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On the way out the door, then North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper commuted the sentences of 15 people on Tarheel State’s death row.
Cooper, a Democrat whose name has been floated as one of the party’s leading names for the 2028 presidential contestacted similarly to outgoing President Biden, who took heat last week for commuting the sentences of nearly all federal death row inmates.
“These reviews are among the most difficult decisions a governor can make, and the death penalty is the most severe penalty the state can impose,” Cooper said in a statement.
“After careful review, thought and prayer, I concluded that the death sentence imposed on these 15 people should be commuted, while ensuring that they will spend the rest of their lives in prison.”
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There have been no executions in North Carolina since 2006 due to ongoing litigation.
One of the inmates who saw his sentence commuted to life in prison was murder inmate Hasson Bacote. Bacote had originally filed a lawsuit in 2010 challenging his death sentence under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act, which reportedly allows defendants to challenge sentences if they can establish racial bias.
Bacote, who is black, had been convicted of shooting an 18-year-old by a majority-white Johnston County jury.
Rayford Burke, an Iredell County murder convict who received a commutation, also sought help under the Racial Justice Act. according to WCNC.
Another commutation recipient, Christopher Roseboro, has been in prison for about 30 years. In 1994, Roseboro was charged with first-degree rape and other charges stemming from allegations that he and another man robbed an elderly neighbor who was later found dead along with evidence that she had been. sexually assaulted.
The co-accused, Roger Bell, is already serving a life sentence.
A Union County man, Darrell Strickland, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after a tragic altercation on January 1, 1995. He also saw his sentence commuted to life in prison without parole.
Vincent Wooten, a Pitt County man convicted of killing Edward Wilson in 1993, also had his sentence commuted, according to the Greenville Daily Reflector.
Wooten, then 20, saw evidence presented at his trial alleging that he shot Wilson with an AR-15 rifle modified to be automatic after a safe, full of cocaine and cash, was stolen from Wooten’s girlfriend’s mother.
Another commuted convict, Guy T. LeGrande, had been sent to prison after a murder-for-hire incident. LeGrande was later diagnosed with a mental disorder, according to Mother Jones, and had previously claimed to be able to communicate with Oprah Winfrey through a television.
Cooper’s commutations follow Biden’s orders reclassification of death sentences to life imprisonment without parole for 37 convicts.
“President Biden has dedicated his career to reduce violent crime and ensure a fair and effective justice system,” the White House said in a December statement.
“He believes the United States should end the use of the death penalty at the federal level, except in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder, which is why the current actions apply to all but those cases “.
A man sentenced to death in a 2003 shooting in Tennessee said he was shocked Biden commuted so many convict terms.
“I decided not to waste this act of mercy, this grace of life. I decided to be a part of Biden’s legacy; by the way, I contribute to the betterment of society and prisons,” Rejon Taylor told Newsweek.
“Biden may not realize it now, but his act of mercy will reverberate through me, bearing fruit that will outlast his time on earth.”
Some of Biden’s other commutations, including a Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania judge jailed in a “kids for cash” scandal where minors were aggressively prosecuted and sent to for-profit prisons, have sparked bipartisan outrage.
Cooper’s 77 total pardons and commutations during his two terms, however, are dwarfed by the nearly 700 for Democratic Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., who served four terms in two nonconsecutive eight-year terms, according to NC Newsline.
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Only three men remain on federal death row after Biden’s actions: Robert Gregory Bowers, Dzhokar Anzorovich Tsarnaev and Dylann Storm Roof. Bowers was convicted of the 2018 Pennsylvania synagogue shooting, Roof massacred several black churchmen in South Carolina, and Tsarnaev, along with his now-deceased brother Tamerlan, led the Boston Marathon bombing.
Then-North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, was sworn into the governor’s office Wednesday to succeed Cooper in Raleigh.
