Featured Articles
Time to move on: Calls for death penalty fall flat in N.C.
In 2017, N.C. juries rejected the death penalty, more innocent people were released from death row, and public support for executions fell to a 45-year low. As we look to 2018, let’s skip the outdated death penalty rhetoric and start looking for solutions that actually make people safer — like properly staffing prisons and supplying guards with working radios.
This keeps happening: Wake jury rejects death penalty for 9th time in a row
It’s starting to feel like Groundhog Day in Wake County. Every year begins with a capital trial, and every year, the jury chooses life. Wake is the only county in the state where a defendant has been tried capitally every year for the past three years. We’re hoping that, next year, we can skip this annual ritual.
Current Status of North Carolina’s Death Penalty
Approximately 150 people are on North Carolina’s death row. However, no one has been executed since 2006, when concerns about the state’s lethal injection procedure led to an effective moratorium. Since then, four innocent men have been released from death row, the State Bureau of Investigation admitted to falsifying evidence in dozens of trials, and a judge found evidence of statewide racial bias in the use of the death penalty. Due to pending litigation about racial bias and lethal injection, executions remain on hold indefinitely.
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