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roy cooper
'Historic': NC Gov. Cooper Commutes 15 Death Sentences
Calling Cooper "courageous," executive director of the state's ACLU noted that with this decision, the Democrat "has commuted more death sentences than any governor in North Carolina's history."
Jan 01, 2025
Death penalty abolitionists are praising former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper for one of his final actions in office: The Democrat on Tuesday commuted the sentences of 15 men on death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Term-limited Cooper—who passed the torch to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein on Wednesday after eight years in office—announced the decision following a campaign by racial justice advocates and outgoing President Joe Biden's decision last week to commute the sentences of 37 people on federal death row to counter an expected killing spree under President-elect Donald Trump.
Although no executions have occurred in North Carolina in nearly two decades due to ongoing litigation, Cooper received clemency petitions from 89 of the 136 people on death row in the state, according to his office. After reviewing each case, the governor—who previously served as the state's attorney general for 16 years—granted 15.
"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 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."
Big news in North Carolina: Governor Cooper, on his final day in office, commuted the sentences of 15 people on death row. (That's roughly 10% of the state's row.) www.npr.org/2024/12/31/g... We had reported last year on the urgent campaign to get Cooper to commute on his way out:
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— Taniel ( @taniel.bsky.social) December 31, 2024 at 7:35 PM
Welcoming the announcement, Chantal Stevens, executive director of ACLU of North Carolina, said that "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."
"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," Stevens continued. "This historic decision, following President Biden's decision to commute the sentences of 37 people on federal death row, reflects growing recognition that the death penalty belongs in our past, not our future."
"With 121 people still on death row in our state, we know there is much more work to be done to realize that vision, and the ACLU of North Carolina will continue to advocate for the end of the death penalty once and for all," she added.
Thank you Gov. Roy Cooper for sparing 15 lives from the death penalty. The carceral system should not be allowed to use taxpayer dollars to put people to death – it's the cruelest and only irreversible punishment. #ncpol www.cbs17.com/news/north-c...
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— Prison Policy Initiative ( @prisonpolicy.bsky.social) December 31, 2024 at 4:32 PM
Stevens' group as well as the national ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation (CDPL), the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), and Durham attorney Jay H. Ferguson have represented Hasson Bacote, who brought the lead case challenging the death penalty under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act (RJA).
Bacote, a 38-year-old Black man convicted of first-degree murder in Johnston County in 2009, was among those who had their sentences commuted on Wednesday. According to Cooper's office, the other 14 men are:
- 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; and
- Vincent Wooten, 52, convicted in Pitt County in 1994.
"We are thrilled for Mr. Bacote and the other... people on death row who had their sentences commuted by Gov. Cooper today," said Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project. "This decision is a historic step towards ending the death penalty in North Carolina, but the fight for justice does not end here. We remain hopeful that the court will issue a ruling under the state's Racial Justice Act in Mr. Bacote's case that we can leverage for relief for the many others that still remain on death row."
The North Carolina General Assembly passed the RJA, which barred seeking or imposing the death penalty based on race, in 2009. Although state legislators then repealed the law in 2013, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that those who had already filed claims under it should still receive hearings.
Bacote's evidentiary hearing began last February, and the court heard closing arguments in August. LDF senior counsel Ashley Burrell noted Tuesday that "the RJA hearing demonstrated that racial bias infiltrates all death penalty cases in North Carolina, not just Mr. Bacote's and those in Johnston County."
Shelagh Kenney, deputy director of the Durham-based CDPL, similarly said that "Mr. Bacote brought forth unequivocal evidence, unlike any that’s ever been presented in a North Carolina courtroom, that the death penalty is racist."
"Through years of investigation and the examination of thousands of pages of documents, his case revealed a deep entanglement between the death penalty and North Carolina's history of segregation and racial terror," Kenney added. "We are happy Mr. Bacote got the relief he deserves, and we hope Gov. Cooper's action will be a step toward ending North Carolina's racist and error-prone death penalty for good."
NC Newslinereported that "the commutations came as inmates in North Carolina face a ticking clock on the death penalty, which has been on hold for nearly 20 years amid challenges to the punishment's legality. Should the courts in North Carolina rule against those challenges, executions could resume with haste, as dozens of the state's death row inmates have exhausted all other avenues for appeal."
Separately on Tuesday, Cooper announced commutations for 54-year-old Brian Fuller, who has served 27 years after being convicted of second-degree murder in Rockingham County, and 63-year-old Joseph Bromfield, 63, who has served 34 years after being convicted of first-degree murder in Cumberland County. They will both become parole eligible immediately.
Cooper also pardoned 43-year-old Brandon Wallace, who was convicted of conspiracy to traffic cocaine and marijuana in Lee County in 2007, and 53-year-old John "Jack" Campbell, who was convicted of selling cocaine in Wake County in 1984
The decisions capped off Cooper's two terms as governor, during which he often had to contend with Republicans' veto-proof legislative majorities. Due to that experience, the Democrat frequently faces speculation that he may pursue federal office.
"If you're going to run for public office again, you must have your heart and soul in it, you must have the fire in the belly," Cooper
toldThe Associated Press in December, explaining that he plans to spend the next few months considering his future. "I'm going to think about how I can best contribute to the things that I care about."
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Rights Advocates Call on North Carolina Governor to Veto GOP's 'Anti-Voter' Bill
S.B. 747 places new restrictions on absentee voters and empowers partisan poll watchers, opening the door for voter intimidation, advocates say.
Aug 18, 2023
Voting rights advocates in North Carolina are calling on Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to veto Senate Bill 747 following the Republican-controlled state General Assembly's passage of the legislation on Wednesday night, with the GOP moving to restrict the use of absentee ballots and take other steps that would "make it harder for people to vote rather than easier," according to one Democratic Party official.
By imposing new limits on when election officials can process absentee ballots, among other measures, the bill "is simply and basically voter suppression," Anderson Clayton, chair of the state party, told The Washington Post Thursday.
Although Republican state lawmakers joined Democrats in 2009 in unanimously supporting legislation to ensure that absentee ballots would be accepted by officials up to three days after voting ends as long as the ballots were postmarked by Election Day, the GOP pushed through new rules requiring election boards to count absentee ballots only if they are received by 7:30 pm on Election Day.
Advocates say thousands of voters may now be disenfranchised due to mail delays and that certain groups will be disproportionately affected by the new limits.
"Ending the three-day grace period would cruelly harm older voters, people with disabilities, rural voters ,and others who rely on mail-in absentee voting as a lifeline for exercising their right to vote," said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, in a statement. "North Carolinians who follow well-established rules and cast their ballot on or before Election Day shouldn't have their vote thrown away because of a delay in mail delivery that's no fault of their own."
Cooper, who is expected to veto the legislation, said Republicans in the state Senate and General Assembly pushed the bill by "using the 'big lie' of election fraud" and baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was "rigged" in President Joe Biden's favor.
The Republican Party "wants to block voters they think won't vote Republican, legitimize conspiracy theorists to intimidate election workers, and anoint themselves to decide contested elections," said Cooper.
In addition to restricting the use of absentee ballots, S.B. 747 will require voters who use North Carolina's same-day registration system to vote using a "retrievable" ballot that can be disqualified after just one attempt to deliver a voter registration card, instead of the two attempts that are currently required before a ballot is rejected.
Voters will be permitted to challenge the registrations of anyone in their county under the new law and partisan poll watchers will be allowed to listen to conversations between voters and poll workers and take notes—opening the door to voter intimidation, rights advocates said.
"Voter intimidation is now theoretically legal inside of a polling location," Clayton told the Post.
While North Carolina has long had an "accessible election system that works well for voters throughout the state," Phillips said, "politicians in the legislature are now placing harmful burdens on voters and election administrators."
"Senate Bill 747 is filled with a number of bad ideas that undermine North Carolinians' freedom to vote," he added. "We urge Gov. Cooper to veto this unnecessary and damaging bill."
Activist Joe Katz noted that the bill was passed after the Republican Party won legislative supermajorities using district maps that disenfranchised Democratic voters and after state Rep. Tricia Cotham (R-100) changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican following her staunchly pro-abortion rights election campaign last year.
Cotham's decision to join the Republicans gives the party a General Assembly supermajority that could override Cooper's veto.
"North Carolina just won't quit suppressing the vote," said Leslie Proll, who heads the voting rights program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Changes like the ones included in S.B. 747 "do not improve the integrity of our elections," Megan Bellamy, vice president for law and policy at Voting Rights Lab, told the Post. "If anything, they erode the trust of voters."
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Groups, Lawmakers Demand FERC Deny Mountain Valley Pipeline Extension for NC
"North Carolinians refuse to be led on by greedy energy corporations, and time and again our state's residents have told legislators and regulators this pipeline and its extension are not needed," said one campaigner.
Jul 25, 2023
The Sierra Club and other advocacy groups on Tuesday highlighted the growing chorus of residents, political leaders, and organizations opposed to a partially built fracked gas pipeline in West Virginia and Virginia along with a proposed expansion into North Carolina.
The latest wave of opposition to the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) comes in the form of public comments submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regarding a potential three-year extension to complete the Southgate project. Unlike the initial portion of the pipeline, construction has not begun on the North Carolina section.
"The future we want to build for our communities starts today, holding our regulators accountable and ensuring we never see the day when this dangerous and unnecessary project harms communities," said Sierra Club senior field organizer Caroline Hansley.
"North Carolinians refuse to be led on by greedy energy corporations, and time and again our state's residents have told legislators and regulators this pipeline and its extension are not needed," she added. "With no trees cut, no pipe laid, and no meaningful headway to commence construction, we ask decision-makers to deny this pipeline from ever harming these communities."
"With no trees cut, no pipe laid, and no meaningful headway to commence construction, we ask decision-makers to deny this pipeline from ever harming these communities."
Sierra Club joined Appalachian Voices, Good Stewards of Rockingham, Clean Water for North Carolina, Haw River Assembly, North Carolina Conservation Network, 7 Directions of Service, and the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition for a letter urging FERC "to find that there is no good cause to grant an extension of time for the project's certificate of public convenience and necessity."
"This is a clear opportunity for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to do its due diligence and protect the public interest and the environments of Virginia and North Carolina by sending MVP back to the drawing board," Appalachian Voices North Carolina program manager Ridge Graham said Tuesday.
Emily Sutton of Haw River Assembly argued that the Southgate project "provides no public necessity or benefit for North Carolinians that outweighs the destruction of the places that we love."
"The Haw River is a lifeline for our communities and the ecosystems that depend on it, providing drinking water, recreational access, flood control, and critical habitat for sensitive wildlife," Sutton explained. "This project threatens to irreparably destroy the health of this watershed. When given the opportunity to fight to protect it, our communities and the legislators that represent them made their voices heard."
Along with the coalition of advocacy groups, the NAACP Virginia State Conference, 22 Virginia legislators, 52 North Carolina lawmakers, Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, and Congresswomen Valerie Foushee and Kathy Manning, both North Carolina Democrats, sent FERC comments opposing the project.
Detailing their three main reasons for asking FERC not to extend the project's certificate, the congresswomen wrote: "First, the MVP Southgate is widely opposed... Second, North Carolina and Virginia regulators rejected permit applications for the MVP Southgate in 2021, and the company has failed to diligently pursue new applications."
"Finally, FERC's original need determination for the MVP Southgate pipeline is now woefully outdated," they continued, also calling for a new 30-day comment period for landowners and communities to weigh in on MVP, which remains tied up in legal challenges.
Last month, after President Joe Biden signed debt ceiling legislation he negotiated with congressional Republicans that included language to fast-track completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, FERC said the developer "has all necessary authorizations" for the project in West Virginia and Virginia, and "is therefore authorized to proceed with all remaining construction."
However, earlier this month a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuity temporarily halted construction of a section in the Jefferson National Forest. Despite the president's climate pledges and extreme heat sparking fresh demands for ditching fossil fuels, the Biden administration has joined the pipeline developer, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), some GOP lawmakers, and other MVP proponents who are asking the nation's Supreme Court to block the order.
As two Western Pennsylvania Republicans in Congress also weighed in, Jamie Williams, president of the Wilderness Society—whose lawsuit led to the order pausing some MVP construction—told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Tuesday that those behind the pipeline are "attempting yet another end run around justice."
"Construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline through the Jefferson National Forest has been on hold for years—the 4th Circuit has simply maintained the status quo while this ongoing, important legal challenge to the destructive pipeline is heard in court," Williams said. "The order halting construction is lawful, and it should alarm every American when Congress ignores the vital role of an independent court system in our constitutional structure."
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