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3 <br /> 1 WHEREAS, our community upholds the values of fairness and due process for all <br /> 2 people; and <br /> 3 <br /> 4 WHEREAS, the criminal justice system, including the death penalty, starts at the local <br /> 5 level, with local tax dollars and local employees used to enforce the law; and <br /> 6 <br /> 7 WHEREAS, the administration of the death penalty affects all of our community's <br /> 8 residents as victims and victims' family members, as offenders and offenders' family members, <br /> 9 and the community at large; and <br /> 10 <br /> 11 WHEREAS, a fair criminal justice system benefits the entire community; and <br /> 12 <br /> 13 WHEREAS, more than 140 innocent people in the United States since 1973 have been <br /> 14 exonerated and released from death row after having been wrongfully convicted and spending <br /> 15 a combined more than four centuries on death row (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list- <br /> 16 those-freed-death-row); and <br /> 17 <br /> 18 WHEREAS, North Carolina's death penalty has led to seven innocent people being <br /> 19 condemned to die in the modern era before they were exonerated <br /> 20 (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty#inn-st); and <br /> 21 <br /> 22 WHEREAS, intentional and systematic racial bias has been shown to have a "persistent, <br /> 23 persuasive and distorting role" in North Carolina's death penalty (North Carolina v. Robinson, <br /> 24 2012; Michigan State University, 2010; UNC, 2000); and <br /> 25 <br /> 26 WHEREAS, less than one percent of murders lead to death sentences and rarely <br /> 27 involve "the worst of the worst" defendants (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/arbitrariness); and <br /> 28 <br /> 29 WHEREAS, states without the death penalty have had consistently lower murder rates <br /> 30 (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-about-deterrence-and-death-penalty); and <br /> 31 <br /> 32 WHEREAS, North Carolina statutes already involve life imprisonment without the <br /> 33 possibility of parole as an alternative to the death penalty; and <br /> 34 <br /> 35 WHEREAS, the death penalty in North Carolina annually costs more than 10 million <br /> 36 taxpayer dollars per year more than life imprisonment without parole (Duke University, 2009); <br /> 37 and <br /> 38 <br /> 39 WHEREAS, millions of North Carolina taxpayers' dollars spent on the death penalty <br /> 40 every decade could be used for crime prevention and programs to offer assistance to murder <br /> 41 victims' families; <br /> 42 <br /> 43 NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED the Orange County Board of Commissioners <br /> 44 calls on the Governor of North Carolina and our Legislators in the N.C. General Assembly, the <br /> 45 President of the United States, and our Representatives and Senators in the United States <br /> 46 Congress to adopt policies and executive orders and to enact legislation repealing the death <br /> 47 penalty in North Carolina and in the federal and military jurisdictions, and to use funds saved to <br /> 48 assist murder victims' families and for crime prevention programs, and to ratify a suspension of <br /> 49 all executions until such legislation is enacted into law. <br /> 50 <br />