This week North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper commuted the death sentences of 15 of the 136 people facing execution by the state of North Carolina. Governor Cooper’s decision follows the historic decision by President Joe Biden on December 23 to commute the death sentences of 37 of the 40 people facing execution by the federal government.
The cases commuted in North Carolina involve evidence of racial bias and the use of the death penalty in instances of severe mental illness or intellectual disability. Twelve of the individuals whose sentences were commuted were tried before 2001 and under outdated laws, when a series of reforms intended to prevent wrongful convictions were enacted which drastically altered the death penalty in North Carolina. Some of the individuals had also been sentenced to death for crimes committed at very young ages.
The action taken by Governor Cooper reflects the waning public support of the death penalty in the United States, with support of capital punishment dropping dramatically in recent years to reach a five-decade low. The majority of Americans between the ages of 18 and 43 now oppose the death penalty. Republican and Democratic Governors across the country have taken steps to stop executions, with 7 additional states abolishing the death penalty since 2011.
Even with the 15 commutations, North Carolina continues to have the fifth largest death row in the United States with 121 people still facing execution. The cases that remain are tainted by serious flaws including questionable evidence and the possibility of innocence, race discrimination in jury selection and racist language used at trials, and defendants with mental illness or other conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to receiving the death sentence. Across the nation, over 2,000 people are on death row.
The death penalty in North Carolina, like capital punishment in all states and at the federal level, has been an enormous drain on public resources. The death penalty has also risked the execution of innocent people, and 200 people have been proven innocent and released after being sentenced to death in the United States.
The United States has a shocking rate of lethal error around the use of the death penalty and, according to EJI executive director Bryan Stevenson, is part of why the country should step back from killing people in an attempt to show that killing is wrong.
“Governor Cooper’s commutations are an important and commendable first step for people in North Carolina where significant evidence of racial bias has been presented in that state’s death penalty. Across the country, there are tens of millions of Americans who don’t want their government killing people in their name. They reject the flawed logic that we should kill people to show that killing is wrong. 2025 will be an important year for the future of the death penalty in the United States and every commutation can fuel the action needed to advance human rights and make punishment less extreme and barbaric,” said EJI Director Bryan Stevenson.