NC Newsline: “Every Black person who has faced a jury in a capital trial in Johnston County between 1991 and 2014 received a death sentence, an expert in an ongoing hearing testified on Thursday.
Data analyzed by Richard Smith, a professor of statistics at UNC-Chapel Hill, revealed that no Black defendants tried in capital cases in Johnston County received life sentences; they all were sentenced to death.
Smith was the third witness called by defense attorneys in an ongoing evidentiary hearing for Hasson Bacote, a Black man sentenced to death in Johnston County in 2009. Bacote’s lawyers are arguing to get him off death row, but first they must prove his death sentence was sought or obtained because of his race.
It is unclear how many white defendants in Johnston County capital cases received death sentences, Smith said, because he received two different lists produced by defense and state attorneys.”