According to District Attorney Tom Keith, death sen­tences in North Carolina have dra­mat­i­cal­ly declined because jurors are increas­ing­ly skep­ti­cal of the jus­tice sys­tem. Last year, 6 peo­ple were sent to North Carolina’s death row, far less than the 26 who were giv­en death sen­tences in 1999. Keith, who is mov­ing resources away from death penal­ty cas­es and to aggres­sive­ly tar­get­ing gun crim­i­nals before they kill, believes that a num­ber of high-pro­file wrong­ful con­vic­tions and DNA exon­er­a­tions have con­tributed to the trend toward few­er death sen­tences. ​“We’re los­ing the pub­lic-rela­tions war. I’m not going to keep try­ing them and try­ing them and try­ing them because I’m in love with the death penal­ty. If we’re wast­ing our time, we won’t try them,” Keith stat­ed. ​“If this com­mu­ni­ty does­n’t want to con­vict peo­ple of cap­i­tal mur­der, I’ll lis­ten to what the peo­ple say.” Concerns about inno­cence and fair­ness have also spurred death penal­ty reforms in recent years, includ­ing a bill to ban the exe­cu­tion of those with men­tal retar­da­tion and leg­is­la­tion to pro­vide pros­e­cu­tors with the option to take guilty pleas in cap­i­tal cas­es in exchange for life-with­out-parole sen­tences. (Associated Press, March 14, 2004) Four peo­ple have been exon­er­at­ed from North Carolina’s death row, includ­ing Alan Gell in February 2004. See Innocence. See Sentencing. See DPIC’s Year End Report.

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