‘He can do this’: Protesters march, call on Gov. Cooper to commute death sentences

About 200 people gathered across from the North Carolina Executive Mansion on Saturday afternoon, calling on Gov. Roy Cooper to commute the sentences of incarcerated people in the state facing the death penalty.

The rally, which was held in a parking lot on the corner of Person and Jones streets in downtown Raleigh, was the culmination of a roughly two-mile march that began at Central Prison, on Western Boulevard, at noon. About 140 people participated in the march, organizer Noel Nickle said, with more people joining the rally that began shortly after 1:30 p.m.

As protesters marched down Jones Street and neared the Executive Mansion, they chanted “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Death row has got to go!” When they arrived at the rally spot, protesters chanted “No more!” and “Death Row!” in call-and-response before a slate of speakers and performers addressed the crowd.

The event was organized by the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NCCADP) and Decarcerate Now NC, and was held during the third annual Vigil for Freedom and Racial Justice — a four-week campaign of daily vigils outside the governor’s residence with the “primary demand” being for Cooper to “use his clemency power and all other means to decarcerate immediately.”

Nickle, who is the director of NCCADP, said Saturday’s march and rally were the beginning of a two-year campaign that calls on Cooper to commute, or reduce, the sentences of all 135 incarcerated people facing the death penalty in North Carolina before the end of his term.

NCCADP on Tuesday sent two letters to Cooper — one outlining the group’s demands, and another from 19 North Carolinians who have had a loved one “taken by homicide” and who oppose the death penalty for the perpetrators of the crimes against their loved ones and others.

Several of the authors of the latter letter spoke at Saturday’s event, reading their message to Cooper aloud.

“We reject the premise that the execution of a person, even one who committed murder, could somehow bring us justice or closure,” the letter read. “Having suffered the unnecessary, intentional death of a loved one, we don’t wish that fate on other families. An execution cannot bring our family members back to life. Instead, it perpetuates the violence.”

“We hope that he will consider those letters very carefully, and that we will be able to move forward in conversation with him to talk about how he can commute all death sentences before he leaves office in 2024,” Nickle told The News & Observer after the rally.

People came from across the state for the march and rally, and protesters represented a variety of ages, genders and races.

Jaymond Herron, 26, traveled to Raleigh from Cabarrus County, near Charlotte. Herron, who walked in the two-mile march before the rally, said he has attended Decarcerate Now NC’s vigils since they began in 2020.

“I came to stand in solidarity with incarcerated people,” Herron said, “to bring freedom. To call on the governor to use his power to grant relief to people in prison.”

No executions in NC since 2006

According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), North Carolina is one of 27 states in the U.S. where the death penalty is legal. Three of those states have placed moratoriums on the death penalty since 2011.

Nationally, 54% of respondents in a 2021 Gallup poll were in favor of the death penalty as a punishment for murder. In a 2019 poll by Public Policy Polling, 25% of North Carolina voters said they favored the death penalty as a punishment for people convicted of first-degree murder.

According to an April report by DPIC, North Carolina has the fifth-largest Death Row population in the country. It has been more than 15 years since an incarcerated person was executed in the state.

Samuel Flippen, who was convicted of murdering his 2-year-old stepdaughter, died by lethal injection — the only method of execution in North Carolina since 1998 — in August 2006, and remains the last person to be executed in the state since that date.

“We are here today to make sure that even though we’ve not had an execution in 16 years, we’re here to make sure that we will never have an execution,” Nickle said during Saturday’s rally.

In the organization’s letters to Cooper, NCCADP outlined three main arguments against the death penalty in North Carolina, including that the state’s death sentences are “poisoned by racism.” According to DPIC, about 61% of the incarcerated people facing the death penalty in North Carolina are people of color — the eighth-highest percentage in the country.

Cooper has commuted sentences once since taking office in 2017, commuting in March of this year the sentences of three people who were convicted for crimes when they were teenagers. Cooper took the action after the Juvenile Sentence Review Board recommended it. That board, which Cooper formed by executive order in 2021, is intended to “advance North Carolina’s commitment to improve the administration of justice in this state and eliminate racial inequities in the criminal justice system.”

In a statement previously provided to The N&O, Cooper spokesperson Mary Scott Winstead said the governor, the Office of Executive Clemency and the Office of the General Counsel “carefully review all applications for clemency.”

The governor “expects more commutations to be issued as the process moves forward,” Winstead said.

While organizers of Saturday’s event have a long-term vision to abolish the death penalty in North Carolina, Nickle told The N&O, their current, more urgent message is aimed directly at Cooper and the power he holds.

“Right now, Gov. Cooper is our target, because he has the authority,” Nickle said. “He can do this. And there’s no reason that he shouldn’t.”

Reporter Avi Bajpai contributed to this story.