Death row inmates across North Carolina may be eligible for resentencing after a judge ruled last week that a Black defendant’s capital trial was compromised by the presence of an almost all-white jury.
Hasson Bacote was sentenced to death in 2009 by a jury of 10 white jurors and two Black jurors for his involvement in a felony murder. Bacote’s case may now challenge the extent of the 2009 Racial Justice Act after Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons Jr. determined that Bacote proved that discrimination occurred in his trial, NBC News reports.
The Racial Justice Act of 2009 is a landmark state law that enables
condemned inmates to seek resentencing if they can prove racial bias influenced their cases. If it is determined that Bacote experienced discrimination during his trial, the ruling could give the 122 other death row inmates in North Carolina a chance to challenge their sentences.This potential outcome, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, which assisted in Bacote’s case, could set a precedent for future legal battles.
“What we saw in Mr. Bacote’s case is that the more we look for evidence of discrimination in our state’s capital jury selection system, the more we find,” Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project, said. “This ruling creates a path to justice for the hundred-plus individuals who have filed claims and whose cases were similarly tainted with bias.”
Outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper commuted Bacote’s death sentence, as well as 15 others, to life in prison without the possibility of parole on December 31. While Cooper emphasized that “no single factor was decisive in the decision for any case,” he acknowledged that considerations such as the “potential influence of race— including the race of the defendant and victim, the composition of the jury pool, and the final jury”—played a role.
Bacote, along with two other individuals, was charged with the murder of 18-year-old Anthony Surles in a 2007 home robbery attempt when Bacote was 20. The other two defendants were convicted on lesser charges and were subsequently released from prison.
Bacote’s lawyers argued during a hearing before Sermons last year that a history of racial discrimination in jury selection in Johnston County, southeast of Raleigh, had tainted his case and others. Local prosecutors during Bacote’s trial were accused of being nearly twice as likely to exclude people of color from the jury pool compared to white jurors. In Bacote’s case, prosecutors removed prospective Black jurors at more than three times the rate of white jurors, his lawyers argued.
“When my death sentence was commuted by Gov. Cooper, I felt enormous relief that the burden of the death penalty—and all of the stress and anxiety that go with it—were lifted off my shoulders,” Bacote said after the ruling. “I am grateful to the court for having the courage to recognize that racial bias affected my case and so many others.”
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