Jury in Wake County, North Carolina Returns 8^th Consecutive Life Verdict in a Capital Trial

A Wake County, North Carolina jury vot­ed to spare Nathan Holden​’s life on March 3, mark­ing the eighth con­sec­u­tive cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing tri­al in the coun­ty in which juries had opt­ed to sen­tence a defen­dant to life with­out parole instead of the death penal­ty. No jury in Wake County has imposed a death sen­tence since 2007. Prosecutors had sought the death penal­ty against Holden for mur­der­ing his ex-wife’s par­ents and attempt­ing to kill her. The jury con­vict­ed Holden of two counts of first-degree mur­der but, after being pre­sent­ed evi­dence of 39 mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances — includ­ing that he suf­fered from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder as a result of chron­ic child­hood abuse — jurors chose to sen­tence him to life. Although the ten Wake County pris­on­ers on North Carolina’s death row placed the coun­ty among the 2% of coun­ties that account­ed for 56% of all pris­on­ers on U.S. death rows as of 2013, Wake District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said after jurors returned the sixth con­sec­u­tive life sen­tence in February 2016 that it might be time to rethink whether to pur­sue the death penal­ty in future cas­es. Wake County’s expe­ri­ence has been typ­i­cal of North Carolina, and the nation as a whole. The state has aver­aged few­er than two death sen­tences per year since 2011, with no new death sen­tences in 2012 and 2015. In 2016, only one of the five cap­i­tal tri­als in the state result­ed in a death sen­tence. By con­trast, the state sent between 20 to 30 peo­ple per year to death row in the 1990s. The United States has seen a sim­i­lar drop in death sen­tences, impos­ing a total of only 30 new death sen­tences last year, down from a peak of 315 in 1996 (see graph, click to enlarge). North Carolina’s last exe­cu­tion was in 2006.

(T. McDonald, ​“Nathan Holden sen­tenced to life in prison for mur­der­ing his in-laws,” The News & Observer, March 3, 2017; R. Richardson, ​“Jury rejects death penal­ty in Nathan Holden tri­al,” WNCN​.com, March 3, 2017; T. McDonald, ​“Duke psy­chol­o­gist: Nathan Holden suf­fer­ers [sic] from PTSD,” The News & Observer, March 1, 2017). See Sentencing. [UPDATE: Media reports ini­tial­ly indi­cat­ed that this was the 7^th con­sec­u­tive life ver­dict in Wake County. It is at least the 8^th. The oth­er Wake County cap­i­tal tri­als result­ing in life sen­tences between 2008 and 2017 were: Jakiem Wilson, 2008; Charles Dickerson, 2008; Sam Cooper, 2010; Joshua Stepp, 2011; Jason Williford, 2012; Armond Devega, 2014; Travion Smith, 2016.]