CDPL is proud to announce that Malcolm “Tye” Hunter is the winner of this year’s J. Kirk Osborn Award for outstanding leadership in capital defense. This year’s ceremony honoring Tye will be at 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 15. The event is online. Simply go to cdpl.org and follow the link on our homepage to join us in celebrating Tye’s good work. Though we can’t be together in person, we’ve done our best to make this an engaging event that reminds our community of the power and importance of capital defense work. Please read on to learn more about this event, and about Tye’s four-decade career.

Just weeks after their last landmark ruling on the Racial Justice Act, the N.C. Supreme Court has issued another stunning decision. The Aug. 14 decision is a historic call for the state to address and rise above its history of excluding Black citizens from jury service and allowing racial bias to seep into the prosecution of capital cases. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Cheri Beasley wrote, “equal protection to all must be given—not merely promised” and pointed to an “egregious legacy of the racially discriminatory application” of the death penalty. Read our full press release.