RALEIGH — Four months after a jury acquitted a local man in the death of a UNC alumnus, a Guilford County legislator has filed a bill that would change the way similar cases are taken up in the future.
At Tuesday’s session of the N.C. General Assembly, Rep. Mary Price Taylor Harrison filed a bill nicknamed “Stephen’s Law” in honor of University alumnus and Tar Heel Sports Network reporter Stephen Gates.
Gates was killed last year in a hit-and-run accident near the split of interstates 40 and 85. In November, a jury found Rabah Samara not guilty of all charges related to the incident.
“We feel that there is a need to change the law,” said Pat Gates, Stephen Gates’ mother. “Especially now that people are aware they can get away with this, we’re worried that it might happen more often.”
The state’s hit-and-run statute now requires that a person charged must have driven a vehicle that hits someone. The person also must know or have reason to know that he hit someone, and he must have driven away from the scene.
An amended statute will require that no person in a vehicle involved in an accident leave the scene, except to call for medical or law enforcement assistance. It will also apply to anyone involved in the accident, regardless of whether he was driving the vehicle at the time.
“Anyone in the car should be found guilty,” Harrison said.
Other bill co-sponsors include Rep. Alice Bordsen, D-Alamance; Rep. Verla Insko, D-Orange; and Rep. Paul Luebke, D-Durham.
“A person was killed in an accident, and no one was held accountable,” Insko said of Gates’ death. “The current law is not clear enough.”
