David Joyner currently serves as an Assistant District Attorney in Wilmington, North Carolina.  He is an eighth generation eastern North Carolinian and the proud son of two retired public school teachers.  He attended North Carolina public schools from his first day of Kindergarten through the day he graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill.  In the summers he worked for his grandfather’s plumbing company as well as picking watermelons on a neighbor’s farm.  He went on to earn his J.D. from Campbell Law School where, through Campbell, he studied abroad at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom with a focus on international human rights law.  He attended Campbell through a scholarship and also worked as a teaching assistant.

In his work as an attorney, David leads our local recovery courts, which offer probationary sentences to individuals who are justice-involved due to a substance-use disorder.  This means that their criminal activity is rooted in an addiction.  David works with judges, defense attorneys, and law enforcement to get these folks into court ordered addiction treatment, stable housing, and in school or employed while they complete supervised probation with frequent drug and alcohol screens.  He is also the lead prosecutor for Wilmington Police Department’s district court trials for impaired driving, firearms offenses, and family violence.  In September of 2021 David was named Young Lawyer of the Quarter by the Young Lawyers Division of the North Carolina Bar Association.

David is a member of St. James Episcopal Church where he currently serves on the church board.  He volunteers regularly with Cape Fear River Watch during their monthly clean-ups of our local waterways and urban streams.  David is an Eagle Scout and a member of the Baden-Powell Fellowship of the World Organization of the Scout Movement.  You’ll find David visiting our local parks, beaches, and training for his next marathon on our local greenways.