North Carolinians Ready to Kill the Death Penalty
Protestors rally outside a prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, as a part of the statewide campaign to end executions within the state. Source for photo: The Center for Death Penalty Litigation
“Remember, the death penalty is murder.” This was the final statement made by Robert Drew before he was put to death by the state of Texas via lethal injection. In 1983, Drew was accused and convicted of stabbing 17-year-old Jeffrey Mays to death after a fight broke out between the two of them. Despite another defendant confessing to the murder of Mays, Drew was sentenced to death by the state and was killed in 1994 in what he claimed was “legal murder.” Texas leads the country in number of death penalty executions since 1976, with North Carolina joining them in the top ten. While NC has a policy which only permits the use of capital punishment in a case where another person has died, there has been long standing controversy regarding the use of capital punishment, especially considering that the legal system tends to favor those with access to quality legal counsel.
The execution of criminals, traitors, and other lawbreakers has been employed in America since the 1600s; it is likely that settlers from Britain carried this practice over from Europe. Techniques such as the electric chair, gas chambers, firing squads, and even hanging have all been used to execute condemned prisoners. Presently, lethal injection remains the only method permitted in North Carolina. In the landmark case Furman v. Georgia (1972), the Supreme Court found that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment, something that United States citizens are protected against in the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. However, just four years later, the Court overturned this ruling in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), in which it found that the death penalty did not violate a person’s Eighth Amendment rights. The verdict was that in extreme cases, such as when a defendant has been convicted of deliberately killing someone, the careful application of the death penalty would be appropriate. Since then, there has been extensive debate over who exactly the death penalty should apply to – the most recent stipulations are that defendants declared to be mentally insane and young adults under the age of 18 cannot be sentenced to death due to Eighth Amendment rights.
Beginning at the end of last year, a campaign to end the policy of death sentences and executions in North Carolina began. Known as “No More Death Row,” this initiative was started by the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NCCADP) and has been headlined by families of homicide victims as well as death row exonerees. So far, 23 states have outlawed the death penalty as a means of punishment; Wisconsin became the first to do so in 1853, and Virginia became the latest to adopt the ban in 2021. The North Carolina Council of Churches has long opposed the policy of death penalty, acknowledging that it is “illogical and profoundly irreverent to kill somebody to prove killing somebody is wrong.” Other individuals who have lost family to homicide agree that “executions are not justice.” Currently, North Carolina has 137 inmates with death sentences within its prison system, placing them at number five nationwide. The driving principle behind the urge to abolish the death penalty is that it is “unjust, error-prone, and racist to its core.” Black individuals already overrepresent their population makeup in prison, and this statistic is magnified regarding death row. While Black Americans make up only 13 percent of the population, they represent over 41 percent of death row inmates.
The racial disparities infiltrating the criminal justice system start before the trial even begins. The “death qualification” condition refers to the requirement that a juror must be willing to deliver the death sentence as the verdict of the trial. Currently, North Carolina prosecutors can strike potential jurors under the reasoning that they may not be death-qualified, meaning not willing to impose the death penalty. Statistics show that this policy disproportionately impacts certain people, particularly women, African Americans, and Catholics, a few groups who are most likely to oppose the application of a death sentence. Excluding individuals from different vantage points leads to a homogenous jury which is more likely to charge a defendant with a death sentence. Additionally, during the jury selection process, lawyers have what are called peremptory strikes, allowing them to remove any potential juror for any reason other than one based on race. A study conducted in Wake County, NC, found that in the area’s most recent capital trials, 43 percent of potential jurors who were Black were dismissed during the jury selection process due to either the death qualification factor or through peremptory strikes. According to the same study, death-qualified juries have a higher rate of convicting the defendant, especially when the case has been labeled “capital.” By eliminating those who are less likely to bring a capital charge, the odds of the trial are skewed before it even begins, leading to further biases and unfair trials.
The last execution of a death row inmate in North Carolina was Samuel Flippen in August of 2006. In 1994, Flippen was accused and convicted of beating his two-year-old daughter, Britnie Hutton, who sustained fatal injuries. Flippen claimed the infant had fallen out of a chair, but the autopsy showed evidence of homicide; Flippen never confessed to these accusations. After 18 years of imprisonment, he was killed by lethal injection. Flippen’s execution sparked legal action against the state as people believed he was innocent. Although North Carolina has been imposing fewer death sentences with only 10 capital charges being brought in the past decade, there are over 140 ongoing capital cases within the state. The proponents of outlawing the death penalty believe that the legal system often rushes decisions and convicts individuals with insufficient evidence. The result is irreversible psychological torment for inmates as they await their fate.
Religious leaders hope to make North Carolina the next state to abolish the death penalty, appealing to Governor Cooper to “help lead [NC] out of the darkness of the death penalty.” In a previous letter to Governor Cooper, proponents of eliminating death row cited a poll which showed that 75% of North Carolinians support the abolition of capital punishment. Governor Cooper has the ability to commute prison sentences and has done so in the past under recommendations from prison review boards. With clear and enthusiastic support for alternative forms of punishment, it will be difficult for Governor Cooper to ignore the growing cries from his constituents in the final year of his term.