Most people on NC death row don’t belong there, new report says. Here’s why.
By Michael Gordon
October 09, 2018 03:02 PM
With 142 inmates waiting to die, North Carolina has the sixth largest death row in the country.
But a report released Tuesday says most of the prisoners would not be awaiting execution if their cases were investigated and tried today.
In “Unequal Justice: How obsolete laws and unfair trial created North Carolina’s outsized Death Row,” the Center for Death Row Litigation in Durham says the state’s death row is stuck in time while the views of capital punishment continue to evolve.
“They are prisoners of a state that has moved on, but refuses to reckon with its past,” the report says. “Today, the death penalty is seen as a tool to be used sparingly. Instead of a bludgeon to be wielded in virtually every first-degree murder case.”
According to the report, almost three-quarters of the men and women on N.C. death row were tried before 2001. That’s when a series of reforms — from how police and prosecutors handle investigations and share evidence to DNA testing and higher performance standards for defense attorneys — began reducing the number of capital cases.
The state also eliminated a law — the only one of its kind in the country — that forced prosecutors to seek the death penalty in every case of aggravated, or first-degree, murder.
“If these people on death row had been tried under modern laws, most of them would be serving life without parole sentences instead of facing execution,” said Gretchen Engel, executive director of the litigation center, in a statement accompanying the report.
Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather was not available for comment Tuesday.
More than 100 of the condemned inmates were convicted in the 1990s, when the state operated under radically different laws, Engel says.
Today, the state’s death row inmates are stuck in legal limbo. North Carolina has not executed a prisoner in 12 years.
Juries across the state have handed down only a single death penalty in the past four years, the report says. Mecklenburg County, the state’s largest local court district has not sent a prisoner to death row in almost a decade.
The Durham-based center compiled the report based on the case files of the death penalty Among the report’s findings:
▪ 92 percent of the death row prisoners were tried and convicted before a 2008 reform package aimed at limiting false confessions and mistaken eyewitness identifications.
▪ 82 percent, 118 prisoners in all, were sent to death row before North Carolina passed a law giving the defense the right to view all the prosecution’s evidence. Up to then, district attorneys routinely withheld vital information until it was presented at trial, giving the accused little time to prepare a defense, the report says.
▪ 73 percent of the death row population, 103 inmates in all, were sent there before the passing of laws barring the execution of people with intellectual disabilities.
▪ That same percentage were convicted before the state eliminated the only law in the country that required prosecutors to pursue the death penalty in every aggravated first-degree murder case. Now, district attorneys have the discretion to limit death penalty cases to the most heinous of crimes.
The impact of those reforms has been significant. In the 1990s, according to the report, North Carolina averaged about 50 death-penalty murder cases a year. Today, there are fewer than five.
Prisoners on the North Carolina death row make their way back to their cell block at Central Prison in Raleigh in 2002, not long after a series of reforms began sharply reducing the number of death-penalty cases in the state. A new report by a death penalty advocacy group says most of the death row prisoners would not be there had they been investigated and tried using today’s laws.
Observer file
Mistaken ID
Mistaken identifications are a leading cause of wrongful convictions around the country, the report says. To illustrate, it homes in on the case against Elrico Fowler of Charlotte.
In 1997, Fowler was sentenced to death in Mecklenburg for the murder of a Howard Johnson’s motel employee during a 1995 robbery in Charlotte. Four years later, his conviction and sentencing were upheld by the state Supreme Court.
“Elrico Fowler executed an unarmed man lying face down on the floor,” one of his prosecutors said in 2001. “He’s an exceptionally dangerous human being, and the ultimate punishment is the only we can ensure he doesn’t murder another innocent person.”
The report, however, says Fowler was largely convicted based on the questionable eye-witness identification of the manager of the motel restaurant. He told Fowler from the witness stand during the trial, “I hope you fry, man.”
What the jury did not know, according to the report, is that the restaurant manager identified Fowler after weeks of shifting descriptions and after undergoing multiple photo lineups, including one that occurred after police had publicly circulated photographs of Fowler and another suspect.
“Every practice now required to prevent false identification was violated,” according to the report. The lineups were not recorded. The police conducted them (now, someone who does not know the suspect’s identification must run the lineup), and the investigators did not take a statement from the witness on his level of confidence in the identification, among other missteps, the report says.
Gerda Stein, a spokeswoman for the litigation center, said the goal of the report is to educate the public and decision-makers about the inequities in the state’s history with capital punishment.
Eventually, she said, the center hopes that “these injustices” would be remedied by the courts, the General Assembly or the governor.
Michael Gordon: 704-358-5095; @MikeGordonOBS
Winston-Salem Journal
Most N.C. death-row inmates wouldn’t face death penalty if sentenced today, report says. Forsyth County had 11 of these convictions.
- By Michael Hewlett Winston-Salem Journal
- 11 hrs ago
According to a new report, more than 70 percent of the North Carolina prison inmates awaiting possible execution likely would not have faced a death sentence under reforms passed in North Carolina after 2001.
Forsyth County currently has 14 men and women on death row. Out of those 14, 11 were convicted between 1990 and 2000. In 2001, state legislators passed laws designed to ensure fairness and prevent wrongful convictions. North Carolina currently has 141 people on death row.
“Today, we are living in a different world from when these men and women were sent to death row,” Gretchen M. Engel, the executive director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, said in a news release Tuesday. “Public support for the death penalty is at a 50-year low, and North Carolina has stopped executing people. Juries now see life without parole as a harsh and adequate punishment for the worst crimes. The fact is, if these people on death row had been tried under modern laws, most of them would be serving life without parole sentences instead of facing execution.”
The Center for Death Penalty Litigation, which is based in Durham, said in its report that 73 percent of North Carolina’s death row inmates were tried before 2001. Most of those people on death row were sentenced to death in the 1990s. During that time, between 25 and 35 people were sentenced to death each year, the center said in a news release. North Carolina has the sixth largest number inmates on death row in the country.
Things have changed in the past 20 years. Executions have dropped dramatically across the country, and North Carolina has not executed anyone in the past 12 years because of pending litigation. Only one person has been sentenced to death in the past four years. Nationally, in 2017, eight states carried out 23 executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The report, ”Unequal Justice: How Obsolete Laws and Unfair Trials Created North Carolina’s Outsized Death Row,” said that 73 percent of the state’s death row inmates were tried before 2001, when the first of several reforms took root.
State legislators put those reforms in place after a number of exonerations in North Carolina and across the United States.
One of the most high-profile was the late Darryl Hunt from Winston-Salem. Hunt was exonerated in 2004 after serving nearly 19 years of a life sentence for the murder of Deborah Sykes, a copy editor at The Sentinel, an afternoon newspaper that closed in 1985.
Among the reforms was a 2008 package that required interrogations and confessions to be recorded in homicide cases and provided guidelines for how to conduct lineups for eyewitnesses.
These laws were designed to prevent false confessions and mistaken eyewitness identifications.
North Carolina prosecutors also were required to turn over all evidence to defendants, including evidence that could help defendants reduce their sentence or prove their innocence.
New laws also barred prosecutors from pursuing the death penalty against defendants with intellectual disabilities, established a statewide indigent defense agency and gave prosecutors discretion in deciding whether to pursue the death penalty.
Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill could not be reached for comment Tuesday. In the past, he has said that prosecutors in his office review murder cases and reserve the death penalty for the most egregious homicides.
Forsyth County prosecutors are currently pursuing the death penalty in two cases — Charles Thomas Stacks and Adrion Whorley. Stacks is accused of killing a 2-year-old boy who was in his care. Prosecutors allege that Whorley fatally stabbed a 75-year-old man and then dismembered him.
The last death penalty trial Forsyth County had was in 2016. A jury convicted Anthony Vinh Nguyen of first-degree murder and other charges in the death of Shelia Pace Gooden, 43, but the jury recommended life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A Forsyth County jury did recommend death for Juan Carlos Rodriguez, who was convicted on charges that he killed his wife and then decapitated her. The N.C. Supreme Court recently vacated that death sentence, saying the trial judge failed to submit a statutory mitigating factor to the jury.
Nine people on North Carolina’s death row have been exonerated, including Henry McCollum, the second longest-serving death row inmate.
Barry Scheck, a co-director and co-founder of the Innocence Project, said in the news release that criminal-justice system still makes mistakes, despite the reforms.
“But during the years when most of North Carolina’s death row prisoners were sentenced, the system was absolutely stacked against poor people on trial for their lives,” Scheck said. “We’re talking about people whose defense attorneys came to court drunk, people who never saw evidence that might have proven their innocence, people who were convicted on the basis of a tainted eyewitness identification that would never be admissible to court today. They never had a chance at justice, and some of them might be innocent.”
mhewlett@wsjournal.com 336-727-7326 @mhewlettWSJ
Public News Service
Report: Obsolete Laws Used to Sentence Most NC Death Row Inmates
October 10, 2018
RALEIGH, N.C. – In North Carolina, 141 men and women currently face death sentences, making the state home to the sixth-largest death row population in the country. This week, a new report from the Center for Death Penalty Litigation reveals that about three-quarters of these people were sentenced before a number of reforms were passed to ensure fairness and prevent wrongful convictions.
Gretchen Engel, the center's executive director, said the difference between then and now is significant - and frustrating.
"We know that if these crimes happened today, that most of the people would not face the death penalty at trial," she said, "and if they went to trial, would very unlikely be sentenced to death."
The report, called "Unequal Justice," found that 92 percent of people on death row were sentenced before 2008, when a package of state reforms took effect. Many were tried in the 1990s, when 25 to 35 were sentenced to death each year. Public opinion largely has shifted on capital punishment since then, although supporters of the death penalty have argued it is needed in the most heinous of crimes.
The report comes as North Carolina passed its 12th year without an execution and is on track for another year with no new death sentences. One person has received a death sentence in the last four years.
With the current knowledge of better trial practices and shifting public opinion, Engel said, the 141 cases should be reconsidered.
"Given that we have decided that the fairer way and the more reliable way of imposing the death penalty is under our current system," she said, "we have to go back and figure out a mechanism to evaluate these old cases."
Many of the reforms came after multiple exonerations in the Tar Heel State and elsewhere, where some people on death row were found to be innocent.
The report is online at cdpl.org.
Gretchen Engel, the center's executive director, said the difference between then and now is significant - and frustrating.
"We know that if these crimes happened today, that most of the people would not face the death penalty at trial," she said, "and if they went to trial, would very unlikely be sentenced to death."
The report, called "Unequal Justice," found that 92 percent of people on death row were sentenced before 2008, when a package of state reforms took effect. Many were tried in the 1990s, when 25 to 35 were sentenced to death each year. Public opinion largely has shifted on capital punishment since then, although supporters of the death penalty have argued it is needed in the most heinous of crimes.
The report comes as North Carolina passed its 12th year without an execution and is on track for another year with no new death sentences. One person has received a death sentence in the last four years.
With the current knowledge of better trial practices and shifting public opinion, Engel said, the 141 cases should be reconsidered.
"Given that we have decided that the fairer way and the more reliable way of imposing the death penalty is under our current system," she said, "we have to go back and figure out a mechanism to evaluate these old cases."
Many of the reforms came after multiple exonerations in the Tar Heel State and elsewhere, where some people on death row were found to be innocent.
The report is online at cdpl.org.
Stephanie Carson, Public News Service – NC
NC's Death Row a legacy of past mistakes
Submitted by scharrison on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 09:25
And every single one of these cases needs a thorough review:
With 142 inmates waiting to die, North Carolina has the sixth largest death row in the country. But a report released Tuesday says most of the prisoners would not be awaiting execution if their cases were investigated and tried today.
In “Unequal Justice: How obsolete laws and unfair trial created North Carolina’s outsized Death Row,” the Center for Death Row Litigation in Durham says the state’s death row is stuck in time while the views of capital punishment continue to evolve. “They are prisoners of a state that has moved on, but refuses to reckon with its past,” the report says. “Today, the death penalty is seen as a tool to be used sparingly. Instead of a bludgeon to be wielded in virtually every first-degree murder case.”
With all the political issues confronting us these days, people might be prone to back-burner this one based on two flawed assumptions: 1) They are in no danger of being executed due to the de facto moratorium, or 2) They would still be incarcerated somewhere else anyway. As to that first thing, the term "de facto" should be enough to demonstrate that fallacy. New technology and/or a shift in opinion could get the execution machine rolling again. As far as the second assumption is concerned, these factors definitely come into play:
92 percent of the death row prisoners were tried and convicted before a 2008 reform package aimed at limiting false confessions and mistaken eyewitness identifications.
82 percent, 118 prisoners in all, were sent to death row before North Carolina passed a law giving the defense the right to view all the prosecution’s evidence. Up to then, district attorneys routinely withheld vital information until it was presented at trial, giving the accused little time to prepare a defense, the report says.
73 percent of the death row population, 103 inmates in all, were sent there before the passing of laws barring the execution of people with intellectual disabilities.
Make no mistake, that last statistic played heavily in many of the first statistic's "guilty" verdicts. People with intellectual disabilities (very) often reach a level of fear and despair after even a short period of time in an uncomfortable situation, and after hours of badgering will say anything to make it stop. Prosecutors know/knew this, and took advantage of it.
As far as the middle thing (discovery of evidence), that's really a no-brainer. If you didn't give the defense time to prepare their case properly, the conviction is tainted, plain and simple. That's not something you "grandfather" in and allow to remain, that's something that demands a retrial.
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