Landmark Racial Justice Act Case will impact over 100 people on death row
History of the Racial Justice Act
In 2009, North Carolina adopted the first-of-its-kind law called the Racial Justice Act (RJA). It allowed people on death row to challenge their sentences on the basis that race was a significant factor in decisions to seek or impose the death penalty. Under the RJA, individuals who successfully prove discrimination will have their death sentence vacated and will be resentenced to life without parole. More than 130 people filed claims challenging their death sentences under the RJA.
In 2012, the first successful claims under the RJA were brought on behalf of four people: Marcus Robinson, Tilmon Golphin, Christina Walters, and Quintel Augustine. In all four cases, a judge found discrimination had played an impermissible role in their cases and commuted their death sentences to life without parole. The North Carolina Supreme Court later reversed the trial judge’s findings of discrimination on the ground that the State should have had additional time to prepare, but it ruled that the four defendants could not be stripped of the life sentences imposed by the judge.
In 2013, the North Carolina state legislature repealed the Racial Justice Act and attempted to make that repeal retroactive.
On June 5, 2020, the North Carolina State Supreme Court ruled that individuals who filed for relief under the RJA before it was repealed could move forward with challenging their death sentences. The decision ensured that none of the individuals who filed a claim under the RJA can be executed without the opportunity to present evidence of racial discrimination in charging, sentencing, or jury selection.
North Carolina vs. Hasson Bacote
Hasson Bacote, a Black man from Johnston County, North Carolina, filed for relief under the RJA in 2010. In Johnston County, every Black person who has faced a capital jury has been sentenced to death. Mr. Bacote argues that race played an impermissible role in jury selection, not just in his case, but in all death penalty cases in North Carolina. Mr. Bacote’s case is the first to move forward since the North Carolina Supreme Court decided in 2020 that all claims made under the RJA remain valid, despite the law’s 2013 repeal. Mr. Bacote’s case is also the first case in North Carolina where a trial court has ordered statewide discovery of prosecution notes from all capital trials of jury selection.
On February 26, 2024, an evidentiary hearing began in Mr. Bacote’s case. At this hearing, Mr. Bacote’s legal team presented social science and historical evidence linking the death sentences of Black men to a pattern of racial terror and intimidation. The legal team presented statistical evidence of racial disparities in the prosecutor’s use of peremptory strikes in capital cases across the State of North Carolina and in Johnston County, as well as racial disparities in capital sentencing in Johnston County that made Mr. Bacote’s death sentence the product of racial discrimination. Mr. Bacote’s case will decide key questions about the scope and application of the RJA.
On August 21, 2024, the court heard closing arguments.
UPDATE: On February 7, 2025, Superior Court Judge Wayland J. Sermons Jr. ruled that race played an impermissible role in jury selection for Hasson Bacote. The court found evidence of discrimination in his case, the cases prosecuted by North Carolina Assistant District Attorney Greg Butler, as well as in Johnston County and District 11, relying upon statistical, cultural, historical, and social science, in addition to court files and records. Consistent with prior case law, Judge Sermons ruled that the RJA does not require defendants to make a showing of discrimination in their own case but found that Bacote did prove discrimination in his case.
In his ruling, Superior Court Judge Wayland J. Sermons Jr. found that prosecutors deliberately struck Black jurors from jury service in Bacote’s case at three times the rate of white jurors. In his findings of discrimination, the judge 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 judge’s ruling set out guidance and made important fact findings that could pave the way for others on death row with RJA claims to successfully challenge their death sentences. On Dec. 31, 2024, former Gov. Cooper commuted the sentences of 15 people on death row, including Hasson Bacote. Even though Bacote was already resentenced to life without parole, the judge issued a ruling in his case because of its importance for the 100-plus people with pending RJA claims.
