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8 <br /> Vice-Chair Greene invited Sally Freeman, Nick Courmon, Dewey Williams, and Noel <br /> Nickle forward. She said there is a Walk for Commutation going on right now that started on <br /> September 26th created by the NC Commission for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NCCADP). <br /> She said they are walking 136 miles to raise awareness for the 136 lives at risk of execution in <br /> North Carolina and calling on Governor Cooper to eliminate that risk by commuting the death <br /> sentences. She said the walk began in Winston-Salem and will end in Raleigh on October 101h <br /> which is World Day Against the Death Penalty. She said the walk will begin and end in the two <br /> counties, Forsyth and Wake, where more people are sentenced to death than anywhere else in <br /> the state. In the evenings after the walk each day, there will be gatherings for meals and activities <br /> and in the day, they are pausing at historic and contemporary sites where the racism of the <br /> criminal justice system continues to thrive. <br /> Vice-Chair Greene and Commissioner Richards read the following resolution in turn: <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 <br /> local tax 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 <br /> victims and victims' family members, as offenders and offenders' family members, and the <br /> 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 <br /> released from death row; and <br /> WHEREAS, North Carolina's death penalty has led to at least twelve innocent people being <br /> condemned to die in the modern era, one of whom spent 30 years on death row before DNA <br /> testing proved another man was the culprit; and <br /> WHEREAS, intentional and systematic racial bias has been shown to have a "persistent, <br /> persuasive and distorting role" in North Carolina's death penalty (North Carolina v. Robinson, <br /> 2012; Michigan State University, 2010; UNC, 2000); and <br /> WHEREAS, a 2024 Racial Justice Act hearing revealed stark new evidence of racial inequities in <br /> the death 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, <br /> and Jim Crow and continues to be disproportionately imposed on Black men for crimes against <br /> 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 <br /> and a dramatic drop-off in death sentencing; and <br />