Almost a year after a man was acquitted of charges relating to the death of a UNC alumnus, a new hit-and-run statute is awaiting final approval from Gov. Mike Easley.
House Bill 217, known as “Stephen’s Law” in honor of former Tar Heel Sports Network reporter Stephen Gates, passed the N.C. House on Aug. 22 and the N.C. Senate on Aug. 12, both with unanimous votes.
“It has been a long, difficult, frustrating and sometimes painful process, but it had to be done,” said Pat Gates, Stephen Gates’ mother. “We could not let this happen to another family if we could prevent it.”
Gates was killed in 2003 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.
Samara was a passenger in the SUV that struck Gates but was charged after he drove the vehicle from the scene. The driver at the time of the incident, Emily Caveness, pled guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for testifying against Samara.
Shortly after the ruling, the Gates family began working closely with N.C. Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, on ways to change the state’s existing hit-and-run laws.
The state’s hit-and-run statutes require that the person charged must be driving the vehicle at the time of the incident. The person also must know or have reason to know that he or she hit someone and must drive away from the scene without notifying officials.
“Because different drivers did the hitting and the running in the Gates case, no one was held responsible for his death,” Harrison said in an e-mail.
The new statute requires that no person in a vehicle involved in an accident leave the scene, except to call for assistance. It would apply to anyone involved in the accident, regardless of whether he or she was driving the vehicle.
