North Carolina Trial Court Will Hear New Evidence of Racial Bias in Death Row Prisoner's Racial Justice Act Claim

Beginning February 28, 2024, a Johnston County, North Carolina, trial court will hear death row prisoner Hasson Bacote’s claims that racial discrimination in jury selection played a role in his capital sentencing. In 2009, North Carolina passed the Racial Justice Act (RJA), which allowed death-sentenced prisoners to challenge their sentences if they could demonstrate that race played a role in their sentencing and jury selection. Sentenced to death in 2009 by a nearly all-white jury, Mr. Bacote, and nearly all other death row prisoners in the state, filed a claim under the RJA in 2010, seeking a commutation to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In 2013, the General Assembly repealed the RJA, with then-Governor Pat. McCrory claiming that it “created a judicial loophole to avoid the death penalty and not a path to justice.” However, in 2020, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that all prisoners who had already filed claims under the RJA were entitled to evidentiary hearings, holding that “the goal of this historic legislation was simple: to abolish racial discrimination from capital sentencing. That is, to ensure that no person in this state is put to death because of the color of their skin.”

In 2021, Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons Jr., the judge presiding over Mr. Bacote’s case, ordered state prosecutors to provide defense counsel with statewide data on the use of capital punishment dating back to 1980, including jury selection notes. With this new data, Mr. Bacote’s attorneys will argue that racism infiltrated his case and every other capital murder case in North Carolina. Henderson Hill, senior counsel with the ACLU and one of Mr. Bacote’s attorneys, says “the statistical evidence will be powerful and demonstrate the lasting impact of discrimination.” In addition to presenting statistical evidence, Mr. Bacote’s attorneys intend to call historians, social scientists, and other experts to lay out North Carolina’s history and practice of purposeful discrimination in jury selection.