HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 10-01-2024; 4-d - Resolution Calling on Governor Roy Cooper to Commute All North Carolina Death Sentences to Prison Terms 1
ORANGE COUNTY
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT
Meeting Date: October 1, 2024
Action Agenda
Item No. 4-d
SUBJECT: Resolution Calling on Governor Roy Cooper to Commute All North Carolina
Death Sentences to Prison Terms
DEPARTMENT: Board of Commissioners
ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT:
Draft Resolution Commissioner Sally Greene, 919-245-
2130
Commissioner Anna Richards, 919-245-
2130
PURPOSE: To consider approval of a Resolution Calling on Governor Roy Cooper to Commute
All North Carolina Death Sentences to Prison Terms.
BACKGROUND: Orange County Board of Commissioners` Vice Chair Sally Greene and
Commissioner Anna Richards have provided the attached proposed resolution for Board
consideration. The draft resolution calls on North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper to use his broad
clemency power to commute North Carolina's 136 death sentences to prison terms.
FINANCIAL IMPACT: There is no financial impact to Orange County with consideration of the
resolution.
ALIGNMENT WITH STRATEGIC PLAN: This item supports two of the Guiding Principles of the
Orange County Strategic Plan — Stewardship and Advocacy, and Social Justice.
RECOMMENDATION(S): The Manager recommends that the Board consider approval of the
attached Resolution Calling on Governor Roy Cooper to Commute All North Carolina Death
Sentences to Prison Terms; and if approved, authorize the Chair to sign the resolution and direct
the Clerk to the Board of Commissioners to forward the signed resolution to the Governor of the
State of North Carolina.
RES-2024-056 DRAFT 2
ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
RESOLUTION CALLING ON GOVERNOR ROY COOPER TO COMMUTE ALL NORTH
CAROLINA DEATH SENTENCES TO PRISON TERMS
WHEREAS, our community upholds the values of fairness and due process for all people; and
WHEREAS, the criminal justice system, including the death penalty, starts at the local level, with local tax
dollars and local employees used to enforce the law; and
WHEREAS, the administration of the death penalty affects all of our community's residents as victims and
victims' family members, as offenders and offenders' family members, and the community at large; and
WHEREAS, a fair criminal justice system benefits the entire community; and
WHEREAS, 200 innocent people in the United States since 1973 have been exonerated and released from
death row; and
WHEREAS, North Carolina's death penalty has led to at least twelve innocent people being condemned to
die in the modern era, one of whom spent 30 years on death row before DNA testing proved another man
was the culprit; and
WHEREAS, intentional and systematic racial bias has been shown to have a "persistent, persuasive and
distorting role" in North Carolina's death penalty (North Carolina v. Robinson, 2012; Michigan State
University, 2010; UNC, 2000); and
WHEREAS, a 2024 Racial Justice Act hearing revealed stark new evidence of racial inequities in the death
penalty, including the intentional exclusion of Black individuals from capital juries; and
WHEREAS, the death penalty is closely linked to North Carolina's history of slavery, lynching, and Jim
Crow and continues to be disproportionately imposed on Black men for crimes against white people; and
WHEREAS, North Carolina houses the nation's fifth largest death row, made up largely of people
sentenced more than 25 years ago before important reforms to the capital punishment system and a
dramatic drop-off in death sentencing; and
WHEREAS, the death penalty has no proven public safety value and public support for executions has
reached historic lows (https://news.galIup.com/pol1/513806/new-low-say-death-penalty-fairly-
applied.aspx); and
WHEREAS, millions of North Carolina taxpayers' dollars spent on the death penalty every decade could
be used for crime prevention and programs to offer assistance to murder victims' families;
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Orange County Board of Commissioners calls on the
Governor of North Carolina to use his broad clemency power to commute North Carolina's 136 death
sentences to prison terms, therefore insuring that these outdated and unfair sentences are never carried
out.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this resolution shall be forwarded by Clerk to the Board of
Commissioners to the Governor of the State of North Carolina.
This the 1st day of October, 2024.
Jamezetta Bedford, Chair
Orange County Board of Commissioners