North Carolina Racial Justice Act Hearing Concludes in Hasson Bacote Case

On Friday, March 8, 2024 a Johnston County tri­al court con­clud­ed a his­toric hear­ing regard­ing the claims of Hasson Bacote, a death-sen­tenced pris­on­er in North Carolina, that racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion played a role in his 2009 cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing. The case, which is being reviewed pur­suant to North Carolina’s 2009 Racial Justice Act (RJA), could have impli­ca­tions for more than 100 oth­er death row pris­on­ers who have pend­ing claims under the Act.

The evi­dence pre­sent­ed by Mr. Bacote’s legal team dur­ing two weeks of tes­ti­mo­ny showed a clear and per­sis­tent pat­tern of racial bias in jury selec­tion. They argued that racial bias has his­tor­i­cal­ly denied peo­ple of col­or the oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve on cap­i­tal juries and led to a dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of extreme sen­tences for Black men, includ­ing Mr. Bacote. 

In con­nec­tion with the lit­i­ga­tion, North Carolina dis­closed 680,000 doc­u­ments per­tain­ing to data on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment since 1980, includ­ing infor­ma­tion on jury selec­tion. The data show that poten­tial Black jurors were four times more like­ly to be elim­i­nat­ed from a jury pool in Johnston County and ten times more like­ly to be elim­i­nat­ed by for­mer District Attorney Gregory Butler, the pros­e­cu­tor in Mr. Bacote’s case.

Henderson Hill, one of Mr. Bacote’s lawyers, argued that the racism in North Carolina’s death penal­ty was ​“so clear, it’s blind­ing.” ​“We have white pros­e­cu­tors stand­ing in front of over­whelm­ing­ly white juries com­par­ing Black defen­dants fac­ing the death penal­ty to ani­mals – ​‘mad dogs,’ ​‘hye­nas,’ ​‘preda­tors of the African plain,’” he said. 

Mr. Butler denied the alle­ga­tions that race played any role in Mr. Bacote’s case. ​“And, no, I was not call­ing them ani­mals. There was no racial intent on my part what­so­ev­er,” he said.

The RJA was passed by North Carolina in 2009, allow­ing per­sons sen­tenced to death to chal­lenge their sen­tences based on the role race played in their sen­tenc­ing and jury selec­tion. Then, in 2013, the Act was ful­ly repealed under Governor Pat McCrory.

The repeal was a response to the reac­tion of some North Carolina leg­is­la­tors, who com­plained that the RJA was an indi­rect way to abol­ish the death penal­ty in the state and caused delays in exe­cu­tions. The legislature’s ini­tial attempt to repeal it in 2011 was vetoed by the then-Governor Bev Perdue. But cas­es that had already been filed under the RJA pri­or to the repeal, includ­ing that of Mr. Bacote, con­tin­ue to proceed.

Serving on a jury is a fun­da­men­tal con­sti­tu­tion­al right of United States cit­i­zens. Nonetheless, racial dis­par­i­ties in jury selec­tions are not endem­ic to North Carolina. For many decades, and across the U.S., Black peo­ple were denied the right to serve on juries. The U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion in Batson v. Kentucky (1986) con­firmed that racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion is ille­gal, but the prac­tice has continued. 

Mr. Bacote is rep­re­sent­ed by the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project, the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, and North Carolina Attorney Jay Ferguson. 

Superior Court Judge Wayland J. Sermons, Jr. is expect­ed to issue his rul­ing in Mr. Bacote’s case lat­er this Spring.