Local

Gaston County works to clear 50K open court cases dating back to 1970s

GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — There are 50,800 open cases in Gaston County that date back to the 1970s that include a variety of minor offenses, such as speeding tickets, writing bad checks, and hunting without a license.

The district attorney can’t prosecute those cases, but they are keeping some people from moving on with their lives. The Gaston County District Attorney’s Office has been sifting through the cases to drop the charges.

Many of the charges are being cleared but the people involved don’t know about it.

In most cases when charges are dropped, a document explaining why is added to a defendant’s court file.

The defendant and their attorney are notified, and the case is closed.

That’s much harder to do when the case is so old the file has been moved to the archives section of the courthouse.

It becomes virtually impossible when there are more than 50,000 cases.

Channel 9 reporter Ken Lemon and photographer Bryan Ruderman went to the county courthouse and got several files from dismissed cases.

The Channel 9 crew’s intention was to try to notify the people in those cases that the lingering violations have been dropped.

Lemon learned part of the reason many of the cases are being dropped is that several people are from out of town, out of state, or no longer live at the listed address.

Chanel 9 found someone at the home of Deandre Castro.

He is listed as a 24-year-old who was charged in 2018 with failure to reduce speed, driving left of center, and having a fictitious registration, title, or tag.

The man who answered the door said his grandson, Deandre Castro, died last year. He was 23.

Family members said he had a car but for a long time, his mother had to drive him everywhere.

Lemon told the grandfather the district attorney was working on clearing cases.

Gaston County District Attorney Travis Page said this is an unfortunate consequence of having cases, such as Castro’s, still in the system.

Often a defendant, investigator, or witness has died or is no longer available.

One of the biggest reasons is that the cases are so old.

“We are talking about cases that may have happened even before I was born,” Page said. “We are going back to as early as 1978.”

The office legal assistant had to review a large number of cases.

“I look up the person’s name and it will bring up all the charges they have ever had,” said Ellie Houghton, a legal assistant.

Houghton was tasked to ensure there are no major violations or violent charges.

“There are cases that are minor traffic tickets, speeding, stoplight violation, expired registration, fishing without a license,” Page said. “These aren’t robberies or assaults or domestic violence, DWIs.”

The process started in 2017 when the state courts system asked each county to drop cases that couldn’t be brought to trial.

It wasn’t mandated, but prosecutors in Gaston County got behind it, saying it was the right thing to do.

“To be clear, the state has not mandated this process,” Page said.

Page, who was appointed to the post in 2021 and started working on this last fall, said it is the right thing to do.

“A prosecutor essentially cannot pursue charges where he doesn’t believe there is probable cause to support the prosecution,” Page said.

He said keeping thousands of the most recent cases on the books means wasting prosecutors’ time on cases they can’t win.

Page said their attention has shifted.

“(To) turn focus on the cases (that) are happening today,” Page said. “To be able to focus our attention, our resources, or efforts to those folks, those victims, those defendants that need our help and deserve their day in court.”

Page said to anyone who may think people are getting away with crimes unpunished, they must remember that they are minor, non-violent cases. In most instances, the defendant lost the right to drive, hunt, or fish -- charges that he said could stand in the way of getting an apartment or a job.

“A lot of these folks have been punished for decades,” Page said.

He said because there are so many people, the only way to know that your charges have been dropped is to go to the courthouse and check in with the clerk’s office.

Page said if that worries you, get an attorney to check on your behalf.


VIDEO: ‘Clogging up space’: DA disposes of thousands of non-violent offenses


Some of the old cases disposed of:

  • A 31-year-old Gastonia woman was cited for a school attendance violation on Oct. 23, 2017.
  • A 62-year-old North Belmont woman was cited for speeding on Sept. 26, 1982.
  • A 78-year-old woman from Anderson, South Carolina, was cited for speeding on Nov. 6, 1982.
  • A 65-year-old man from Greer, South Carolina, was cited for speeding on Sept. 19, 1981.
  • A 50-year-old Gastonia woman was cited for having an expired registration card or tag on Sept. 17, 2014.
  • A 54-year-old man was cited for driving without registration on Nov. 6, 1992.
  • A Gastonia man was cited for driving with a revoked license on Jan. 27, 1992.
  • A 50-year-old Kings Mountain man was cited for having an expired registration card or tag on Feb. 21, 2015.

Contact the Gaston County Courthouse if you have any questions: (704) 852-3100.