Cooper commutes 15 death row inmates' sentences on last day as governor

On his final day in office Tuesday, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper commuted the sentences of 15 people on North Carolina's death row. It comes on the heels of a similar decision days earlier by Democratic President Joe Biden, for federal death row prisoners.

No one has been executed in this state since 2006.

The actions by Biden and Cooper won't let any of the convicted killers out of prison. Instead, they no longer face the death penalty and will instead serve life in prison, without the chance of parole.

“These reviews are among the most difficult decisions a Governor can make and the death penalty is the most severe sentence that the state can impose,” Cooper said in a written statement. “After thorough review, reflection, and prayer, I concluded that the death sentence imposed on these 15 people should be commuted, while ensuring they will spend the rest of their lives in prison."

Among those included in the list is Hasson Bacote, a man who argued that race played a role in his sentencing nearly two decades ago.

"He was incredibly grateful to his team. He felt relieved and was absolutely overjoyed," Gretchen Engel, Executive Director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation said.

Bacote was previously sentenced to death for the 2007 death of Anthony Surles during a robbery attempt. Bacote and his attorneys argued that racial bias in the jury selection process affected his fate.

"The role that race plays in determining who serves on juries in these cases, and ultimately who lives and who dies, as the evidence demonstrated in Johnson County," Engel said.

Surles' mother expressed that she wished Bacote’s sentence had never been changed.

A spokesman for the North Carolina Republican Party claimed that Governor Cooper is more focused on appealing to "left-wing donors," a comment seen as a dig as Cooper looks ahead to his next political move.

The governor explained that he considered several factors, including potential racial influences on the case, credible claims of innocence, and the mental and intellectual capacity of the defendant.

Jake Sussman, Chief Counsel for Justice System Reform at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, stated, "This is a reflection of a continuing understanding and appreciation for the flaws that affect our criminal legal system and the death penalty."

Prior to this, only five death sentences had been commuted in the state since 1977.

"Fifteen is not a small number, and finding flaws in those cases is significant," Engel said.

Republicans slam Cooper's death row decision

A North Carolina Republican Party spokesman slammed the news, telling WRAL that Cooper's decision was little more than "appealing to left-wing donors" as Cooper eyes his political future post-governorship.

Unlike Biden, who nearly emptied out federal death row by commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 prisoners there, Cooper's decision Tuesday was more targeted. His 15 commutations account for 11% of the 136 people who had been on North Carolina's death row.

Those 15 prisoners include 11 clients of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, a Durham-based group that has been putting pressure on Cooper and other state leaders for years in opposition to capital punishment. "It makes sense that governors are taking steps to prevent executions, given the hundreds of death row exonerations we’ve seen across the country and the overwhelming evidence of racism in capital trials," said Gretchen Engel, the group's leader.

The leader of the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said more commutations should've been issued but still praised Cooper, noting that no other governor has done anything similar in state history.

"With this action, Gov. Cooper has commuted more death sentences than any governor in North Carolina’s history and joins the ranks of a group of courageous leaders who used their executive authority to address the failed death penalty," ACLU of NC executive director Chantal Stevens said. "We have long known that the death penalty in North Carolina is racially biased, unjust, and immoral, and the Governor’s actions today pave the way for our state to move towards a new era of justice."

One of the men whose sentence Cooper commuted was Hasson Bacote, whose death sentence has been subject to intense courtroom debate in the years since about racial bias on the Johnston County jury who sentenced him to die in 2009.

Bacote was back in court earlier this year seeking to be re-sentenced to life in prison, which Cooper has now granted.

Cooper said 89 of North Carolina's 136 death row prisoners had asked for their sentences to be commuted, meaning he rejected most of the requests. The ACLU also noted that fact, promising to continue pressing for more commutations in the future. Democrat Josh Stein will be sworn in as governor on Wednesday.

The men whose death penalty sentences he commuted are:

• Hasson Bacote, 38, convicted in Johnston County in 2009.
• Iziah Barden, 67, convicted in Sampson County in 1999.
• Nathan Bowie, 53, convicted in Catawba County in 1993.
• Rayford Burke, 66, convicted in Iredell County in 1993.
• Elrico Fowler, 49, convicted in Mecklenburg County in 1997.
• Cerron Hooks, 46, convicted in Forsyth County in 2000.
• Guy LeGrande, 65, convicted in Stanly County in 1996.
• James Little, 38, convicted in Forsyth County in 2008.
• Robbie Locklear, 52, convicted in Robeson County in 1996.
• Lawrence Peterson, 55, convicted in Richmond County in 1996.
• William Robinson, 41, convicted in Stanly County in 2011.
• Christopher Roseboro, 60, convicted in Gaston County in 1997.
• Darrell Strickland, 66, convicted in Union County in 1995.
• Timothy White, 47, convicted in Forsyth County in 2000.
• Vincent Wooten, 52, convicted in Pitt County in 1994.

Cooper added that a number of factors went into his decisions on whose requests to grant or deny, including input from prosecutors, families of the victims, statements made by jurors about the cases, questions of racial bias and, in some cases, indications that the convicted killers might actually be innocent and wrongfully convicted.

North Carolina has wrongfully convicted at least dozens of people of serious crimes like murder, and 75 of them have been formally exonerated in recent years. Some of the wrongful convictions were blamed on errors at the State Crime Lab, which Cooper ran as attorney general, although the problems largely predated Cooper. His announcement Tuesday noted that North Carolina has not executed anyone since 2006, due to ongoing lawsuits.

One man who was wrongfully convicted of a 1992 double-murder in Hickory and sentenced to death, before being exonerated and freed in 2008, released a statement Tuesday — through the group NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty — praising Cooper for granting clemency to others.

"North Carolina’s death row took almost 15 years of my life for crimes I didn’t commit," Glen Chapman said. "We shouldn’t have a death penalty when such horrible mistakes are possible. Gov. Cooper stood on the side of justice today by commuting death sentences."

Jeff Nieman, the elected district attorney for Orange and Chatham counties, also said Cooper made the right decision. His experience as a prosecutor, he said, has shown him the threat of the death penalty does nothing to deter crime.

"I’ve never seen the death penalty do anything to bring down crime rates," Nieman said. "It’s past time for a new approach."

Cooper himself was also at least partially responsible for some of the men's death sentences in the first place, having spent 16 years leading the state's criminal appeals work — including efforts to keep prisoners on death row — as part of his duties when he was attorney general from 2001 until 2017 when he became governor.