New Hampshire moves to tighten rules on name changes for violent felons

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — For years, sisters Jennifer McCulloch and Erica Duncan plugged the name James Covington into an online inmate database to confirm that their mother’s killer remained incarcerated.

When a routine search last May yielded no results, they panicked. And even after confirming he was still behind bars, their fears took on a new shape: His new name.

Unbeknownst to the sisters, Covington had changed his first name six months earlier to Jamauri, telling a judge he had worked hard to correct his wrongdoings and was seeking a “fresh start” decades after he strangled his ex-girlfriend Debra Duncan and left her body in a cemetery.

Another judge later reversed the change, but Covington is now trying to rename himself Jamauri Abdul Haleem. While that petition is pending, lawmakers have taken up the issue with legislation that would make it harder for some convicted felons to change their names.

“It’s so important for victims’ families to be notified of potential changes in the status of an offender so that we will be able to provide input in the future, continuing to fight for justice and our own safety moving forward,” McCulloch said in a recent interview.

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Under current law, those who are incarcerated, on parole or probation, registered as sex offenders or registered as offenders against children must convince a court that a name change is necessary, but there is no requirement to notify victims or their next of kin. A bill sent to the governor Thursday would require those convicted of certain violent felonies, including murder, and those convicted of crimes against children to also go before a judge. It also gives victims or family members a chance to weigh in.

That’s something Donna and Gordon Packer didn’t get when the man who killed their daughter in 1989 changed his name from Peter Dushame to Peter Stone nine years later. Ten-year-old Lacey was on the back her father’s motorcycle returning from a Toys for Tots fundraiser when Dushame drunkenly plowed into them.

“No one from the state reached out to us to ask for input,” Donna Packer wrote to lawmakers. “At the time we would not have supported his request to change his name because it felt very disingenuous, like he was attempting to avoid responsibility. It was as if my daughter’s death did not mean anything to him.”

Released from prison in 2002, Stone went on to become a licensed drug and alcohol counselor. In 2021, he was charged with five counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault under a law the criminalizes any sexual contact between patients and their therapists or health care providers. His accuser, Bonnie Sitomer, spoke to The Associated Press anonymously in 2022 about stumbling upon Stone’s past but has now gone public to support the legislation.

“I want to help to create change that prevents something like this from happening to other victims,” she said this week.

“I felt like the state took away my right to find out what I was dealing with,” Sitomer said. “I did research his new name, but that didn’t get me anything because he had a clean slate. The state allowing him to do that took away my right to protect myself.”

Such name changes raise complicated questions about someone’s right to move on with their lives after paying for their crimes. But New Hampshire isn’t alone in imposing restrictions. Rep. Katelyn Kuttab, the bill’s sponsor, said about half the states already have similar laws.

“Ten states don’t allow you change your name at all if you’re currently incarcerated, so this is what I think is a happy medium,” said Kuttab, who said she was thinking of her own family when she drafted the bill.

“As a mom it was a big safety concern to me to think that somebody could commit a violent felony, murder somebody, and then just go ahead and change their name and come off with a completely clean slate so that nobody would know about their past,” she said.

Both Debra Duncan’s daughters, the Packers and Sitomer were at the Statehouse for Thursday’s vote, along with advocates from the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. Gov. Chris Sununu hasn’t taken a position on the bill yet, but spokesman Benjamin Vihstadt said Wednesday he supports efforts to safeguard victim rights.

Meanwhile, Covington, whose earliest parole date is 2028, is making a third attempt to change his name. His first request was granted, but the state successfully sued to reverse the change. He then petitioned again, arguing he feared retaliation from a former prison staffer upon his release. That was denied in March, but in April he filed another petition seeking to change his name to Jamauri Abdul Haleem “so that I can live out my Islamic faith through practice and worship in daily life.”

He argues denying the request would violate his Constitutional right to freely exercise his religion. His victim’s daughters remain opposed. Victims and their families don’t have quick ways to erase the past, and neither should criminals, Erica Duncan said.

“People deserve to know who they really are and what they are capable of, and changing their name allows them to remove themselves from their crime and essentially be a new person,” she said.