In a landmark case, a North Carolina court ruled that racism played an impermissible role in jury selection for Hasson Bacote, a Black man who challenged his death sentence under the North Carolina Racial Justice Act (RJA) (article available here).
Bacote’s is the lead case to test the scope of the Racial Justice Act of 2009, a groundbreaking state law that allows condemned inmates to seek resentencing if they can show racial bias played a role in their cases.
The court found evidence of discrimination in Bacote’s case, the cases prosecuted by North Carolina Assistant District Attorney Greg Butler, as well as in Johnston County, NC, and District 11, relying upon statistical, cultural, historical, and social science, in addition to court files and records.
The Court found that prosecutors deliberately struck Black jurors from jury service at three times the rate of white jurors. The Court also cited the prosecutor’s references to thinly veiled racist phrases to refer to Black defendants, like “thug,” “piece of trash,” and “predators of the African plain.”
The ruling set out guidance and made important fact findings that could pave the way for others on North Carolina's death row to successfully challenge their death sentences, according to the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, which helped to represent Bacote.
The North Carolina Racial Justice Act was a novel piece of legislation passed in 2009 that allowed people to challenge their death sentences if they could show race played a role in their trials. Those who prove racism stand to be resentenced to life without parole.
The state legislature repealed the statute in 2013, but after a legal challenge, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that those who had already filed claims under the RJA were entitled to hearings. Bacote’s case was the first to move forward since the Supreme Court ruling and is the first North Carolina case where a trial court ordered statewide discovery of prosecution notes from jury selection in all capital trials since 1980.