The Orleans DA and a judge kept giving him second chances; Police say it cost a man his life
“If he had been properly handled by the district attorney's office, he wouldn't have been on the streets to commit the murder,” Goyeneche said.
Chuckie Fink Jr. would have turned 27 on May 15. He didn't make that milestone because, on April 2, he was fatally stabbed while sleeping on a sidewalk on Bourbon Street.
Family grieves loss
“It broke my heart to no end. I could not believe that someone, how can you just walk up, stab someone, and then walk down the street like nothing,” said Fink’s mom Christi Burke.
Fink's sister Liz thinks back to her brother's love of music, especially his time playing in the marching band at Chalmette High School.
“I was devastated because I was the last person to have seen him,” she said. “It’s heart-breaking.”
Fink was homeless as he battled mental illness. But he remained close to his family, and his mother and two sisters are now struggling to cope with the trauma of his killing.
“He was just trying to sleep on the sidewalk. He wasn't in anybody's way,” Liz said.
Disturbing criminal history
Compounding their grief, Fink's family is anguished over a series of decisions that put Fink's accused killer, Darnell Hunter, back on the street despite a long and troubling rap sheet that included two other recent knife attacks. Those victims, including a woman whose throat was cut, survived.
Court records show that Hunter's criminal history began when he was a juvenile and continued as soon as became an adult. He's a registered sex offender with obscenity and indecent behavior convictions. In addition to serving prison time on those charges, he did four years for purse-snatching and resisting an officer.
In 2010, a Jefferson Parish judge said he regretted that juvenile law prohibited him from locking up Hunter for 20 years. In one chilling line from the court transcript, the judge stated, “This kid scares me.”
Rafael Goyeneche of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a non-profit criminal justice watchdog group, said that while Hunter's criminal history is disturbing, the breaks he got from the criminal justice system are even more alarming.
“This is an offender with violent sex crimes, domestic abuse, armed robbery, firearms, and drug possession,” Goyeneche said. “If the prosecutor doesn't hold these people accountable and doesn't use the law to remove violent and repeat offenders, there are going to be more Darnell Hunter horror stories.”
Hunter’s crimes escalated over the past two years. And so did leniency by the New Orleans District Attorney's office.
Court records show that in August 2022 Hunter, now 33, was homeless when he was booked with attempted armed robbery, assault, and being a felon with a gun. Police say he was carrying crystal meth and a pipe when they arrested him.
Hunter given chances
Hunter was facing a minimum of five years in prison when the DA's office offered a generous plea bargain, reducing all of the charges to misdemeanors. New Orleans District Judge Nandi Campbell went even further and allowed Hunter to be released on his own recognizance until sentencing.
Hunter was free for nine days before police say he struck again.
According to police records, Hunter lashed out on December 28, 2022. The same NOPD detective who arrested Hunter just months earlier stated that he stabbed a man at Poydras and Loyola, using the knife to cut the man's cell phone from his pocket. Then, blocks away, officers wrote that Hunter approached a woman and. “cut her neck from behind her left ear to the middle of her neck.”
Janet Hays, director of Healing Minds NOLA, is a longtime mental health advocate. She says she's never seen a series of cases with so many tragic failures. She says that someone battling mental health and drug addiction issues like Hunter should get intensive treatment before any consideration of returning them to the street.
“I cannot think of a worse combination,” Hays said. “It makes no sense at all. Failed clearly along the way at every step.”
Despite the allegations of extreme random violence, Hunter got yet another break.
After about 10 months in jail awaiting trial on the new charges, Hunter was offered another lenient plea bargain by the DA’s office. Court records show that prosecutors dropped almost all the charges against him in exchange for a guilty plea to being a felon with a gun.
“That is a case study in poor judgment by the district attorney's office,” Goyeneche said.
But even that plea deal came gift-wrapped. Under state law, the sentence for being a felon with a gun carries a mandatory 5 to 20 years. For Hunter, Judge Campbell signed off on a rarely used “downward departure” allowing probation as long as Hunter appeared in court for mental health checks.
In a letter from the Orleans Public Defender's office, a social worker with that office urged his release, promising to make sure Hunter had transitional housing, took his medication, and attended his court hearings.
Hays says that while Hunter needed treatment, it should have been in a secure facility.
“He clearly did not get the help that he needed because he continued to be released and commit more crimes,” she said. “And every crime became more serious.”
By the time the calendar flipped to 2024, Hunter stopped showing up at mental health court.
Fatal stabbing
He next surfaced after he was arrested for fatally stabbing Chuckie Fink in the neck. He was picked up less than an hour later, a few blocks away. Police say Hunter was carrying two switchblade knuckle knives, weapons that combine a switchblade with brass knuckles. One of the knives was covered in blood, according to the police report.
“If he had been properly handled by the district attorney's office, he wouldn't have been on the streets to commit the murder,” Goyeneche said.
Goyeneche said he first flagged Hunter’s case when he was alerted by frustrated New Orleans police officers.
“When you have an outcome like this, you begin to foster some resentment between police and prosecutors,” he said.
Hays says this case is a tragedy for everyone, including Darnell Hunter, who now faces a mandatory life sentence if convicted of second-degree murder.
“They system failed him,” she said. “The system failed everybody.”
Not only did Christi Burke have to tell her two daughters about their brother's murder, but also the circumstances that put Hunter back on the street.
“They were like, 'How is this man walking around, mom?' And I said, 'Baby, I don't know.' “
Judge Campbell said judicial rules prevent her from speaking about the case, but it has led to new procedures in her courtroom to limit off-the-record input from social workers.
The DA's office has not responded to multiple requests for comment, despite earlier assurances that the office would address the cases and how they were decided.
The public defender's office also failed to respond.
As for Hunter, he is now being held on a bail of more than half a million dollars. His attorney's request for lower bail was denied.
Meanwhile, Chuckie's family has set up a Go Fund Me account to raise money for a memorial service.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.