In 2016, North Carolina passed the decade mark without an execution, tried just five people capitally in all 100 counties, and of those five, sent only one person to death row. As another year ends, North Carolina continues to reflect national trends, which clearly show the death penalty on the decline. Yet, despite the death penalty’s fade, North Carolina continues to cling to one relic of the death penalty’s past. With 150 men and women awaiting execution, North Carolina has the sixth largest death row in the nation — and most were sentenced more than 15 years ago.
Lisa Dubs receives CDPL’s 2016 Osborn Award
On Oct. 6, CDPL honored Lisa Andrew Dubs, the winner of the 2016 J. Kirk Osborn Award for her lifelong commitment to representing defendants facing the death penalty. Lisa’s deep care and concern for her clients has made her one of North Carolina’s most successful capital defense attorneys. [Read more here about the award, and about Lisa’s outstanding career.]
The award reception was held at the beautiful Durham home of Don Beskind and Wendy Robineau. A big thank you to our hosts, and to all our sponsors who made this inspiring night possible. Special thanks to our photographer, Emily Baxter of We Are All Criminals.
N.C. passes a decade with no executions
CDPL is marking an important anniversary: A decade without an execution. On Aug. 18, 2006, Samuel Flippen was the last person to be executed at Central Prison. At the time, North Carolina had one of the most active death chambers in the nation. Since that day, we have become the only Southern state to end executions. However, we can never take for granted that this respite will continue. CDPL works every day to make sure North Carolina’s death chamber remains empty. Read more on NCDealthPenalty.org about why it’s time to end the death penalty for good.
U.S. Supreme Court ruling Will Force N.C. to Confront Racial Bias in Capital Cases
Watch our new video on racial bias in jury selection:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 23, 2016
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Ken Rose, Senior Attorney, 919-886-0350
U.S. Supreme Court ruling Will Force N.C. to Confront Racial Bias in Capital Cases
Decision in Georgia cases could compel new hearings on exclusion of blacks from juries
Durham, NC — A ruling today by the U.S. Supreme Court could give North Carolina death row inmates new avenues to challenge racial bias in capital trials and will force the state to confront discriminatory jury selection practices.
The Court ruled 7-1 today in a Georgia case, Foster v. Chatman, that prosecutors violated the Constitution by purposefully excluding African-Americans from the jury in a capital case, and that the Georgia courts erred by refusing to consider evidence proving that discrimination.
In the Georgia case, the prosecutor struck all four potential black jurors. While he gave the court “race-neutral” reasons for his strikes, the prosecutor’s notes showed that he highlighted the names of black jurors, marked them with a letter “B,” and put them first on his list of jurors to strike. The prosecution also ranked the African Americans in case “it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors.” Similar evidence of discrimination in jury selection has been uncovered in North Carolina.
“Today, the court sent a message that we must stop making excuses and start enforcing the law against discrimination in jury selection,” said Ken Rose, senior attorney at The Center for Death Penalty Litigation. “The privilege and obligation to serve on a jury, regardless of race, is fundamental to our democracy. Yet, African-Americans in North Carolina are routinely denied the right to participate in the most important decisions our criminal justice system ever makes.”
Lawyers who specialize in the death penalty say the ruling will give many death-sentenced men and women new rights to bring forward evidence of racial discrimination in jury selection at their own trials. Such evidence is usually barred if it is not introduced during the initial trial.
The ruling will also compel North Carolina courts to more vigorously enforce laws that prohibit race discrimination in jury selection. The N.C. Supreme Court has heard more than 100 cases where prosecutors were accused of intentionally striking minority jurors, but it has never found a prosecutor’s explanation for striking a black juror to be a cover for race discrimination, despite compelling evidence that the practice of excluding black jurors is prevalent.
“It has been illegal for three decades to exclude jurors based on race, but the reality is our courts have refused to enforce that law,” Rose said. “The U.S. Supreme Court said today that we cannot continue to ignore this blatant racism in our death penalty system.”
North Carolina tried to remedy the problem of discrimination in jury selection in 2009, with the passage of the N.C. Racial Justice Act, which allowed death row inmates to present statistical proof that African Americans were systematically excluded from their juries. Because of the Racial Justice Act, North Carolina death row inmates have uncovered even stronger evidence of discrimination in jury selection than in the Georgia case:
- In a Cumberland County case, defense attorneys discovered a prosecutor’s handwritten notes that labeled prospective jurors with terms like “blk wino” and “blk, high drug neighborhood.”
- In a Forsyth County case, prosecutors struck all but a single black juror. According to a handwritten note attached to that juror’s questionnaire, he was accepted because he attended a “multiracial” church, rather than a black one, and went to “predominantly white schools.”
- Several N.C. prosecutors were found to have attended a training, sponsored by the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys, where they were given a cheat sheet of “race-neutral” excuses that they could use to justify their illegal strikes of black jurors.
- A comprehensive statewide study of capital cases from 1990-2010 found that prosecutors removed qualified black jurors from jury pools at more than twice the rate of white jurors. The disparity was even more pronounced when the defendant was black.
The evidence uncovered in North Carolina was compelling enough to be cited in legal briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in the Foster case.
The Racial Justice Act was repealed in 2013. More than 100 death row inmates who filed motions under the law are still pursuing their claims in court, but most have so far gone unheard.
“The Supreme Court today reaffirmed the importance of the evidence those defendants uncovered,” said Rose. “North Carolina courts must finally begin to take this critical issue seriously. The illegal practice of excluding African Americans from jury service must end.”
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Injustice In the Jury Box
Race still determines who sits on capital juries in North Carolina. Our overwhelmingly white juries are more likely to convict the wrong people and hand down unequal punishments.
Get the Facts:
- In N.C. capital trials, prosecutors reject qualified black jurors at more than twice the rate of white jurors.
- About 20 percent of North Carolina’s approximately 150 death row inmates were sentenced by all-white juries.
- Nearly half of death row inmates were sentenced by juries that included no more than a single person of color.
- Nine innocent people have been sentenced to death in North Carolina and later exonerated. Eight of them were people of color.
Darryl Hunt, exoneree and champion of justice, dies
CDPL board member Darryl Hunt, a tireless advocate for ending the death penalty and helping the wrongly convicted, has died.
In 1985, at just 19 years old, Darryl was wrongfully convicted of the murder of Deborah Sykes, a 25-year-old newspaper copy editor who was raped and stabbed 16 times while on her way to work in Winston-Salem. He was nearly sentenced to death, but a single juror refused to vote for his execution. Darryl spent 19 years in prison before he was finally released in 2004.
Although DNA results proved his innocence in 1994, it took another 10 years of legal appeals to exonerate him. The state fought his release until another man finally came forward and confessed to the crime.
As soon as he was released, Darryl joined the movement to end the death penalty and founded the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and justice, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about criminal justice reform opportunities, advocating for the wrongfully convicted, and supporting people who are recently released from prison.
He traveled across North Carolina, and across the country, telling his story and using his case to illustrate the flaws of the criminal justice system. His advocacy was key to the passage of the groundbreaking N.C. Racial Justice Act in 2009, which allowed death row inmates to challenge their sentences based on evidence of systemic racial bias
Darryl also understood the pain and trauma of murder, because his own mother was murdered when he was a child. That crime was never solved.
In 2012, Darryl received an honorary doctorate from Duke University for his unceasing work. In April, he was to be honored with the ACLU’s Paul Green Award for people who have made important efforts to abolish or reform the death penalty.
Until shortly before his death, he was still speaking in college classrooms and advocating for innocent people in prison. He was passionate but soft spoken and unfailingly generous.
Darryl will be deeply missed by all who knew him. His many contributions to the cause of justice will be his enduring legacy.
New website tracks N.C. wrongful capital prosecutions
CDPL and the N.C. Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty have just launched a new interactive project: On Trial for Their Lives. Much like the National Registry of Exonerations tracks the cases of people who are wrongly convicted, this website tracks the cases of people who are wrongly targeted with the death penalty in North Carolina. Learn more about the dangerous and all-too-common practice of prosecuting even the weakest cases capitally, and search for cases across North Carolina.
Darryl Hunt wins award for work to end death penalty
Darryl Hunt advocating for the N.C. Racial Justice Act in 2009.
CDPL board member Darryl Hunt is this year’s winner of the ACLU’s Paul Green Award for people who have made important efforts to abolish or reform the death penalty.
We cannot imagine a more deserving recipient. Darryl spent 19 years in prison and was nearly sentenced to death for a murder he didn’t commit. He received a sentence of life in prison because a single juror refused to vote for the death penalty.
“If I had gotten a death sentence, there’s no doubt in my mind, I would have been executed,” Darryl says.
Although DNA results proved his innocence in 1994, it took another 10 years of legal appeals to exonerate him. The state fought his release until another man finally came forward and confessed to the crime.
Since his release in 2004, Darryl has devoted his life to advocating nationwide for ending the death penalty. In 2005, he founded the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about criminal justice reform opportunities, advocating for the wrongfully convicted, and supporting people who are recently released from prison. He was a key advocate for the passage in 2009 of the groundbreaking N.C. Racial Justice Act, which allowed death row inmates to challenge their sentences based on evidence of systemic racial bias.
In 2012, Darryl received an honorary doctorate from Duke University for his work. He also joined the CDPL board of directors that year.
Buy tickets here for the April 2 Liberty Awards Dinner honoring Darryl and other civil liberties heroes.
New Hearings Ordered But Findings of Discrimination Stand in Racial Justice Act Cases
For Immediate Release:
December 18, 2015
RALEIGH — Today, the N.C. Supreme Court ordered new hearings in four Racial Justice Act cases because of legal technicalities, but did not overturn the key findings of these groundbreaking cases: that African-Americans have been systematically excluded from serving on capital juries, producing unfair outcomes for defendants on trial for their lives.
The court said the state deserved more time to review the findings of a comprehensive statistical study presented by defendants, which looked at hundreds of capital cases from 1990-2010 and found that prosecutors used peremptory strikes to remove qualified black jurors at more than twice the rate of white jurors. In the second case, where three defendants’ claims were heard jointly, the court also said the three cases should have been heard separately.
The Supreme Court encouraged both sides to present additional statistical studies. The decision will keep executions on hold indefinitely in North Carolina, where the courts have stayed all executions until Racial Justice Act litigation is resolved.
“We are confident that, no matter how many hearings are held or studies completed, we will win this case. The evidence of racial bias in jury selection is simply overwhelming and undeniable,” said Jay Ferguson, attorney for the defendants. “All this decision will do is add more delays and cost the state millions to conduct new studies and hold new hearings. We will be throwing more taxpayer money into a hopelessly broken death penalty.”
The four defendants whose cases were decided today — Marcus Robinson, Quintel Augustine, Christina Walters, and Tilmon Golphin — were all removed from death row and resentenced to life without parole by Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks in 2012. Weeks wrote in his ruling that he found “a wealth of evidence showing the persistent, pervasive, and distorting role of race in jury selection throughout North Carolina.”
“The powerful evidence that Judge Weeks found still stands,” said Ferguson. “Nothing the Supreme Court did today challenges that in any way. As a state, we cannot ignore this troubling evidence that racial bias infects the death penalty from the very beginning of the process. When we cannot even choose the jury fairly, we surely cannot ensure fair trials and outcomes for defendants facing execution.”
No new death sentences, few capital trials in 2015
As 2015 draws to a close, CDPL has reason to celebrate: There were no new death sentences this year in North Carolina.
In the past five years, no more than three people have been sent to death row in a single year. And in 2012, we had another full year with no death sentences.
This year brought still more signs that the death penalty is dying in North Carolina. 2015 saw only four capital trials. Meanwhile, executions remained on hold for the ninth straight year, and the murder rate remains lower than in years where executions were monthly occurrences.
We have come a long way since the 1990s, when more than two dozen people were sentenced to death each year and the state was executing defendants at a rapid clip. We got here with hard work and persistence.
In 2015, CDPL’s work remained integral to slowing the death penalty’s pace in North Carolina:
- We continued to litigate issues with the state’s lethal injection protocol, which is the main reason executions remain on hold in North Carolina. This year, we defeated the state’s efforts to expedite that litigation and restart executions.
- We also continued to provide substantial assistance to capital defense attorneys, helping to ensure fair outcomes for defendants on trial for their lives.
- We drew enormous public attention to the threat the death penalty poses to innocent defendants, both with our June report on the wrongfully prosecuted and by telling the story of Henry McCollum, a CDPL client who received a pardon of innocence from the governor this year.
- We continued to put a spotlight on race discrimination in jury selection. Evidence from the Racial Justice Act hearings was cited in the national press and in a brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court as it considered a case with racially-charged prosecution notes that mirrored those of RJA defendant Quintel Augustine. We also published a widely circulated op-ed on the exclusion of African Americans from capital juries.
- Also this year, longtime CDPL client Kenny Neal was resentenced to life imprisonment after 19 years on death row. The court found that Neal could not be executed because of his intellectual disability.
We head for 2016 with optimism that the death penalty will soon be a relic of North Carolina’s past.