‘A long road’: Charlotte murder suspect released from jail purgatory in plea deal

A Charlotte murder suspect who has ricocheted between jail bunks and mental hospital beds for 4,090 days will be released under a plea deal.

After his guilty plea at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse Thursday, Devalos Perkins will see his twisting, decade-long time in the justice system come to an end, a judge ruled.

In 2012, Perkins was arrested in the 2005 murder of Justin Ervin. Two others — Perkins’ cousins — were also involved, but Perkins, who is diagnosed with schizophrenia, was the only one still in the justice system.

The Charlotte Observer’s year-long investigative series called “Purgatory” examined how one word in a now-void North Carolina law kept the 37-year-old perpetually incarcerated for 11 years without ever having been found guilty. His case is just one of many orbiting legislation and reform on mental health care and substance abuse services for inmates.

“It was a long road to justice, and sometimes it was very rocky,” said Norman Butler, Perkins’ lawyer. “But I hope this can be a new beginning for him.”

Perkins pleaded guilty Thursday to voluntary manslaughter, robbery with a dangerous weapon and conspiracy to commit a robbery with a dangerous weapon at his arraignment in Mecklenburg County District Court. He also pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting an officer and three counts of malicious conduct by a prisoner for punching and spitting on prison guards.

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Judge Karen Eady-Williams ordered he be immediately released from the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, “if possible.” The time he served while awaiting trial was nearly exactly his potential maximum sentence: 135 months.

Because Perkins was transferred from Central Prison Wednesday evening, Eady-Williams said, Charlotte deputies may not be able to discharge him. If he must first be transported back to Raleigh, he’d be released by Wednesday, Butler said.

Perkins’ mother, father, sister, cousin and family friend filled a bench inside the courtroom. They said they were “anxious” and eager to get to an unshackled Perkins without visitation windows or courtroom seating dividing them.

“It’s just been so long. He don’t even know this world,” said his big sister, Laquata Perkins. “He’s been locked up... all this time.”

Perkins was first arrested as a 15-year-old, she said. But he didn’t truly enter purgatory until the fateful 2012 arrest.

“I’m so glad I don’t even know what to do,” Perkins’ father said.

Ervin’s mother, Dawn Dusharm, was not in court Thursday, but Assistant District Attorney Glenn Cole said she has been “just heartbroken” since 2005.

Mental health in the justice system

As two officers escorted Perkins out of the courtroom Thursday, Eady-Williams reminded him to continue taking the anti-depressants doctors prescribed him.

Butler later told The Observer he hopes the case “alerts the system, in a timely manner,” of the benefits of properly treating inmates who show signs of mental health struggles.

“The person who is seated in this chair here today,” he told the judge while placing his hand on Perkins’ orange-cloaked shoulder, “is a completely different person than who I saw at the beginning of this case.”

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He largely credited medication for Perkins’ improvements.

At his last hearing in October, Perkins told Judge Carla Archie he saw a “flashing man” in the courtroom and near him the day before. He did not know what day or month it was, and he did not know how long he’d been in jail, he said.

“Do you believe your mind is clear right now?” Archie asked.

“No, ma’am,” Perkins replied.

“Do you know what it means to plead guilty?” she asked.

“No, ma’am.”

She still found found Perkins lucid enough to stand trial after hearing expert witness testimony from Dr. Sherif Soliman — the Atrium Health forensics psychiatrist who had evaluated Perkins. He said Perkins has difficulty with authority and a history of exaggerating his mental health symptoms and struggles. He often gives incorrect answers, he said, and needs things explained more plainly.

In court Thursday, Perkins traded his “No, ma’ams” for “Yes, ma’ams” when Eady-Williams asked him the same questions.

“He’s frankly doing a lot better,” Cole said before detailing Perkins’ murder charge and “scuffles” with officers Thursday.

Perkins was lucid enough for trial at least twice before in the last decade, but both times proceedings paused when he backtracked. Soliman suggested Perkins may have tried to mislead others about his mental capability.

Dawn Dusharm, who was not in court Thursday, thinks that’s exactly what he was doing.

Murder victim’s family

Justin Ervin — Dusharm’s son — died in a robbery attempt at a Charlotte gas station outside of a convenience store on Glenwood Drive in northwest Charlotte 18 years ago. He was trying to protect his girlfriend from three men who’d attacked her.

“I just got a phone call and they told me he was dead,” Dusharm said. “I didn’t believe it.”

In court Thursday, Cole said Perkins’ cousins, Tyrice Lavar Boyd and an unnamed man, jumped in Ervin’s car before Perkins shot him outside of it. They refused to let Perkins inside the car before driving away.

Boyd left jail two months after Perkins arrived. The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s office dropped the charges against Boyd in 2012, citing lack of evidence in court documents regarding the dismissal. The other cousin’s name is now all but scrubbed or missing from documents connected to the murder.

Dusharm, though not at Thursday’s hearing, previously said she didn’t care much about Perkins’ competency. She waited nearly 20 years, and she just wanted someone to be held accountable for her son’s death.

She felt bad for Perkins, she said, but she thought he was “playing the system a little bit.”

“... He might have some mental issues, but they’re not to that severity,” she told the Observer in October.

Cole previously said Soliman’s testimony and report spoke for itself, and he agreed Perkins was fit for Thursday’s trial.

“If he stays in jail forever I’d be happy,” Dusharm said.

Perkins’ sister said her family feels for Dusharm.

“My son was murdered six years ago,” she said. “I get it.”

Charlotte man in jail purgatory

In the murder case — 11 years in, despite no verdict and no end in sight — a judge last year decided there was no “undue delay” for Perkins, or Ervin’s loved ones.

While Perkins’ mental struggles caused the delay, a North Carolina law allowed it.

The law generally — in a case like Perkins’ — caps a criminal suspect’s time in jail at 10 years after a finding they are mentally incapable. That can help prevent a case from being stuck indefinitely. However, that part of state law wasn’t in place at the time of Perkins’ arrest.

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Before 2012, the law read: “When a defendant lacks capacity to proceed, the court may dismiss the charges.” It gave judges power to dismiss a person’s charges after long waits, but it didn’t require them to.

The law changed approximately three months after Perkins went to jail. Now, it puts a time limit to purgatory and mandates the court shall dismiss charges after 10 years.

Had Perkins been arrested under the new law, Tiasia Andrews may have been able to see her cousin be released a year earlier. Ervin was killed when she was 8, and Perkins was arrested when she was 15. The case, which stuck with her and her family, spurred the 26-year-old to take an extra class in criminology.

The justice system criminally failed Perkins, but The Observer’s series, she said, jolted the stagnant court system.