Henderson Hill and the North Carolina Racial Justice Act

In the June 2020 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Henderson Hill (pictured), Senior Counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project, speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act. Hill, who has spent decades as a public defender, capital defense attorney, and civil rights advocate, is currently representing North Carolina death-row prisoners in the Racial Justice Act litigation challenging their death sentences.

Hill and Dunham discuss the recent North Carolina Supreme Court rulings in two Racial Justice Act cases that have the potential to change the entire landscape of North Carolina’s death penalty. Hill describes North Carolina’s history of blatant race discrimination in capital cases, how the same types of racial bias that have been found in the North Carolina cases are present in death penalty cases across the country, and the broader meaning the Racial Justice Act cases have at this transformative moment in America’s response to racial injustice.