Henderson Hill and the North Carolina Racial Justice Act

Discussions With DPI

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.