Lawyers representing a black man on death row in North Carolina gave closing arguments on Wednesday (August 21), according to WRAL News.
In 2009, judges sentenced Hasson Bacote to death for shooting 18-year-old Anthony Surles during a heist. Bacote is appealing his death sentence under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act, which allows death row convicts to challenge prejudice in their prosecution.
In 2009, a jury of ten white and two black people sentenced Bacote to death. Bacote’s lawyers assert that racism permeated the jury selection and training process, mishandling his case.
If a judge rules in Bacote’s favor and commutes his death sentence, over 100 additional death row inmates in North Carolina may be able to appeal their cases under the Racial Justice Act. The state Supreme Court’s 2020 verdict will allow those who started their appeals before the statute was repealed in 2013 to continue their cases.
Gretchen Engel, executive director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, said she hopes Bacote’s case sparks a reckoning and prompts Governor Roy Cooper to provide reductions or pardons.
“That would be really compelling to Governor Cooper, a really strong message about the untenable nature of the death penalty and a call for him to exercise his unbridled power to grant commutations,” Engel said.
