On his final day in office, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper commuted the death sentences of 15 individuals, changing their punishments to life imprisonment without parole. This unprecedented act of clemency, announced on New Year’s Eve, garnered praise from opponents of capital punishment who have long advocated for mass commutations to prevent executions. While significant, Cooper’s action did not encompass all death row inmates; of the 136 individuals on death row, Cooper received 89 clemency petitions, granting relief to a select 15. The governor’s office cited a comprehensive review process that considered various factors, including the specifics of each crime, input from prosecutors and victims, claims of innocence, the potential influence of race, prison conduct, and the defendant’s age and intellectual capacity at the time of the offense. Cooper stated that after “thorough review, reflection, and prayer,” he determined that commuting the death sentences of these 15 individuals, while ensuring their life imprisonment, was the appropriate course of action.
This significant clemency action follows a similar move by President Joe Biden, who commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates in his final weeks in office. Among those granted clemency by Governor Cooper is Hasson Bacote, a Black man sentenced to death in 2009. Bacote’s case is a prominent example of the racial biases inherent in the death penalty system. He spearheaded a challenge to his sentence under the state’s Racial Justice Act (RJA), which allowed for challenges to death sentences based on racial bias. Although the RJA was repealed in 2013, Bacote’s case, supported by the ACLU and the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, presented compelling evidence of prosecutorial discrimination against Black defendants in jury selection throughout North Carolina’s history. The outcome of Bacote’s RJA case could have broader implications for other death row inmates in the state.
Other individuals receiving commutations include Guy LeGrande, who had a scheduled execution date in 2006 before a judge intervened due to his mental illness, and Christopher Roseboro, who was convicted of murder and rape in 1992 and suffers from an intellectual disability and ineffective trial counsel. North Carolina, possessing the fifth largest death row in the US, has not carried out an execution since 2006 due to ongoing litigation. While 27 states still retain capital punishment, executions are currently on hold in five of them.
Cooper’s action represents the largest single commutation of death sentences in the state’s history, surpassing previous instances where only five death sentences were commuted in the modern era. Noel Nickle, executive director of the NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, acknowledged the action as a “historic step” while noting its limitations. The coalition highlighted that 14 of the 15 individuals granted clemency were people of color, and 12 were tried before 2001 reforms aimed at preventing wrongful convictions. This significant act of clemency comes amidst a year marked by a surge in executions across the US, sparking considerable public outcry, including instances involving defendants with credible innocence claims.