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8 <br /> 1 Vice-Chair Greene invited Sally Freeman, Nick Courmon, Dewey Williams, and Noel <br /> 2 Nickle forward. She said there is a Walk for Commutation going on right now that started on <br /> 3 September 26th created by the NC Commission for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NCCADP). <br /> 4 She said they are walking 136 miles to raise awareness for the 136 lives at risk of execution in <br /> 5 North Carolina and calling on Governor Cooper to eliminate that risk by commuting the death <br /> 6 sentences. She said the walk began in Winston-Salem and will end in Raleigh on October 10th <br /> 7 which is World Day Against the Death Penalty. She said the walk will begin and end in the two <br /> 8 counties, Forsyth and Wake, where more people are sentenced to death than anywhere else in <br /> 9 the state. In the evenings after the walk each day, there will be gatherings for meals and activities <br /> 10 and in the day, they are pausing at historic and contemporary sites where the racism of the <br /> 11 criminal justice system continues to thrive. <br /> 12 Vice-Chair Greene and Commissioner Richards read the following resolution in turn: <br /> 13 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS <br /> 14 RESOLUTION CALLING ON GOVERNOR ROY COOPER TO COMMUTE ALL NORTH <br /> 15 CAROLINA DEATH SENTENCES TO PRISON TERMS <br /> 16 <br /> 17 WHEREAS, our community upholds the values of fairness and due process for all people; and <br /> 18 <br /> 19 WHEREAS, the criminal justice system, including the death penalty, starts at the local level, with <br /> 20 local tax dollars and local employees used to enforce the law; and <br /> 21 <br /> 22 WHEREAS, the administration of the death penalty affects all of our community's residents as <br /> 23 victims and victims' family members, as offenders and offenders' family members, and the <br /> 24 community at large; and <br /> 25 <br /> 26 WHEREAS, a fair criminal justice system benefits the entire community; and <br /> 27 <br /> 28 WHEREAS, 200 innocent people in the United States since 1973 have been exonerated and <br /> 29 released from death row; and <br /> 30 <br /> 31 WHEREAS, North Carolina's death penalty has led to at least twelve innocent people being <br /> 32 condemned to die in the modern era, one of whom spent 30 years on death row before DNA <br /> 33 testing proved another man was the culprit; and <br /> 34 <br /> 35 WHEREAS, intentional and systematic racial bias has been shown to have a "persistent, <br /> 36 persuasive and distorting role" in North Carolina's death penalty (North Carolina v. Robinson, <br /> 37 2012; Michigan State University, 2010; UNC, 2000); and <br /> 38 <br /> 39 WHEREAS, a 2024 Racial Justice Act hearing revealed stark new evidence of racial inequities in <br /> 40 the death penalty, including the intentional exclusion of Black individuals from capital juries; and <br /> 41 <br /> 42 WHEREAS, the death penalty is closely linked to North Carolina's history of slavery, lynching, <br /> 43 and Jim Crow and continues to be disproportionately imposed on Black men for crimes against <br /> 44 white people; and <br /> 45 <br /> 46 WHEREAS, North Carolina houses the nation's fifth largest death row, made up largely of people <br /> 47 sentenced more than 25 years ago before important reforms to the capital punishment system <br /> 48 and a dramatic drop-off in death sentencing; and <br /> 49 <br />