North Carolina death penalty foes demand commutations

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North Carolina activists will rally Aug. 19 in Raleigh to press Gov. Roy Cooper to commute the sentences of people on death row.

Capital punishment opponents want Gov. Roy Cooper to commute the sentences of everyone on North Carolina’s death row before he leaves office next year.

Activists will gather Aug. 19 in Raleigh to commemorate the anniversary of the state’s last execution and demand Cooper commute all incarcerated people sentenced to death before the end of his term in 2024. A ceremony at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church will include memorials to 43 people executed under North Carolina’s modern death penalty as well as death row exonerees and relatives of murder victims.  

“On Aug,19, we will solemnly remember the violence our state has carried out and demand that it never happen again,” said Noel Nickle, executive director of the N.C. Coalition for Alternatives for the Death Penalty. “We are going to continue asking Gov. Cooper to lead North Carolina to a future without executions.”

Activists will march to Central Prison, where North Carolina’s death row is located, as part of a campaign calling on the term-limited Cooper to commute death sentences to prison terms before he leaves office.

Samuel Flippen was the last person executed in North Carolina when he was killed by lethal injection on Aug. 18, 2006, at Central Prison. Since then, litigation over execution procedures and the Racial Justice Act put executions on hold. There is no official moratorium on executions and 137 people are on death row.

Twelve people have been exonerated from the death penalty after winning appeals based on evidence of racial bias in capital trials.  

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