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N.C.'s death row is up by 1
Only '08 death sentence is from Winston-Salem
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Published: December 28, 2008
RALEIGH - When James Ray Little was sentenced to death in Winston-Salem last month, he became the only person to be added to North Carolina's death row in 2008.
That's the lowest number of death sentences in North Carolina in any year since 1977, when capital punishment was reinstated as a result of U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
It's not a one-year anomaly. Over the past 10 years, death sentences in North Carolina have steadily declined -- a trend caused by several new state laws and a broad public reconsideration of the death penalty.
"Juries are increasingly returning fewer and fewer death sentences," said Jeremy Collins, the director of the N.C. Coalition for a Moratorium. "If you make a mistake in a life case, you do have the opportunity to right the wrong. And we do have a history of making mistakes here in North Carolina, specifically related to the death penalty."
Executions are on hold in North Carolina because of legal challenges to the death penalty. Meanwhile, three people have been exonerated from the state's death row and set free in the past two years.
"People know about that. They've read the stories. These are guys that were innocent of the crimes they were convicted of. Increasingly, the death penalty just doesn't sit well with people anymore," Collins said.
During the mid-1990s, more than 20 people every year were being sentenced to death in North Carolina.
But in the past few years, the number of people added to death row annually has dwindled to the single digits. Prosecutors are asking for the death penalty less frequently, and when they do, juries are often choosing life in prison without parole instead of death.
This year, there were 12 murder trials across the state in which prosecutors sought the death penalty. In 11 of them, juries returned verdicts of life without parole.
The lone exception was Little, 22, who was convicted of robbing and killing a taxi driver who worked for Willard Cab Co. in Winston-Salem.
There are currently 162 people on death row in North Carolina.
Peg Dorer, the director of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys, said that some district attorneys have been more reluctant to ask for the death penalty during the current period of legal limbo for executions in North Carolina. Last month, the state Supreme Court heard arguments over whether doctors must monitor executions; a ruling is expected within a few months.
The number of death-penalty trials also declined after a 2001 state law that gave prosecutors more discretion as to whether to ask for the death penalty. Other recent state laws have also given more protections to defendants, such as the establishment of the Office of Indigent Defense Services, which ensures that poor people accused of crimes are given adequate legal representation.
"Standards of decency have evolved somewhat," said Danielle Carmen, the assistant director of Indigent Defense Services. "I just think there's been this national movement, just toward being more and more selective in identifying what is the ‘worst of the worst' and which cases should even be exposed to the death penalty."
Indeed, new death sentences across the nation were at or near a 30-year low in 2008, according to a report released this month by the nonprofit organization Death Penalty Information Center.
Opponents of the death penalty said that the national trend is even more pronounced in North Carolina because of the recent high-profile exonerations from the state's death row.
Dorer said she believes that the continuing debate over the death penalty in North Carolina has improved the criminal-justice system, but she still believes that the general public supports capital punishment.
She expressed uncertainty about whether the decline in new death sentences should be considered a good thing.
"You'd like to say that it's a good thing -- that maybe we aren't having the kind of violence and murder that merit the death penalty. But unfortunately, we certainly are," Dorer said. "We are having serious violence that I am beyond knowing what one can do with that kind of thing. As a society, it's difficult."
■ James Romoser can be reached at 919-210-6794 or at jromoser@wsjournal.com.
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