DURHAM, N.C. (Dec. 23, 2024) – Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) applauds President Joe Biden for his decision to commute 37 of the 40 federal death row sentences, a critical step toward addressing systemic inequities in the legal system and the moral issues surrounding capital punishment.
This action reflects a commitment to fairness and justice, offering hope for a future where the flaws of the death penalty are acknowledged and addressed. It also reflects a growing public distaste for capital punishment. A Gallup poll released in November found U.S. death penalty support at a 40-year low, with a majority of Millennials and Gen Z now opposing it.
“We are grateful to President Biden for commuting federal death sentences today,” said Jake Sussman, Chief Counsel for Justice System Reform at Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ). “His actions are an important recognition that a system run by human beings is imperfect. Federal death row is plagued by the same problems as state death rows, including racial bias, inadequate lawyering, the misuse of junk science, and people suffering from severe mental illness.”
Three people remain on federal death row and concerns are growing ahead of President-elect Donald Trump taking office in January. Throughout his campaign, Trump said he would resume federal executions and signaled expanding capital punishment.
“The unprecedented wave of federal executions during President Trump’s first term marked a grim chapter in our nation’s history. It exposed the grave injustices that plague capital punishment, the barbarism of state-sanctioned killing, and a deeply flawed system incapable of guaranteeing fairness,” said Sussman. “With his open advocacy for expanding the death penalty, a second Trump administration presents an alarming threat to justice and humanity. Rather than doubling down on an inherently flawed and error-prone system, we must focus on ending practices that perpetuate inequality and irrevocable harm.”
North Carolina advocates now have their eyes on Gov. Roy Cooper, for whom there have been increasingly pressing calls to use his clemency power, which is unilateral and authorized under the North Carolina Constitution, to commute the state’s death row. North Carolina has the fifth largest death row in the U.S. with 136 people serving sentences there – over 60 percent of whom are people of color and one-third of whom are over the age of 60 years old. The state’s death penalty is notoriously infected by race discrimination and error, is incredibly expensive, and does not keep communities safer.
“Governor Cooper has an historic opportunity to burnish his legacy with a very principled and courageous decision to commute the sentences of those on death row,” Sussman said. “North Carolina’s death penalty system has long been plagued by racial bias, wrongful convictions, and disproportionate sentencing. Commuting the sentences of those on death row would reaffirm Governor Cooper’s commitment to fairness and justice, and set a powerful example for the nation.”
Due to ongoing litigation over the method of execution, as well as North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act, there has not been an execution in the state since 2006. Absent the exercise of gubernatorial clemency or a legislative change, however, it is very likely that executions could move forward quickly once the North Carolina Supreme Court weighs in on State v. Bacote, a case filed under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act.
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Southern Coalition for Social Justice, founded in 2007, partners with communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities in the South to defend and advance their political, social, and economic rights through the combination of legal advocacy, research, organizing, and communications. Learn more at southerncoalition.org and follow our work on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.