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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
    • 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
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Search NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Why end the death penalty?

The death penalty is racist

North Carolina has never reckoned with the racist legacy of its ultimate punishment, and it shows. The death penalty is one more Confederate monument we must tear down.
~ Henderson Hill

North Carolina’s death penalty grew from the institution of slavery, when it was used to cruelly enforce the subjugation of enslaved people. It matured in the era of Jim Crow, when it was carried out under the watchful eyes of lynch mobs and all-white juries often deliberated only minutes before sending Black people to their deaths. 

Today, the death penalty looks different than it did in the past. Trials move more slowly, and the appeals process is more complex. The issue of race is rarely mentioned in the courtroom, even as the system continues to be run almost entirely by white judges, prosecutors, administrators, and law enforcement officers. Executions are carried out in sanitized chambers in the middle of the night, rather than on public hanging grounds. Yet, race remains perhaps the most important factor in deciding who gets the death penalty in North Carolina.

If we believe in racial justice, we must end the death penalty.

Learn more about the origins of the NC death penalty by exploring the Center for Death Penalty Litigation’s comprehensive project Racist Roots. 

Read more about statewide efforts to expose racism in the death penalty under the Racial Justice Act.

Right now in North Carolina:

  • People of color make up less than 30 percent of the population, but 60 percent of death row
  • Of the 12 people who’ve been exonerated after being sentenced to death in NC, 11 were people of color
  • Nearly half the people on death row had an all-white jury or a jury with only a single person of color
  • Defendants are more than twice as likely to be sentenced to death if they’re convicted of killing a white person

Stories of Racial Bias

Case File: Robert Bacon
Clemency flyer for Robert Bacon, created by the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, held by Robert's attorney, Gretchen Engel. The flyer, which includes a photograph of Robert, has a title in all caps that reads: DO NOT EXECUTE THIS MAN BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN

An all-white jury never saw him as human

After Robert Bacon’s trial, a member of the jury swore in an affidavit that other jurors made openly racist jokes, and that they held it against Robert that he was dating a white woman. After 14 years on death row, he was finally granted clemency and is now serving life without parole.
Learn More
Case File: Kenneth Rouse

A juror said “bigotry” was a key reason that he voted for Rouse’s execution

After Kenneth Rouse’s trial, the juror spewed racist language and admitted that he lied to get his seat on the jury. This evidence of discrimination has never been addressed by the courts, because Rouse’s lawyers filed his petition one day late.
Learn More
Case File: Tilmon & Kevin Golphin

Members of their jury pool wanted them lynched, and the court still let them serve

Brothers Tilmon & Kevin Golphin were abused teenagers, but the overwhelmingly white jury believed they were members of a white-hating cult because they practiced a religion that preaches Black empowerment.
Learn More
Case File: Andrew Ramseur

Amid a racist furor, a prosecutor promised the death penalty

After Andrew Ramseur’s arrest, newspapers and websites were barraged with openly racist calls for him to be hung and hunted down. Rather than condemning the racism, the prosecutor quickly sought the death penalty in front of an all-white jury.
Learn More
Case File: Marcus Robinson
Shirley Burns hugs a family friend, when Judge Weeks ruled that her son should be removed from death row and serve a life sentence.

One son murdered and the other sentenced to death

Marcus Robinson’s mother sat with her son hours before his scheduled execution. It was called off at the very last second. Here, she writes about her anguish over her son’s racist death sentence.
Learn More
Case File: Russell Tucker

A prosecutor used a “cheat sheet” to disguise race-based jury strikes

Russell Tucker is one of four Forsyth defendants on death row who was sentenced to death by an all-white jury. This is not a coincidence, but a choice made by prosecutors who are trained to discriminate.
Learn More
Last Updated: February 16, 2022

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Contact

NCCADP
123 West Main St., Suite 700
Durham, NC 27701
noel@nccadp.org
919-956-9545

The Latest via Twitter

Today, 46 years ago, the Supreme Court held in Woodson v. North Carolina that it is cruel and unusual for a state to require the death penalty as a punishment for a certain class of crimes. law.cornell.edu/wex/…

About 2 hours ago

TODAY 11 AM "Live from Death Row- Voices from North Carolina" Panelists are award-winning authors living on NC's death row George Wilkerson & Lyle May; Nancy Jones, founder of Catholics for Abolition NC; and Noel Nickle, director of NCCADP. bit.ly/Starvin4Justi…

About 3 hours ago

Thinking of everyone on the row in Oklahoma this morning - along with their families, friends and defense teams - as they begin their day after this devastating news broke yesterday. twitter.com/RDunhamD…

About 3 hours ago

YES! Communication should be free for people who are incarcerated and their families on the outside. twitter.com/WorthRis…

Yesterday

We’d like to imagine a different life for Marcus, one where he wasn’t born into a racist society that too often sees Black children’s lives as disposable. One where he was shown kindness and compassion as a child, rather than imprisoned. nccadp.org/rememberi…

Yesterday

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