Despite being found guilty of eight mur­ders of most­ly elder­ly peo­ple and the pros­e­cu­tion seek­ing the death penal­ty, a North Carolina jury recent­ly con­vict­ed Robert Stewart of sec­ond degree mur­der, there­by avoid­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death sen­tence. On September 5, he was sen­tenced to prison for over 100 years. Stewart had gone on a shoot­ing spree at a Carthage nurs­ing home in 2009, appar­ent­ly under the influ­ence of alco­hol and pre­scrip­tion drugs. Although none of the jurors dis­closed their ratio­nale for opt­ing for sec­ond-degree instead of first-degree mur­der, both dimin­ished men­tal capac­i­ty and vol­un­tary intox­i­ca­tion were offered as ratio­nales by the Stewart’s defense team. The pros­e­cu­tor, Peter Strickland, said the fam­i­lies are ​“get­ting solace in the fact that he was sen­tenced to more than 131 years.”

(J. Chappell, ​“Jury Finds Stewart Guilty of 2nd-Degree Murder,” The Pilot, September 3, 2011). See Arbitrariness and Mental Illness. See also DPIC’s Report ​“Struck by Lightning: The Continuing Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty Thirty-Five Years After Its Reinstatement in 1976.”

Citation Guide