A North Carolina judge ruled that a Black defendant’s capital trial was undermined by allegations of racial bias during jury selection, potentially opening the door to death row inmates throughout the state being resentenced. The case involves Hasson Bacote, who was sentenced to death in 2009 by 10 white and two Black jurors for his role in a felony murder, NBC reports. Bacote’s is the lead case to test the scope of the state Racial Justice Act of 2009, a law that allows condemned inmates to seek resentencing if they can show racial bias played a role in their cases. Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons Jr. found Bacote proved discrimination, a ruling expected to have a far-reaching effect on many of the other 122 inmates facing the death chamber by paving the way for them to challenge their sentences, says the American Civil Liberties Union, which helped represent Bacote. "What we saw in Mr. Bacote's case is that the more we look for evidence of discrimination in our state's capital jury selection system, the more we find," said Cassandra Stubbs of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project. "This ruling creates a path to justice for the hundred plus individuals who have filed claims and whose cases were similarly tainted with bias."
Bacote, 38, had been seeking to have his death sentence changed to life in prison as a result of the judge’s ruling. On Dec. 31, outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper commuted the death sentences of 15 inmates, including Bacote’s, to life in prison without parole. While Cooper insisted that “no single factor was determinative in the decision on any one case,” among the factors considered were the “potential influence of race, such as the race of the defendant and victim, composition of the jury pool and the final jury.” Cooper’s act of clemency for Bacote provides a reprieve from death row. "When my death sentence was commuted by Gov. Cooper, I felt enormous relief that the burden of the death penalty — and all of the stress and anxiety that go with it — were lifted off my shoulders," Bacote said. "I am grateful to the court for having the courage to recognize that racial bias affected my case and so many others." Nazneen Ahmed, a spokeswoman for state Attorney General Jeff Jackson, said his office intends to appeal Sermons' ruling. When the Racial Justice Act was first signed into law, nearly every person on death row, including both Black and white prisoners, filed for reviews. The law was later repealed in 2013 under then-Gov. Pat McCrory, who believed it created a “loophole to avoid the death penalty,” but those who initially filed challenges could still pursue their litigation. Bacote was charged with murder with two others in the 2007 fatal shooting of Anthony Surles, 18, during a home robbery attempt when Bacote was 20. The other two defendants were convicted on lesser charges and releasedd.
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