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NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Committed to ending the death penalty and creating a new vision of justice

  • Who We Are
    • Mission & History
    • Our Values
    • People Most Proximate
    • Coalition Members
    • Staff, Board, & Advisory Council
    • Our Funders
  • What We Do
  • Why End the Death Penalty?
    • Column 1
      • Racism
      • Innocence
      • Intellectual Disability & Mental Illness
    • Column 2
      • Public Safety
      • High Cost of Death
      • Waning Support
    • Column 3
      • Lethal Injection
      • Antiquated Sentences
      • Unfair Trials
  • Events
  • Blog
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Search NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Abolition

Watch Racist Roots & help us make the death penalty history!

Nov 17, 2022
You may think that watching a video doesn't make a difference in the world. But we’re here to tell you that it does. At more than two dozen screenings, we’ve seen this film’s power to educate and move people to action. It’s a key part of our work to organize a public movement to end the North Carolina death penalty. If it spreads far and wide, it will lead to change.

Watch Racist Roots & help us make the death penalty history!

November 17, 2022 · Kristin Collins

You may think that watching a video doesn’t make a difference in the world. But we’re here to tell you that it does. At more than two dozen screenings, we’ve seen this film’s power to educate and move people to action. It’s a key part of our work to organize a public movement to end the North Carolina death penalty. If it spreads far and wide, it will lead to change.

Filed Under: Abolition, Blog, Racial Bias, Uncategorized

CDPL Attorney Elizabeth Hambourger

Virginia just abolished its deeply racist death penalty; North Carolina must follow suit

Apr 7, 2021
This piece is reposted from N.C. Policy Watch. By Elizabeth Hambourger “This is, as we know, a historic day for Virginia. We are the first Southern state to abolish capital […]

Virginia just abolished its deeply racist death penalty; North Carolina must follow suit

April 7, 2021 · Kristin Collins

CDPL Attorney Elizabeth Hambourger
CDPL Attorney Elizabeth Hambourger

This piece is reposted from N.C. Policy Watch. By Elizabeth Hambourger “This is, as we know, a historic day for Virginia. We are the first Southern state to abolish capital […]

Filed Under: Abolition, Latest News, National News

NC death row

In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, let’s deem the death penalty nonessential work

Apr 1, 2020
In the midst of a Coronavirus pandemic, society is forced to decide which work is essential. Across the United States, that question is now being applied to countless enterprises — including the death penalty. Is it essential for states to kill people? Eighteen executions are scheduled between now and the end of the year in Texas, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee. Countless death penalty trials are also planned across the country, including in North Carolina. The courts are likely to call most or all of them off because, right now, if our society wants to kill, we must risk harming innocent people too. That has always been true, but the Coronavirus allows us to see and feel that risk more concretely.

In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, let’s deem the death penalty nonessential work

April 1, 2020 · Kristin Collins

NC death row
NC death row

In the midst of a Coronavirus pandemic, society is forced to decide which work is essential. Across the United States, that question is now being applied to countless enterprises — including the death penalty. Is it essential for states to kill people? Eighteen executions are scheduled between now and the end of the year in Texas, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee. Countless death penalty trials are also planned across the country, including in North Carolina. The courts are likely to call most or all of them off because, right now, if our society wants to kill, we must risk harming innocent people too. That has always been true, but the Coronavirus allows us to see and feel that risk more concretely.

Filed Under: Abolition, Latest News, National News, Public Opinion

In California, the moral case for ending the death penalty

Mar 14, 2019
In today’s world, it’s easy to think politicians on both sides of the aisle care only about their own power and reelection chances. But every once in a while, we see an act of moral leadership that renews our faith in government. This week, it happened in California. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he would dismantle the death chamber and grant the state’s nearly 750 death row inmates a reprieve. They will remain incarcerated but will no longer live under the threat of execution. It was a stunning move in a state with the nation’s largest death row. North Carolina, too, should make the enlightened choice to put an official end to the death penalty.

In California, the moral case for ending the death penalty

March 14, 2019 · Kristin Collins

In today’s world, it’s easy to think politicians on both sides of the aisle care only about their own power and reelection chances. But every once in a while, we see an act of moral leadership that renews our faith in government. This week, it happened in California. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he would dismantle the death chamber and grant the state’s nearly 750 death row inmates a reprieve. They will remain incarcerated but will no longer live under the threat of execution. It was a stunning move in a state with the nation’s largest death row. North Carolina, too, should make the enlightened choice to put an official end to the death penalty.

Filed Under: Abolition, Declining Support, Declining Use, Latest News, National News

A young Nathan Bowie, age 4, smiling on a building's front stoop, in Philadelphia

NC, let’s take a hint from Washington: It’s time to end the racist death penalty

Oct 16, 2018
Last week, Washington became the 20th state to end the death penalty after its Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment is arbitrary and racially biased. If those are reasons to outlaw the death penalty, then it is surely time for the North Carolina death penalty to go. If anything, the death penalty in NC is more racist, more arbitrary, and threatens the lives of far more people.

NC, let’s take a hint from Washington: It’s time to end the racist death penalty

October 16, 2018 · Kristin Collins

A young Nathan Bowie, age 4, smiling on a building's front stoop, in Philadelphia
A young Nathan Bowie, age 4, smiling on a building's front stoop, in Philadelphia

Last week, Washington became the 20th state to end the death penalty after its Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment is arbitrary and racially biased. If those are reasons to outlaw the death penalty, then it is surely time for the North Carolina death penalty to go. If anything, the death penalty in NC is more racist, more arbitrary, and threatens the lives of far more people.

Filed Under: Abolition, Arbitrary Use, Declining Support, Declining Use, Latest News, Laws have Changed, but Sentences Remain Unexamined, National News, Racial Bias

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NCCADP Alternate Logo
NCCADP
3326 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd.
Building D, Suite 201
Durham, NC 27707
noel@nccadp.org
919-404-7409

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On this Juneteenth we invite you to learn about an On this Juneteenth we invite you to learn about and advocate for #EndTheException, a campaign of @worthrises, to pass the Abolition Amendment. 

People who are incarcerated and detained across our country are disproportioately Black and Brown and forced to work for pennies an hour to no pay at all under the threat of additional punitive measures, such as the loss of family visits and solitary confinement.
Ten years ago today, nine Black worshippers were m Ten years ago today, nine Black worshippers were murdered during a Bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Ten years. A measure of time that cannot touch the grief or honor the grace of those left behind.

We remember the names of those whose lives were taken: Cynthia Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Rev. Clementa Pickney, Tywanza Sanders, Rev. Daniel Simmons, Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson.

Among those grieving is our friend and fierce partner in this work, Rev. Sharon Risher, who lost family and friends on that day. In the decade since, Rev. Risher has spoken the unspeakable aloud on stages, in sanctuaries, and on pages inked with her truth. Her book, For Such a Time as This: Hope and Forgiveness after the Charleston Massacre, does not simplify the complexity of grief or forgiveness. Instead, she invites us to hold them both, trembling, in our hands.

Last year, Rev. Risher joined us in North Carolina and offered a living example of how to walk through fire and still find language for love. She continues to teach us what it means to mourn collectively, to resist hate, to believe that justice without compassion is incomplete. Rev. Risher is a powerful advocate for gun violence prevention and abolishing the death penalty.

This piece from USA Today traces what ten years have – and haven’t – changed (link also in bio): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/16/charleston-black-church-emanuel-massacre-anniversary/84186073007/?fbclid

Today we honor the lives lost, the families forever changed, and the communities that carry their memory. And we give thanks for people like Rev. Risher, who show us again and again that remembrance is a sacred act and love is a kind of protest too.

(Photos of Rev. Risher speaking at last year’s NCCADP commemoration of 18 years since North Carolina’s last execution.)
🏳️‍🌈 This Pride Month (and always), we'r 🏳️‍🌈 This Pride Month (and always), we're telling it like it is: the death penalty targets LGBTQ+ people.

In courtrooms, LGBTQ+ identity can be twisted into a weapon and used against defendants. In prisons, gender identity is ignored and essential care denied.

Swipe through to learn more and read our full blog post to see how these issues show up in North Carolina and why there is no justice in a system that punishes people for who they are. Then join us in building a future rooted in dignity, humanity, equity, and life.

📖 Link in bio to read.

#PrideMonth #LGBTQJustice #EndTheDeathPenalty #NCCADP #TransRights #JusticeForAll #NoMoreDeathRow #AbolitionNow
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