Attorneys for a Black man who is currently on death row are arguing for their client to be resentenced to life in person due to the history of the state’s documented history of racial discrimination.
According to NBC News, Hasson Bacote was convicted on a first-degree charge of murder for the 2007 shooting death of an 18-year-old man during a home robbery attempt. The jury that convicted him was made up of 10 white and two Black jurors. One of his attorneys, Henderson Hill, senior counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union argued that white jurors “get shown the box. Black jurors with the same background get shown the door,” during closing arguments on Aug. 21.
Bacote is being allowed to argue his case because of North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act of 2009. The act allows inmates on death row to seek resentencing based on racial bias being a factor in their convictions. After the act was repealed in 2013, the state Supreme Court reversed it allowing inmates like Bacote to argue their case under this act.
Experts from several fields gave testimony to reveal a history and pattern of discrimination used in jury selection, not just for Bacote’s trial but others that have taken place in Johnston County. Another attorney representing Bacote, Ashley Burrell, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, explained how the statistics show racial disparities in death penalty cases. In Johnston County, she disclosed that of the 17 capital cases reviewed, six Black defendants were sentenced to death. She also revealed that with the remaining 11 white defendants, more than half of those individuals were spared death sentences.
Department of Justice Attorney Jonathan Babb does not agree with Bacote’s argument and stated that if the test under the Racial Justice Act is “whether racism has existed in our state, then there is no need for a hearing in this case or any other case. But that’s not the question before this court. Rather the question is whether this death sentence in this case was solely obtained on the basis of race. The defendant has not shown that his sentence was solely obtained on the basis of race.”
Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons Jr. will make a ruling but has given no deadline.
Depending on Sermons’ decision, if Bacote emerges victorious, more than 100 other death row inmates in the state could also see their sentences similarly commuted.
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