RALEIGH — With just months to go in Gov. Cooper’s term, calls are intensifying for him to commute death sentences before he leaves office.
On Sunday, Aug. 18 at 3:30, the NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty will host a public event featuring nationally known gun violence activist Rev. Sharon Risher, who lost three family members in the Charleston church massacre, and culminating at the gates of the Governor’s Mansion. On Monday, Aug. 19, billboards will go up in locations around downtown Raleigh with the message: Dear Gov. Cooper, Time’s running out! End death row.
The event and billboards mark the 18th anniversary of North Carolina’s last execution, which was carried out on Aug. 18, 2006 at Central Prison. On that day, Samuel Flippen became the last of 43 people executed in the modern era of North Carolina’s death penalty. Ongoing litigation has kept executions on hold ever since.
“Our billboards use an image of North Carolina’s execution chamber because we want the governor to clearly understand the stakes,” said Noel Nickle, executive director of the Coalition. “If he doesn’t take action to commute these decades-old death sentences to prison terms, it’s extremely likely that North Carolina will return to executing people. We could go from no executions for two decades to a spree of state-sanctioned killing.”
If North Carolina were to resume executions, those first in line for lethal injection would be people sentenced more than 25 years ago. Their sentences were imposed before the creation of a statewide indigent defense service and several other reforms intended to ensure fair trials and proportionate sentencing. Many were handed down by overwhelmingly white juries before public awareness about racism and wrongful convictions led to a steep decline in support for the death penalty.
On Sunday at 3:30 p.m., supporters of commutation will gather at the Church on Morgan in downtown Raleigh. Rev. Risher of Charlotte, whose mother and two cousins died at Mother Emanuel AME Church, will be joined by North Carolina musician Britton Buchanan and spoken word poet Nick Courmon, both of whom will debut original pieces written for the day. Other participants will include North Carolina death row exonerees and people who have lost loved ones to homicide and to execution.
After the program at the church, the group will walk three blocks to the Governor’s Mansion to make their plea for commutation.
“We are asking Gov. Cooper to hear our call for mercy, for justice, and for healing,” said Rev. Risher. “Executions will not bring back our murdered family members. They will only create more hate and suffering. We want no more executions in our names.”
The next day, billboards will go up on the Raleigh beltline and on Capital Boulevard and move around Raleigh for the next three months. They were funded by NCCADP supporters across North Carolina.
