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A new ad campaign accuses Sarah Stevens, this year’s Republican candidate for North Carolina Supreme Court, of protecting child predators throughout her decades-long career in law and politics.
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The ad was produced by an outside group called North Carolina Families First, which is not tied to Justice Anita Earls, the race’s Democratic incumbent. It features a sexual abuse survivor who went on to advocate for legislation to protect victims.
“Sarah Stevens protects predators,” the survivor, identified as Katie T., says. “She won’t protect you.”
Stephen Wiley, a spokesperson for Stevens’ campaign, called the ad a “desperate attack” that “relies on cherry-picked votes plucked completely out of context.”
“There is one candidate in this race that has been on the side of victims of crime, and it is Sarah Stevens,” he said.
The ad makes three distinct claims about Stevens’ record, each of which the News & Observer has evaluated.
This claim refers to a 2019 bill intended to give victims of childhood sexual abuse an extended period to sue their abusers.
Stevens, who was then serving in the state House, initially voted against the Senate’s version of the bipartisan bill — one of only 10 Republicans to do so. Five Democrats also opposed the bill.
However, she did support a companion bill in the House, even though she expressed concerns about it during debate.
WRAL reported at the time that Stevens said she worried that people could abuse the law to go after politicians and said it would be a “nightmare” for those accused to prove their innocence after so many years.
“All you have to do is swear it happened,” she said. “They’re going to go after somebody with deep pockets.”
Stevens pushed for lawmakers to reduce the eligibility period for filing new lawsuits from 20 years to 10. She later voted in favor of a separate compromise bill with the reduced period, which passed unanimously.
During her House tenure, Stevens has sponsored several bills dealing with child abuse.
In 2025, she put forward House Bill 182, which would have expanded the crimes for which judges can issue no contact orders against a child victim’s family. It would have also created a new felony offense for any guardian who routinely injures or deprives a child “for the purpose of causing fear, emotional injury, or deriving sexual gratification.
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That bill passed the House unanimously, but was not taken up by the Senate.
This claim refers to a 2003 criminal case, in which Stevens — who was working as an attorney — represented Kemp Phillips, a Mount Airy High School basketball coach and teacher.
Phillips was accused of having a sexual relationship with three minor students. He pleaded guilty to three counts of statutory rape, three counts of sex offense with a student and five counts of taking indecent liberties with a student. He was sentenced to at least four years in prison, according to the Star News Online.
Court records confirm that Stevens represented Phillips in the case.
After he was released from prison, Phillips was later arrested on a felony charge and accused of breaking a law that prohibits sex offenders from attending a site where minors are usually present, the Mount Airy News reported in 2009. In this case, the charge stemmed from Phillips’ membership at a gym that hosted child care programs.
That charge was later dismissed.
More recently, Stevens has been criticized for her ties to Harvey West, a convicted sex offender and Republican political donor.
Stevens attended a fundraising picnic West hosted last year but said she was unaware of his criminal history.
West pleaded guilty in 2000 to multiple charges of indecent liberties with a minor and served six years in prison. Since his release, he has been removed from the sex offender registry, as is allowed by North Carolina law after 10 years.
This claim refers to Stevens’ reported opposition to Senate Bill 625, which would have reformed the state’s child welfare services.
The proposed changes in the 2023 bill included a provision that would have empowered the Department of Health and Human Services to take on a more supervisory role in each county’s social services department.
The bipartisan bill’s supporters said more oversight was necessary given that each of the state’s 100 counties administer policy differently.
“It’s really up to the county DSS director if they even listen to the state,” Democratic state Sen. Sydney Batch, who sponsored the bill, told WRAL last year.
According to a WRAL documentary on the foster care system, Stevens blocked the bill, calling it “too broad” and saying it would give the Department of Health and Human Services too much power. She did not respond to a request for an interview from the outlet.
SB 625 never made it to a floor vote in the House, but it passed unanimously in the Senate.
Stevens sponsored a variety of bills on foster care during her time in the House, including a Foster Parents’ Bill of Rights which passed in 2021. That bill enumerates certain legal rights for foster parents, including the right to provide input in court and to be considered as prospective adoptive parents.
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