North Carolina might be abolishing the death penalty, and it’s all because of a Black man.
This week, a North Carolina trial court in Johnston County “will hear death row prisoner Hasson Bacote’s claims that racial discrimination in jury selection played a role in his capital sentencing.”
Bacote’s argument: during his 2009 trial, the prosecution team “prevented multiple qualified Black jurors from serving on his jury.” And he’s arguing that race didn’t just play a mitigating factor in his case—it also was applicable in every single death penalty case in the state.
In addition to Bacote, 134 “inmates could potentially see their sentences changed to life in prison in the wake of a landmark hearing…that will test whether racial discrimination has played a role in jury selection in capital cases,” NBC News reports.
Bacote’s case was made possible because of the Racial Justice Act (RJA), a law the North Carolina state legislature passed in 2009. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the RJA was “[a] first of its kind law that allows people on death row to challenge their sentences if they could show race played a factor at the time of their trial.”
After its passage, more than 100 inmates facing the death penalty filed claims under the RJA. Then in 2013, just four years later, after regaining the majority, the GOP repealed the RJA. But, “[a]fter a lengthy legal battle, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled, in 2020, that all lawsuits brought under the RJA before its repeal could still move forward.”
ACLU senior counsel Henderson Hill said, “We think the statistical evidence will be powerful and demonstrate the lasting impact of discrimination.”
In fact, court documents show that Bacote’s legal team is arguing that during his trial, the local prosecutors were “‘nearly two times more likely to exclude people of color from jury service than to exclude whites,’ and in Bacote’s case, prosecutors chose to strike prospective Black jurors from the jury pool at more than three times the rate of prospective white jurors.”
In addition, evidence is also being introduced revealing that the death penalty was 1.5 times more likely to be asked for and imposed on Black defendants in Johnston County.
“There’s no question that our evidence in Hasson Bacote’s case goes to this broader conversation that’s happening in North Carolina over whether we should keep the death penalty or if the governor should commute the row,” stated Cassandra Stubbs, the director of the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project.
“Is there discrimination statewide in jury selection in North Carolina?” Stubbs queried. “That’s the question at stake, that’s the question that the judge will be answering.”
Legal experts anticipate that these proceedings to decide if Bacote’s sentence should be reduced to a lifetime prison sentence, could go on for two weeks. The judge could decide to issue a bench ruling or postpone the decision for a later moment, but either way this will set a new legal precedent.