In Wake of President Biden’s Federal Commutations, North Carolina Governor Cooper Grants Clemency to 15 Death-Sentenced Prisoners, the Largest Grant of Capital Clemency in State History

On December 31, 2024, dur­ing his last day in office, out­go­ing North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of 15 men on the state’s death row to life in prison with­out parole. ​“These reviews are among the most dif­fi­cult deci­sion a Governor can make and the death penal­ty is the most severe sen­tence that the state can impose,” said Gov. Cooper in a state­ment fol­low­ing the announce­ment of the com­mu­ta­tions. ​“After thor­ough review, reflec­tion, and prayer, I con­clud­ed that the death sen­tence imposed on these 15 peo­ple should be com­mut­ed, while ensur­ing they will spend the rest of their lives in prison.” Gov. Cooper’s grants of clemen­cy come a week after President Joe Biden com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of 37 of the 40 peo­ple on fed­er­al death row. With actions from both exec­u­tives, the year end­ed with more than twice as many grants of clemen­cy (52) as exe­cu­tions (25).

Before Gov. Cooper’s deci­sion, only five indi­vid­u­als in North Carolina had their death sen­tences reduced to life impris­on­ment since 1976. No NC gov­er­nor had pre­vi­ous­ly com­mut­ed more than two death sen­tences, and all pri­or com­mu­ta­tions occurred just before a sched­uled exe­cu­tion. ​“The 15 men grant­ed clemen­cy include peo­ple affect­ed by racism in their tri­als, peo­ple who were sen­tenced under out­dat­ed laws, and those who com­mit­ted crimes at very young ages, among oth­er inequities,” said Noel Nickle, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NCCADP). ​“We are grate­ful that Gov. Cooper heard our calls for action. Many thou­sands of North Carolinians from all walks of life sup­port this decision.” 

89 of the 136 indi­vid­u­als on the state’s death row had applied for clemen­cy to the Governor’s Office. According to Gov. Cooper’s office, many fac­tors were con­sid­ered before final deci­sions were made, includ­ing: facts and cir­cum­stances of the crime; input from pros­e­cu­tors in the coun­ty of the con­vic­tion and vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers; cred­i­ble claims of inno­cence; racial bias in jury selec­tion; evi­dence, and tes­ti­mo­ny; and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws at the time of the individual’s conviction. 

Hasson Bacote was among those grant­ed clemen­cy. Mr. Bacote, a Black man, was sen­tenced to death in 2009 by 10 white and two Black jurors and had chal­lenged that sen­tence under the Racial Justice Act of 2009 (RJA), a land­mark state law per­mit­ting death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers to pur­sue resen­tenc­ing if they can demon­strate that racial bias affect­ed their cas­es. Gov. Cooper’s deci­sion to grant clemen­cy to Mr. Bacote came at the same time Judge Wayland Sermons is con­sid­er­ing Mr. Bacote’s RJA claim. In fil­ings, attor­neys for Mr. Bacote argued that at the time of his tri­al, local pros­e­cu­tors were ​“near­ly two times more like­ly to exclude peo­ple of col­or from jury ser­vice than to exclude whites,” and in his case specif­i­cal­ly, pros­e­cu­tors struck prospec­tive Black jurors at a rate more than three times that of prospec­tive white jurors. Jay Ferguson, lead attor­ney for Mr. Bacote, said he is ​“deeply grate­ful” for Gov. Cooper’s actions and urged that ​“in light of the sweep­ing evi­dence of race dis­crim­i­na­tion that we brought for­ward under the Racial Justice Act, North Carolina must nev­er allow another execution.”

North Carolina still has the fifth largest death row in the nation, with 121 peo­ple on the row. The state last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 2006, with the lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion of Samuel Flippen.