Emancipate NC’s client, Phillip Vance Smith, II, is an incarcerated journalist. He wrote an article about North Carolina’s new compassionate release law that impacts people incarcerated in state prisons.
“One doctor said I got two-to-four years left to live,” drawled 64-year-old James Davis in a deep southern accent. “Another give me three-to-five. They don’t really know. But one thing’s for sure: If I don’t get out, cancer’ll kill me in prison.”
Davis, a tall white man with wispy brown hair and a chest-length gray beard, is serving 31-35 years in North Carolina for a truck accident that killed an elderly couple and severely injured their adult daughter in 2007. Late one evening, Davis’ flatbed Ford F-350 veered off the road and T-boned the family’s smaller Chevy S-10 pickup. Following the crash, Davis registered a 0.09 blood alcohol concentration at the hospital, above the legal limit of 0.08. This led to two consecutive convictions for second-degree murder, which makes up the bulk of his sentence.
Doctors diagnosed Davis with prostate cancer in 2019. Radiation treatment sent him into remission, but in 2022, the cancer returned, spreading to his ribs, collarbone, pelvis and lymph nodes.
“It’s stage four,” Davis said in a dayroom at Neuse Correctional, a medium-custody prison in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Davis also suffers from Type-2 diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis and hypertension. To hear, he has to cup his palm around his ear. To get around, he needs the help of a wheeled walker. His very existence appears labored and excruciating. “At this point, they’re not trying to cure me. I’m beyond that. They’re treating me until I die.”