Courtney Satterwhite Case

Matthew Damato, Assistant Public Defender, and I worked on a case involving a young female who was facing serious charges. Courtney Satterwhite was charged with Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon, Intent to Kill and Inflicting Serious Injury. Courtney and her boyfriend got into an altercation which resulted in Courtney shooting her boyfriend in the stomach and requiring immediate hospitalization. Her boyfriend had multiple surgeries and lost a large portion of his intestine. He remained in the hospital for several months and thankfully survived the incident. Initially, we were relieved this horrible altercation did not result in his death, but nonetheless our client was charged with a very serious crime and was facing many years of incarceration

In 2012, she graduated from Pembroke College with a bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science. Since she was seventeen-years-old, Courtney has continued using drugs and alcohol to cope and self-medicate. She attempted to get treatment on several occasions and was diagnosed with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Anxiety. She continued to have intrusive memories, flashbacks, anxiety, and fear in social situations. Courtney also detoxed at home on a couple of occasions and in a facility. She went to a thirty-day rehab program but was unable to stay clean and gradually navigated back to the same people and environments influencing her addiction. Stressors continued to build until the present day. Two years prior to the arrest, Courtney found her long-term boyfriend’s mother dead in the trailer where they lived. Her boyfriend then attempted suicide by overdose but was hospitalized. After he returned home from the hospital, he suicided. These consecutive events were extremely traumatizing. Several months before her arrest, Courtney met her boyfriend (the victim). They enabled each other’s addiction and had a tumultuous and unhealthy relationship, which preceded the charging