District Attorney Forum
A factual summary of the DA forum is available from the Mountain Express here District attorney candidates discuss priorities for Buncombe County – Mountain Xpress. This is an excellent record of the statements at the forum. The recording of the livestream is here: https://youtu.be/bCV78hW2n6Y. The audio improves after a short while, the video does not.
These responses are unedited and presented in full.
2026 District Attorney Questionnaire
You can see the detailed questions here: see the questions. All photos are linked out to the candidates’ corresponding website, if applicable.
Quick Jump to Any Candidate’s Responses!
Martin Moore
Root Causes: Two key root causes of crime are affordability and disparate starting places in life. In practice, addressing poverty and lack of access to quality education are two of the most important actions we can take as a community to reduce and prevent crime.
Starting my career as a public defender gave me first-hand experience in recognizing and supporting clients in addressing their basic needs; whether the crime is larceny of food/health-related goods or second-degree trespass, the underlying problem is often a reflection of an affordability crisis. Both the data and my experience as a trial attorney support the conclusion that we see crime rates reduce when there is access to affordable housing, living wages, and well-funded schools.
In private practice and supporting survivors, I also saw that some of the biggest impediments to true justice were suboptimal outcomes as a result of economic disparity. Specifically, those survivors who were financially dependent upon an abusive partner often lost hope and, in some cases, the opportunity to be heard during the trials they spent months building up courage to bring to court.
As District Attorney, I would bring a uniquely informed perspective as both an attorney who has advocated for the underserved and a Commissioner who has led initiatives to fund our education system, fight for affordable housing, and behavioral health supports that address the underlying needs and promote crime prevention rather than resort to punishment as the gut reaction.
Addressing these root causes and supporting our community in fulfilling their basic human needs and right to education goes the furthest in making inroads to addressing public safety.
Priorities: My focus will be on prosecuting crimes that impact our community the most: gun crimes and domestic violence. Our court system is underfunded and does not have the resources to address every case the way we ideally could. It is critical that we prioritize crimes that require swift action and work diligently to get the verdicts and outcomes right the first time.
Pre-trial practices: As a County Commissioner and attorney, I have been in the center of the delicate balance between community concern, public safety, and due process for those who, by law, are considered innocent until proven guilty. Ultimately, it is up to every judge to determine the risk that any given defendant may pose to the community. The District Attorney’s role is to inform the court of the facts and information they have obtained from law enforcement, databases, and prosecuting witnesses. As stated above, my priority would be to focus on making informed recommendations and sharing pertinent information that allows our judges to make an informed decision about what defendants present a danger to our community versus what neighbors present no or minimal risk. Iryna’s Law has greatly limited the District Attorney’s role in the release determination; however, operating with a lens of promoting justice outcomes must take precedence. We must remember, safety considered, each defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and every actor in our system must keep that in mind while following the law.
As District Attorney, I would work with our local judges, defense bar, and County staff to identify how we prioritize pre-trial release programs and supervision for non-violent offenders. I believe that we should advocate for additional diversion programs, electronic monitors, and process cases as fairly and efficiently as possible so that no person waits longer than necessary while they await their day in court.
Overcrowding in jail: As an attorney and County Commissioner, I have appreciated Sheriff Miller’s commitment to safely reducing the jail population and rightfully expecting that our criminal justice system will handle cases swiftly and fairly. We cannot use our jail as a long-term holding facility. As District Attorney, I would commit to collaborating with our Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office to assess and prioritize those cases that are 1.) currently pre-trial/pre-adjudication, 2.) cases involving inmates that have been held for over 120 days, and 3.) high priority to our local law enforcement to resolve in a just and swift manner.
The District Attorney’s strongest power is discretion: discretion over what cases take priority and what cases end up on the court calendar first versus last. As a county commissioner, I understand what it means to supervise, set priorities, and manage a significant budget. We can invest in our schools, or we can invest in a new jail. I prefer the former.
I have invested in and will continue to support treatment courts, diversion programs, juvenile crime prevention initiatives, and re-entry services.
Misapplications of justice: For two years in law school, I served as a pro bono volunteer for The Innocence Project, including a year as Case Manager. In that role, I saw firsthand cases from across our state that highlighted how justice and outcomes changed based on geography, partisan District Attorneys, and access to experienced defense counsel. As a former public defender, appellate attorney, and Commissioner, I know both the human and financial cost of what happens when our system gets it wrong. Lives are changed forever, often over avoidable procedural issues.
As District Attorney, my priority would be on supervising the office’s attorneys through the lens of someone who has been on both sides and worked on appellate cases before the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, assuring that my team has the training and legal support staff needed to effectively try cases, and a clear multi-attorney process for reviewing convictions with credible allegations of innocence inquiry.
As District Attorney, justice means recognizing where mistakes were made, either on the prosecutor or defense side, and getting the right outcome. I believe I am the most qualified candidate to do this work as the only attorney with state, federal, and appellate court experience.
Navigating federal, state, local conflict: As a County Commissioner, this is not hypothetical for me. For the past year, I have seen firsthand the challenges of fighting for desperately needed Helene/FEMA relief and upholding our values and programs while resisting the “easy answer” of relenting to bullying from partisan threats in the hopes of possibly receiving aid.
The truth is, grandiose statements that blindly invite conflict for cheap political points are irresponsible, but we still have a duty to use our voices for our neighbors. As an attorney and County Commissioner, I’ve used my voice and position to inform people, via person-to-person counseling, social media, and e-mail campaigns. When Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations were as close as Charlotte, it became critical for me that we play an active role in advising neighbors of their rights and how we implement policies that will help and avoid harm. That is why I recorded a series of know you rights videos and messaging for our most vulnerable neighbors. It is vital that our elected officials speak out and inform our community whether we are facing a natural disaster like Helene, or a man-made crisis like ICE operating with impunity.
For me, this meant meeting with Sheriff Miller to understand what he needs if we faced serious crises, meeting with domestic violence support services leaders to assure we aren’t abandoning undocumented survivors, and staying in consistent communication with CIMA and other groups sharing with us what some of our Latinx neighbors are truly asking for in this time of fear. As a District Attorney and leader, I am committed to clear communication and being candid with neighbors about meaningful options for keeping our community safe. Sometimes this will come in the form of direct policy changes, sometimes it will mean building trust on a personal level and being prepared to act when the federal government throws the unknown at us. I am the type of attorney and leader who is accessible and accountable to people, because they know who I am, know why I am doing the work, and trust that I am approachable and professional should they need assistance from me.
Structural Context
Structural racism and economic violence are foundational and mutually reinforcing outside- and especially within the criminal legal system. Racial capitalism– or the idea that capitalism depends on racialized systems of slavery, violence, genocide, and imperialism- also upholds the prison-industrial complex in which government and industry collaborate to privatize prisons, over-police, over-surveil, over-imprison, and force unpaid labor of (particularly poor, working class, and people of color) to maximize profits. The sheer dehumanization associated with the prison-industrial complex has led many socialists to consider the role of racial capitalism in the carceral state, and thus the pieces that sustain it, including the social and economic causes of “crime” and punishment. One piece of that apparatus is the District Attorney, the primary arbiter of “crime” within the criminal-legal system.
The District Attorney (DA) is the top prosecutor for Buncombe County, the 40th Prosecutorial District. In general, DAs prosecute criminal cases, collaborate with law enforcement, and support victims of crime. DAs also can use their discretion to advocate for alternatives to incarceration/policies that address root causes of crime like substance abuse, poverty, and mental health concerns. DAs in North Carolina have considerable discretion around which cases to prosecute as per the North Carolina Constitution. Most states confer this broad prosecutorial discretion onto elected local prosecutors. For example, DAs can outright dismiss cases or “drop the charges.” Still, some states “check” the power of prosecutors and intervene, impeach/remove them for declining to prosecute certain crimes. Broadly, DAs in their charging and plea bargaining capacities wield some of the strongest power in the criminal-legal apparatus to reduce mass incarceration and mitigate racial disparities in all stages of a case.
There are a variety of socialist perspectives on the role of District Attorney. Some socialists believe in a reform agenda where DAs serve a pivotal role in transforming the criminal-legal system from within by refusing to prosecute cases that perpetuate mass incarceration. Some socialists believe DAs merely reinforce systemic oppression (racist laws, over-policing, and economic injustice) and cannot reform a system that inherently seeks to protect private property, and disenfranchise the poor, working class, and communities of color.
In recent years, there have been a number of “progressive prosecutor” candidates and self-described socialists running for DA seeking to minimize the harm of the criminal-legal system through eliminating cash bail, refusing to prosecute “low-level” crimes (i.e. marijuana possession), and minimizing cooperation with immigration enforcement, among other efforts. For example, self-described “progressive prosecutor” Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Austin-DSA endorsed Jose Garza in Texas, and DSA member Tiffany Caban in New York are all recent examples of DA candidates whose platforms have included bail reform, police accountability, and reducing mass incarceration as core tenets. Still, progressive prosecutors have had mixed outcomes in implementing their agendas due to various obstacles (political pressure, lack of prosecutorial experience, and race and gender considerations) despite their visions to combat some of the insidious structures of the carceral system.
For some socialists, the DAs office cannot be reformed enough in a material way to bring true economic and social reform. Many of these socialists would identify as abolitionists and believe that completely ridding society of the carceral state, and in effect, eliminating the role of the DA, is the only way to dismantle the capitalist state. The Marxist and feminist political activist, abolitionist, and scholar Angela Davis wrote in her 2003 book, Are Prisons Obsolete, “The prison has become a black hole into which the detritus of contemporary capitalism is deposited. Mass imprisonment generates profits as it devours social wealth, and thus it tends to reproduce the very conditions that lead people to prison.” She continues, “An abolitionist approach …would require us to imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society.” In essence, Davis claims that without building a world in which material needs are met, and where people are not being commodified for profit (i.e. 13th Amendment allowing unpaid prison labor), there really is not a justice system, and thus the carceral system as we know it must be totally dismantled.
On the continuum from reform to abolition, there are a range of socialist perspectives on the role of the carceral system at large, and by parallel, the role of the DA. We hope this provides a broad overview on what a DA does, various socialist perspectives on the DA, and examples of socialist DAs in action, so you can make an informed decision.