Johnston County courthouse. (Photo: North Carolina Judicial Branch website)
A North Carolina judge ruled in a landmark case on Friday that race played a key role in the death penalty trial of Hasson Bacote, a Black man who challenged his death sentence under the Racial Justice Act.
The court found evidence of discrimination in the case as well as in others filed in Johnston County.
Following prior case law, Superior Court Judge Wayland J. Sermons, Jr. ruled that although the RJA does not require defendants to prove discrimination in their own case, Bacote did so in his, as a result of evidence presented regarding the makeup of his jury and the decision of prosecutors to sentence a Black man to death.
Prosecutors deliberately struck Black jurors from jury service in Bacote’s case at three times the rate of white jurors, Sermons found in his ruling. He also took note of racist phrases that the Johnston County prosecutor used to describe Black defendants as a “thug,” “piece of trash,” and “predators of the African plain.”
“This decision provides more definitive proof that capital prosecutions in North Carolina are tainted with racial bias and discrimination,” Cassandra Stubbs, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project, said. “This ruling creates a path to justice for the hundred plus individuals who have filed claims and whose cases were similarly tainted with bias.”
The ruling does not apply statewide — Sermons limited his ruling to Bacote’s case only — but could influence other death penalty trials across North Carolina.
North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act, passed in 2009, allowed people to challenge their death sentences if they could demonstrate race played a role in their trials.
In 2013, the state legislature repealed the statute. A legal challenge allowed the North Carolina Supreme Court to rule in 2020 that those who already filed claims under the act at the time it was repealed were entitled to hearings.
At the end of his time in office, Gov. Roy Cooper on Dec. 31, 2024 commuted the sentences of 15 people on death row, including Bacote.
The defendant was already resentenced to life without parole, but the court moved forward with Bacote’s case due to its magnitude for the additional 100-plus people with pending RJA claims.
“I am deeply grateful to my family, my lawyers, the experts, and to everyone who fought for justice — not just in my case, but for so many others,” Bacote said. “I am grateful to the court for having the courage to recognize that racial bias affected my case and so many others. I remain hopeful that the fight for truth and justice will not stop here.”
Closing arguments for Bacote’s case took place in August after a lengthy trial earlier in 2024.
Attorneys for Bacote built their case around 680,000 documents turned over in discovery, which one lawyer called “the most comprehensive discovery provided by the state on jury selection issues in North Carolina.”
“This decision is a damning indictment of the death penalty, and should serve as a call for every North Carolina death sentence to be reexamined,” Gretchen M. Engel, executive director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, said. “North Carolina must never carry out another execution tainted by racial discrimination.”
Bacote is represented by the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, the ACLU of North Carolina, the Legal Defense Fund, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, and attorneys Jay Ferguson and Henderson Hill. The state is expected to appeal the ruling.
Click here to read Judge Sermons’ ruling.