North Carolina Judge Rules Racial Bias Influenced Death Penalty Case

The ruling highlights systemic racial discrimination in jury selection and sentencing, with potential implications for other death row cases in the state.

• Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons Jr. found that racial bias played a significant role in the jury selection and sentencing of Hasson Bacote, a Black man sentenced to death in 2009.
• The judge cited evidence showing Black jurors were disproportionately excluded from Bacote’s trial, with prosecutors striking them at three times the rate of white jurors.
• Bacote’s death sentence had already been commuted to life without parole in 2024 by former Governor Roy Cooper, but the ruling could influence similar cases under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act.
• Statistical studies presented during the hearing revealed systemic racial disparities in death penalty cases in Johnston County, where every Black defendant in capital cases received the death penalty.
• The North Carolina Department of Justice plans to appeal the decision, which could set a broader precedent for addressing racial bias in capital punishment cases statewide.

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