NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

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

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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