigns for district attorney have long followed a traditional narrative: lots of talk about being tough on crime, accompanied by the occasional gun raffle fundraiser.

Satana Deberry’s campaign this year in Durham, a left-leaning enclave of about 260,000 people, is not typical. Deberry is running against the system, one of a few dozen candidates around the country who say they want to shake things up from inside the corner office. “The only indisputable outcome of our criminal justice system is that black and brown people are incarcerated,” Deberry said in

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