Closing Arguments in Hasson Bacote’s North Carolina Racial Justice Act Hearing Conclude; Results Could Impact More than 100 People on State’s Death Row

On August 21, 2024, attorneys presented closing arguments in the case of North Carolina v. Hasson Bacote, a landmark lawsuit brought under the state’s Racial Justice Act (RJA), the findings of which could impact the sentences of more than 100 individuals on North Carolina’s death row. Hasson Bacote, a Black man sentenced to death in 2009, first filed a lawsuit in 2010, arguing that racial bias influenced the jury selection in his case and all other death penalty cases throughout North Carolina. Attorneys for Mr. Bacote presented evidence during a two-week hearing that showed a pattern of clear and persistent racial bias in jury selection. They argued that racial bias has historically excluded people of color from serving on capital juries, resulting in a disproportionate number of extreme sentences for Black men in North Carolina, including Mr. Bacote. “This fight for justice has been 15 years in the making,” said Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project. Ms. Stubbs added that “the outcome of this case will not just determine if Hasson Bacote’s life is spared, but if North Carolina will continue to condone systemic racial injustice in its courts and criminal legal system. We hope to finally turn the page on that shameful chapter in history and ensure a new era of justice.”

North Carolina’s RJA was passed by the state legislature in 2009, allowing individuals sentenced to death to challenge their sentences based on the role race played in their sentencing and jury selection. Individuals who could prove their sentencing was prejudiced by racial bias would be resentenced to life in prison without the opportunity for parole. In 2013, the RJA was repealed under Governor Pat McCrory, but the state Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that prisoners who had already filed claims before the repeal were entitled to hearings. Mr. Bacote’s case, which began in February 2024 in Johnston County, is the first case to be heard after the highest court’s ruling.

Throughout the two-week hearing, attorneys for Mr. Bacote called historians, statisticians, and other prominent researchers to present expert testimony demonstrating the widespread nature of racial discrimination by prosecutors in jury selection across the state of North Carolina. The attorneys highlighted the racial discrimination in juries in Johnston County against Black defendants and connected the modern death penalty to North Carolina’s history of racial violence and terror. “The evidence of racism could not be more stark,” said Gretchen M. Engel, the executive director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. “Black citizens have been denied their right to a voice in the jury box and prosecutors have referred to Black defendants as ‘thugs’ and ‘predators of the African plain.’ When the punishment is as severe and final as the death penalty, we cannot tolerate discrimination in the system,” Ms. Engel added.

Serving on a jury is a fundamental constitutional right of United States citizens. For many decades, across the U.S., Black people were denied the right to serve on juries. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Batson v. Kentucky (1986) reaffirmed that racial discrimination in jury selection is illegal. During the hearing, attorneys for Mr. Bacote presented data which show that potential Black jurors were four times more likely to be eliminated from a jury pool in Johnston County and ten times more likely to be eliminated by Assistant District Attorney Gregory Butler, the prosecutor in Mr. Bacote’s case. Black prospective jurors were two and a half times more likely to be struck from the jury pool across North Carolina. “The lives of over one hundred people on death row in North Carolina could be determined by this case,” said Ashley Burrell, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund. “This is a historic opportunity to address a long, sordid history of systemic racism that has infected the criminal legal system broadly and the death penalty specifically. We are hopeful that the court will rule in the interests of justice.”

Mr. Bacote is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project, the ACLU of North Carolina, the Legal Defense Fund, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, and attorney Jay Ferguson.