Pasquotank County Opens Recovery Court in Northeastern North Carolina

The Pasquotank County Recovery Court held its first session on Tuesday, October 6, in Elizabeth City, making the northeastern North Carolina county the third in its judicial district to offer people convicted of nonviolent drug and property crimes a supervised treatment path instead of a prison term.

Organized by Chief District Court Judge Robert P. Trivette, District Court Judge Meader Harriss and court coordinator Cody Marks, the program puts the usual courtroom players — a judge, a probation officer, a defense attorney and a prosecutor — at the same table as local behavioral health and mental health providers. The First Judicial District described the arrangement as an intensive, systematic effort to move people with high-risk substance use and mental health disorders onto an individualized recovery plan.

What participants agree to

A recovery court is not a diversion program that ends at sentencing. Participants must agree to the program's rules and be approved by the district attorney's office and the court team before they are admitted. Once in, their recovery plan generally includes intensive probation and court supervision, intensive drug and mental health treatment where clinicians recommend it, and frequent drug screening. They appear before a judge twice a month. Failing to follow the rules can lead to sanctions, up to short periods of incarceration or removal from the program.

Harriss, who will preside over the new court, framed the model as an alternative to the revolving door that sends people back to jail after release with no treatment in between.

"Recovery courts have been called the most successful justice intervention for people with substance use and mental health disorders ever devised," Harriss said. "They unite safety and public health, prevent overdoses, help strengthen families, and save tax dollars."

The settlement money that pays for it

The court's operating costs come largely from North Carolina's share of the national opioid settlements rather than from county tax revenue. The state sued opioid manufacturers and distributors roughly a decade ago alongside about 30 other states, and the resulting 2022 agreements allotted North Carolina $1.4 billion. Pasquotank County received $362,000 in 2026 and expects $286,000 next year, with payments continuing in varying amounts through 2038. Money from the 2025 Purdue Pharma settlement has not yet begun flowing to counties.

"Because of the settlements from these lawsuits, it does not cost taxpayers anything if they would like a recovery court set up in their county," Harriss said.

Trivette said every county in the state now has a source of non-taxpayer money to cover the extra costs, which he described as mostly the salary of a court coordinator — the pivot that makes this a practical moment to launch new courts. The same settlement dollars have become the central funding stream for drug courts and treatment programs across the country, including the debate over control of Louisiana's opioid settlement money that followed a drug court funding fight in Jefferson Parish.

A district building its third court

The Pasquotank court is the third in the First Judicial District, a seven-county region in northeastern North Carolina. Trivette helped start the district's first recovery court in Dare County about six years ago and began presiding over it in May 2025; the Currituck County Recovery Court followed in January 2026.

Recovery courts trace back to Miami-Dade County, Florida, in 1989. Roughly 4,000 now operate nationwide, about 90 of them in North Carolina. Trivette said Chief Justice Paul Newby has made clear in several conversations that he wants the model established across the state wherever possible.

"And this is a great time to set up a recovery court," Trivette said, pointing to the settlement dollars. He framed the rationale in blunt terms: "Sure, it's about helping people, but it is also about cutting down on recidivism and saving taxpayers dollars."

Recidivism, cost and the case for treatment

Advocates of the model argue the savings show up twice — fewer reoffenses and less time behind bars. Trivette said a successful recovery court can cut recidivism by more than 50 percent, and that the average savings to taxpayers runs about $6,000 a year per person compared with prison.

City Councilman Tim Jackson, who sits on the court's advisory committee, called it "a long overdue and much needed program in our community to combat the drug and recidivism problem in Pasquotank County."

Harriss tied the opening to the toll addiction has taken on the region, and to the children who absorb its consequences.

"Over the course of my career, I have witnessed the opioid epidemic destroy many individuals and families in northeastern North Carolina. Drugs do not discriminate," Harriss said. "And most heartbreaking, when drugs destroy the adults, the children are often dragged under too."

For people in the county already looking for care outside the court system, opioid addiction treatment and medication-assisted treatment remain available through outpatient and community providers, with intake generally starting with an assessment rather than a court date.