The Progressive Pulse: “The first case re-evaluating the role of racial bias in the death penalty began last week in Wake County, the result of a landmark 2020 state Supreme Court decision.
Hasson Bacote was convicted of murdering Anthony Surles, an 18-year-old high schooler in Johnston County in 2007, WRAL reported. A jury sentenced Bacote to death in 2009.
That same year, the General Assembly passed the Racial Justice Act, which then-Gov. Bev Perdue signed into law. The RJA allowed individuals on death row to seek sentences of life without parole if they could prove racial bias or discrimination was a significant factor in the decision to seek or impose the death penalty in their case.
After the RJA’s enactment, lawmakers gave those sentenced to death one year to submit their petitions. More than 100 did so, and four petitioners had their death sentences commuted to life without parole, according to Gretchen Engel, director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation.
In 2013, however, state lawmakers repealed the Racial Justice Act. Soon thereafter, the commuted death sentences for the four were reinstated, and other petitioners were denied the RJA hearings they had sought.
Bacote’s attorneys submitted evidence at his original trial that Johnston County prosecutors excluded qualified Black jurors at more than three times the rate of white jurors, according to the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, which represents Bacotes and many other petitioners.
However, because of the RJA repeal, Bacote’s claims of racial bias were not heard.
As Policy Watch has reported, the state Supreme Court in a 6-1 decision, ruled last year that it was unconstitutional to denial hearings to those — such as Bacote — who had filed claims before the law was repealed. Associate Justice Anita Earls wrote in the case State v. Ramseur that applying the repeal retroactively was unconstitutional. State Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby was the lone dissenter in that decision.”