Capital punishment in North Carolina

Last updated

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of North Carolina .

Contents

Despite remaining a legal penalty, there have been no executions in North Carolina since 2006. A series of lawsuits filed in state courts questioning the fairness and humanity of capital punishment have created a de facto moratorium on executions being carried out in North Carolina. [1] [2] The last person executed in the state was Samuel Flippen. Mr. Flippen received a death sentence in 1997 after being convicted of first-degree murder [3]

When the prosecution seeks the death penalty, the sentence is decided by the jury and must be unanimous.

In case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, a life sentence is issued, even if a single juror opposed death (there is no retrial). [4]

The power of clemency belongs to the Governor of North Carolina. On December 31, 2024, Governor Roy Cooper, granted clemency to 15 inmates on North Carolina's death row. [5]

The method of execution is lethal injection.

Capital crimes

First-degree murder is punishable by death in North Carolina if it involves one of the following aggravating factors: [4]

  1. The capital felony was committed by a person lawfully incarcerated.
  2. The defendant had been previously convicted of another capital felony.
  3. The defendant had been previously convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence to the person.
  4. The capital felony was committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest or effecting an escape from custody.
  5. The capital felony was committed while the defendant was engaged, or was an aider or abettor, in the commission of, or an attempt to commit, or flight after committing or attempting to commit, any homicide, robbery, rape or a sex offense, arson, burglary, kidnapping, or aircraft piracy or the unlawful throwing, placing, or discharging of a destructive device or bomb.
  6. The capital felony was committed for pecuniary gain.
  7. The capital felony was committed to disrupt or hinder the lawful exercise of any governmental function or the enforcement of laws.
  8. The capital felony was committed against a law-enforcement officer, employee of the Division of Adult Correction of the Department of Public Safety, jailer, fireman, judge or justice, former judge or justice, prosecutor or former prosecutor, juror or former juror, or witness or former witness against the defendant, while engaged in the performance of his official duties or because of the exercise of his official duty.
  9. The capital felony was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.
  10. The defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person by means of a weapon or device which would normally be hazardous to the lives of more than one person.
  11. The murder for which the defendant stands convicted was part of a course of conduct in which the defendant engaged and which included the commission by the defendant of other crimes of violence against another person or persons.

Death row

Death row for males is located at the Central Prison. Female death row prisoners are housed at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. Both prisons are located in Raleigh.

See also

Death Row Roster

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "The last man to die". News & Record . August 31, 2010. Archived from the original on May 8, 2021. Retrieved May 8, 2021.
  2. ↑ Stradling, Richard (April 22, 2016). "These days, NC's death row inmates die of natural causes". The Charlotte Observer . Archived from the original on February 9, 2019. Retrieved May 8, 2021.
  3. ↑ "Executions 1984 - present". North Carolina Department of Public Safety . Retrieved December 2, 2023.
  4. 1 2 North Carolina General Statutes § 15A-2000
  5. ↑ "Governor Cooper Takes Capital Clemency Actions | NC Governor". governor.nc.gov. Retrieved December 31, 2024.

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capital punishment in Louisiana</span>

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Louisiana.

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Arkansas.

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Indiana. The last person executed in the state, excluding federal executions in Terre Haute, was mass murderer Joseph Edward Corcoran in 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capital punishment in Nevada</span>

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Nevada.

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Utah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capital punishment in Maryland</span>

Capital punishment was abolished via the legislative process on May 2, 2013, in the U.S. state of Maryland.

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Nebraska. In 2015, the state legislature voted to repeal the death penalty, overriding governor Pete Ricketts' veto. However, a petition drive secured enough signatures to suspend the repeal until a public vote. In the November 2016 general election, voters rejected the repeal measure, preserving capital punishment in the state. Nebraska currently has 11 inmates on death row.

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Oklahoma.

Capital punishment in Connecticut formerly existed as an available sanction for a criminal defendant upon conviction for the commission of a capital offense. Since the 1976 United States Supreme Court decision in Gregg v. Georgia until Connecticut repealed capital punishment in 2012, Connecticut had only executed one person, Michael Bruce Ross in 2005. Initially, the 2012 law allowed executions to proceed for those still on death row and convicted under the previous law, but on August 13, 2015, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that applying capital punishment only for past cases was unconstitutional.

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Wyoming.

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of South Dakota.

Capital punishment was abolished in Colorado in 2020. It was legal from 1974 until 2020 prior to it being abolished in all future cases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capital punishment in Florida</span>

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capital punishment in Mississippi</span>

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Mississippi.

Capital punishment is currently a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Kansas, although it has not been used since 1965.

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Georgia. Georgia reintroduced the death penalty in 1973 after Furman v. Georgia ruled all states' death penalty statutes unconstitutional. The first execution to take place afterwards occurred in 1983.

Capital punishment in Delaware was formally abolished in 2024, however it has not been enforced after Delaware’s capital punishment statues were declared unconstitutional by the Delaware Supreme Court on August 2, 2016. The ruling retroactively applies to earlier death sentences, and remaining Delaware death row inmates had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The capital statute for first-degree murder under Title 11, Chapter 42, Section 09, of the Delaware Code was fully repealed on September 26, 2024.

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of South Carolina.

Capital punishment is a legal punishment in Tennessee.

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Missouri.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.