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RES-2024-056 DRAFT 2 <br /> ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS <br /> RESOLUTION CALLING ON GOVERNOR ROY COOPER TO COMMUTE ALL NORTH <br /> CAROLINA DEATH SENTENCES TO PRISON TERMS <br /> WHEREAS, our community upholds the values of fairness and due process for all people; and <br /> WHEREAS, the criminal justice system, including the death penalty, starts at the local level, with local tax <br /> dollars and local employees used to enforce the law; and <br /> WHEREAS, the administration of the death penalty affects all of our community's residents as victims and <br /> victims' family members, as offenders and offenders' family members, and the community at large; and <br /> WHEREAS, a fair criminal justice system benefits the entire community; and <br /> WHEREAS, 200 innocent people in the United States since 1973 have been exonerated and released from <br /> death row; and <br /> WHEREAS, North Carolina's death penalty has led to at least twelve innocent people being condemned to <br /> die in the modern era, one of whom spent 30 years on death row before DNA testing proved another man <br /> was the culprit; and <br /> WHEREAS, intentional and systematic racial bias has been shown to have a "persistent, persuasive and <br /> distorting role" in North Carolina's death penalty (North Carolina v. Robinson, 2012; Michigan State <br /> University, 2010; UNC, 2000); and <br /> WHEREAS, a 2024 Racial Justice Act hearing revealed stark new evidence of racial inequities in the death <br /> penalty, including the intentional exclusion of Black individuals from capital juries; and <br /> WHEREAS, the death penalty is closely linked to North Carolina's history of slavery, lynching, and Jim <br /> Crow and continues to be disproportionately imposed on Black men for crimes against white people; and <br /> WHEREAS, North Carolina houses the nation's fifth largest death row, made up largely of people <br /> sentenced more than 25 years ago before important reforms to the capital punishment system and a <br /> dramatic drop-off in death sentencing; and <br /> WHEREAS, the death penalty has no proven public safety value and public support for executions has <br /> reached historic lows (https://news.galIup.com/pol1/513806/new-low-say-death-penalty-fairly- <br /> applied.aspx); and <br /> WHEREAS, millions of North Carolina taxpayers' dollars spent on the death penalty every decade could <br /> be used for crime prevention and programs to offer assistance to murder victims' families; <br /> NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Orange County Board of Commissioners calls on the <br /> Governor of North Carolina to use his broad clemency power to commute North Carolina's 136 death <br /> sentences to prison terms, therefore insuring that these outdated and unfair sentences are never carried <br /> out. <br /> BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this resolution shall be forwarded by Clerk to the Board of <br /> Commissioners to the Governor of the State of North Carolina. <br /> This the 1st day of October, 2024. <br /> Jamezetta Bedford, Chair <br /> Orange County Board of Commissioners <br />