North Carolina Supreme Court Upholds Controversial Death Penalty Practice

In a rul­ing that could affect near­ly every death row inmate in the state, the North Carolina Supreme Court has upheld the prac­tice of using indict­ments with­out aggra­vat­ing fac­tors in mur­der cas­es. The rul­ing came in the case of death row inmate Henry Lee Hunt. Hunt’s attor­neys had argued that, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Ring v. Arizona, fail­ure to include aggra­vat­ing fac­tors in first-degree mur­der indict­ments is a vio­la­tion of the due process clause of the 14^th Amendment. Grand juries issue indict­ments to inform defen­dants of spe­cif­ic charges, allow­ing for the prepa­ra­tion of a defense and pre­vent­ing the state from con­vict­ing the defen­dant of some­thing else. All of the pris­on­ers on the state’s death row were con­vict­ed in cas­es using a short-form indict­ment. (Herald Sun, July 16, 2003). Executions in the state were stayed as the North Carolina Supreme Court con­sid­ered this case. See Supreme Court.