Members of the North Carolina House Select Committee on Capital Punishment heard repeat­ed calls for a halt to exe­cu­tions in the state dur­ing a recent hear­ing attend­ed by vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, reli­gious lead­ers, and oth­er cit­i­zens. Among those tes­ti­fy­ing at the hear­ing was Shirley Burns, the moth­er of a son who is await­ing exe­cu­tion at the end the January and a sec­ond son who was mur­dered in April 2006. ​“How many have had to sit on both sides of the table? I had to come to grips with myself,” stat­ed Burns. ​“Here I am plead­ing and beg­ging for my son’s life. How can I as a Christian ask for anoth­er per­son­’s life?”

Father David McBriar, a Roman Catholic priest in Raleigh and a reli­gious coun­selor to death row inmates in Central Prison, voiced con­cerns about the accu­ra­cy and fair­ness of North Carolina’s death penal­ty. ​“Is every judg­ment of the death penal­ty in our state fair and just? I sub­mit it is not. If the answer is, ​‘I don’t know’ or ​‘How can I be sure’ … then in con­science you must declare a two-year mora­to­ri­um (on exe­cu­tions) until we find out,” said McBriar.

Retired phar­ma­cist David Work told the pan­el that North Carolina leg­is­la­tors should halt exe­cu­tions because the state uses the same lethal drug com­bi­na­tion that is used by Florida, which halt­ed lethal injec­tions in December after an exe­cu­tion took 34 min­utes and two dos­es of lethal drugs. ​“The drugs used in North Carolina are the same drugs used in Florida. The pro­ce­dure is the same, and it’s just a mat­ter of time until some­thing sim­i­lar hap­pens in this state I belielve,” he said.

The House Select Committee on Capital Punishment has been meet­ing since December 2005. It was estab­lished to exam­ine issues relat­ed to the ​“accu­ra­cy and fair­ness” of North Carolina’s death penal­ty. It will also review mis­con­duct by pros­e­cu­tors and the role of race in cap­i­tal cas­es. In 2003, the North Carolina Senate approved a two-year mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, but the House failed to take up the issue that year. A sim­i­lar mea­sure was approved by a House com­mit­tee in 2005, but the mea­sure nev­er received a vote on the House floor.
(Associated Press, January 4, 2007 and News 14 Carolina, January 4, 2007). See New Voices and Recent Legislative Activity. See also DPIC’s Lethal Injection page.

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