PARENTS OF VICTIM TESTIFY AT DRUG DEALER'S TRIAL

Daughter, 26, Died of Cocaine Overdose in 2004

Drug overdose victim Blaire Thompson couldn't speak for herself last
month in a Raleigh courtroom, so her parents gave her a voice at a
sentencing proceeding for drug dealer Harvey Delton Mintz.

Impact statements made by Keith and Rachel Thompson and another
parent of a drug overdose victim before U.S. District Court Judge
Terrence W. Boyle helped add an additional 10 years to Mintz's prison
sentence for conspiracy to possess and distribute crack cocaine, the
Thompsons said.

It's just one example of the weight such statements can carry in a
courtroom setting. In the case of the Thompsons, the effort was a
labor of love done in the hope that other young adults won't fall
into the bottomless pit of drug addiction and association with people
like Mintz.

Mintz, 30, received a 15-year prison sentence from Boyle and five
years of supervised probation upon release. Having lost Blaire to an
overdose two days before Christmas in 2004, the Thompsons will spend
the rest of their lives pressing for laws that punish street-level
dealers who furnish drugs to addicts.

"The biggest thing we want to do is try and convince the lawmakers to
make the drug dealers accountable," Rachel Thompson said.

Blaire Thompson was 26 when she died in a room at the Best Value Inn
on Market Street. Thompson was educated, intelligent and had taught
at several schools in Pender County. Like an escalating number of
young adults in the area, she also had a serious problem with heroin.

Punishment for 'predators'

Although heroin was Thompson's drug of choice, an autopsy showed that
cocaine was injected into her body just before her death. The
Thompsons have theories about what actually happened.

They believe Mintz supplied some of the drugs that killed their daughter.

"Mr. Mintz was one of the dealers selling at the Value Inn when my
daughter was there. My daughter's addiction was from heroin, but she
actually died from cocaine," Keith Thompson said. "We think she
overdosed from heroin that morning and somebody shot her up with
cocaine to revive her."

Blaire Thompson had known "Tinker" Mintz for years, her parents said.
Rachel Thompson composed a statement she read to the judge before
Mintz was sentenced in federal court.

"If you traffic drugs, people will die along the way. Our daughter
Blaire was in the way," Thompson told the judge.

"There should be a mission by society and our lawmakers to hold
street-level dealers accountable and responsible for the resulting
deaths and destruction. Instead, they are looked upon as nonviolent
people," Thompson said in the courtroom. "They are predators, pushing
their illegal and deadly substances on altered and helpless minds of
good people."

Rachel Thompson told Boyle she and her husband feel no less hurt and
emptiness at their daughter's overdose death than if she had been
killed by a drunken driver or a criminal with a gun, adding laws as
they are currently structured "have created an epidemic of drugs and
destruction."

New Hanover County Assistant District Attorney Jon David was in the
courtroom for Mintz's sentencing and gave the judge a letter his
brother, District Attorney Ben David, wrote about the defendant.

Voice of the victim

Jon David has prosecuted many cases involving violent crimes where
family members offered impact statements before a defendant is sentenced.

"I think they're extremely important. It's a reminder it's not just a
defendant's day in court, it's a victim's day, too," David said. "It
gives the judge an additional tool to give an appropriate sentence."

State Sen. Julia Boseman worked with the Thompsons last year on
several laws that failed to gain enough support in the General
Assembly. One measure proposed by the Democrat from Wilmington would
have allowed former drug users, parents, employers and others to sue
drug dealers for damage caused to their customers. Another would have
created a tax on the sale of illegal drugs that put the proceeds into
a fund to compensate people hurt by drug abusers.

The Thompsons initially sought civil remedies to the problems caused
by drug dealers but now advocate tougher criminal statutes.

"We have basically no laws to get these low-level drug dealers off
the street," Keith Thompson said. "The low-level dealers in our state
are basically deemed to be nonviolent. They don't want to incarcerate
them. They want to place them on probation, and they keep getting
arrested again and again."