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Why we’re winning the fight against the death penalty in North Carolina
Sometimes, the fight to end the death penalty can feel like a long, slow slog. But we’ve got good news. We are winning! In 2018, for the second year in a row, juries didn’t hand down any new death...
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Why justice matters, even for my guilty clients
Last week, a case in Buncombe County perfectly illustrated the problems with N.C.’s decades-old death sentences. By today’s laws and standards of justice, most of the people on death row simply...
View ArticleWhy most of N.C.’s death row inmates never should have gotten the death penalty
After 12 years without an execution, many people believe the North Carolina death penalty is dead. That might be true — if it weren’t for the more than 140 people still on death row. Our state...
View ArticleRemaining human in the face of an inhumane death penalty system
It’s hard to describe what it feels like to be a capital defense attorney. To be responsible for saving the lives of people who’ve committed terrible crimes, and sometimes, to be forced to watch them...
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An execution’s aftermath: “I watched him die 15 years ago, and I still talk...
Gretchen Engel holding a painting by her executed client, Quentin Jones. By Gretchen M. Engel I watched him die 15 years ago, and I still talk to him sometimes. I talked to him a lot in the weeks after...
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Time to move on: Calls for death penalty fall flat in N.C.
Time to shelve the outdated death penalty rhetoric Maybe you heard that N.C. legislative leaders called last week for executions to return to North Carolina. It’s one of the oldest political tricks in...
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A juror’s dilemma: The wrenching job of deciding another person’s right to live
In a federal courtroom in Greensboro last week, attorneys were parsing a single conversation between a juror and a religious adviser, which took place during a capital trial more than 20 years earlier....
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Keith Tharpe is not an anomaly. Lots of death row inmates have been called...
Justice should be color-blind. Last week, the Supreme Court halted the execution of Keith Tharpe in Georgia because of a juror’s admission that he voted for death because he believed Tharpe was a...
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After idle years, execution chambers crank up
North Carolina just passed its 11th year without an execution, which might make it easy to believe the death penalty is no longer an issue here. The national news in recent weeks should jolt us out of...
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In the fight on crime, death is far more costly than life
Almost every time people discuss the death penalty on social media, at least one person chimes in with this opinion: We should execute people because it’s too expensive to keep them in prison for life....
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For North Carolina, Arkansas executions are a call to action
Ledell Lee just before his execution in Arkansas. Not long ago, Arkansas was much like North Carolina. It hadn’t executed a death row inmate in more than a decade, and the death penalty appeared to be...
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Facing 8 executions in 10 days, Arkansas is a cautionary tale for North Carolina
The eight men Arkansas plans to execute during a 10-day period in April. Arkansas is planning a killing spree unlike any other in modern history. The state plans to execute eight men in a 10-day...
View ArticleAs another jury chooses life, public safety officials condemn the death penalty
Watch a new video from the Center for Death Penalty Litigation: The death penalty was once the default punishment for first-degree murder in North Carolina, but times have clearly changed. In a new...
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B.Y.O. Drugs to executions? The future of the death penalty
Arizona is painting us a vivid picture what it’s like to be in the business of state-sponsored executions today. Executions have been on hold there since 2014, when the state used an experimental drug...
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“Fearless & relentless”— Ken Rose retires after 35 years on death penalty’s...
At the beginning of 2017, Ken Rose retired from his longtime post as an attorney with the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham. Below is our tribute to the unforgettable 35-year career of one...
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In Charleston shootings, death penalty trial only causes more pain
Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, where Roof shot nine people. Dylann Roof’s crime is one of the most horrifying in modern history — the racially motivated massacre of nine peaceful worshipers...
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In life and death, N.C. courtroom corruption threatens the innocent
Darryl Howard hugs his attorney, Barry Scheck, after being exonerated. Photo: Sameer Abdel-Khalek via the Innocence Project “Thank God this wasn’t a capital case,” Barry Scheck said as his client,...
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N.C. passes a decade without executions
Today is a somber anniversary in North Carolina. The last execution carried out in our state was on this day 10 years ago. At 2:11 a.m. on Aug. 18, 2006, Samuel Flippen was the last prisoner to die by...
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Writings from death row: Witnessing murder at age 10
This is the second in a series of essays by Paul Brown, who has been an inmate on North Carolina’s death row since 2000. Read more about Paul here. Paul Brown By Paul Brown In the ghetto, there’s lots...
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Speaking from the grave: Writings from inside death row
The people on death row may be more isolated from the world than any other humans on earth. When we sentence them to death, we cast them out of the human family. We say their lives are no longer worth...
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