A Wake County, North Carolina jury has reject­ed the death penal­ty for 24-year-old Donovan Jevonte Richardson (pic­tured) and sen­tenced him to two life sen­tences, mark­ing the ninth con­sec­u­tive Wake County cap­i­tal tri­al to result in a life ver­dict. No jury has imposed the death penal­ty in the coun­ty since 2007. ​“The real­i­ty,” said Gretchen Engel, Executive Director of the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation, is that ​“it just doesn’t make sense to pur­sue the death penal­ty in Wake County. Juries have made it crys­tal clear that they no longer want to impose death sen­tences, and these cost­ly pro­tract­ed tri­als ben­e­fit no one.” The jury vot­ed on January 24 to spare Richardson’s life, find­ing that 11 mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances — includ­ing his age, lack of pre­med­i­ta­tion, and men­tal duress at the time of the crime — out­weighed the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors of bur­glary and rob­bery dur­ing a 2014 home break-in that end­ed in the mur­ders of Arthur Lee Brown, 74, and David Eugene McKoy, 66. The jury also found as mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances that Richardson’s father had aban­doned him, refus­ing to acknowl­edge that Richardson was his son until after a pater­ni­ty test; that sen­tenc­ing Richardson to death could harm his two young sons, aged 3 and 7; and that Richardson’s fam­i­ly had offered assur­ances that Richardson would have a rela­tion­ship with his sons while he is impris­oned. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman char­ac­ter­ized the case as ​“every­body’s worst night­mare[,] … two men who worked hard (and) loved their fam­i­lies (but) were mur­dered in the sanc­ti­ty of their home at night.” She said, ​“This was a case that we felt strong­ly (that) under the law (and) under the facts of the case, it was appro­pri­ate to go to a jury on that issue.” Engel dis­agreed. ​“Donovan Richardson wasn’t the most cul­pa­ble mur­der­er in Wake County, or even in this case. He was just the one who refused to accept the plea bar­gain,” she said. ​“That’s why he end­ed up fac­ing the death penal­ty. It’s a sys­tem that makes no sense. It’s entire­ly arbi­trary and goes against our ideas about jus­tice and a death penal­ty reserved only for a care­ful­ly select­ed few.” The evi­dence in the case showed that anoth­er man Gregory Crawford, com­mit­ted at least one of the killings and may have shot both men. He plead­ed guilty in May 2016 to charges of first-degree mur­der, rob­bery with a dan­ger­ous weapon, and bur­glary and was sen­tenced to life in prison with­out parole. A third man, Kevin Britt, was charged with two counts of first-degree mur­der, rob­bery with a dan­ger­ous weapon and bur­glary, but was per­mit­ted to plead guilty to being an acces­so­ry to mur­der after agree­ing to tes­ti­fy against Richardson. He is expect­ed to serve less than two years in prison. A 2013 study by DPIC showed that Wake County had the 50th largest coun­ty death row in the United States and was among the 2% of U.S. coun­ties account­ing for 56% of all pris­on­ers then on death row in the coun­try. In February 2016, after jurors had returned the sixth con­sec­u­tive life sen­tence in Wake County, District Attorney Freeman said it might be time to reassess whether to seek the death penal­ty in future cas­es. The coun­ty nonethe­less has sought the death penal­ty in at least one cap­i­tal tri­al in each of the last three years, a time peri­od in which there have been only ten cap­i­tal tri­als in the state’s 100 coun­ties and only one death sentence.

(Thomasi McDonald, Jurors spare life of killer; he’ll serve two life sen­tences for dou­ble mur­der, The News & Observer, January 24, 2018; Donovan Richardson sen­tenced to life in prison for 2014 dou­ble mur­der, WRAL​.com, January 24, 2018; News Release, Wake jury opts for life with­out parole, rejects death penal­ty in 9th tri­al in a row, The Center for Death Penalty Litigation, January 24, 2018.) See Arbitrariness and Life Without Parole.

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