Governor Cooper Takes Capital Clemency Actions
RALEIGH – Governor Roy Cooper announced today (Tuesday) that he has commuted the sentences of 15 people on death row in North Carolina to life without the possibility of parole. Governor Cooper said he commuted these sentences after a thorough review of detailed petitions for clemency submitted by the defendants, input from district attorneys and the families of victims, and close review by the Governor’s Office.
“These reviews are among the most difficult decisions a Governor can make and the death penalty is the most severe sentence that the state can impose,” said Governor Cooper. “After thorough review, reflection, and prayer, I concluded that the death sentence imposed on these 15 people should be commuted, while ensuring they will spend the rest of their lives in prison.”
No executions have been carried out in North Carolina since 2006 due to ongoing litigation. Before today’s commutations, North Carolina had 136 offenders on death row and the Governor’s Clemency Office received petitions for clemency from 89 of them. The Governor’s Office carefully reviewed, researched, and considered these 89 petitions for commutations, which included the 15 that were granted today.
While no single factor was determinative in the decision on any one case, the Governor’s Office considered a variety of factors in reviewing the petitions.
The people whose sentences were commuted to life without the possibility of parole are:
Hasson Bacote, 38, of Raleigh convicted in Johnston County Superior Court in 2009. Bacote was convicted and sentenced to death for the shooting death of 18 year-old Anthony Surles of Selma. Surles was a Smithfield Selma High student. He was killed during a home invasion and attempted robbery at a mobile home on Hunting Drive in Selma in February 2007.
Bacote was convicted in 2009 after jurors deliberated for 10 hours. He was given the death penalty and became the first person ever convicted of a homicide in the Town of Selma to be sentenced to death.
Iziah Barden, 67, convicted in Sampson County in 1999.
Nathan Bowie, 53, convicted in Catawba County in 1993.
Rayford Burke, 66, convicted in Iredell County in 1993.
Elrico Fowler, 49, convicted in Mecklenburg County in 1997.
Cerron Hooks, 46, convicted in Forsyth County in 2000.
Guy LeGrande, 65, convicted in Stanly County in 1996.
James Little, 38, convicted in Forsyth County in 2008.
Robbie Locklear, 52, convicted in Robeson County in 1996.
Lawrence Peterson, 55, convicted in Richmond County in 1996.
William Robinson, 41, convicted in Stanly County in 2011.
Christopher Roseboro, 60, convicted in Gaston County in 1997.
Darrell Strickland, 66, convicted in Union County in 1995.
Timothy White, 47, convicted in Forsyth County in 2000.
Vincent Wooten, 52, convicted in Pitt County in 1994.
Folling the Democrat play book
Spelling from the Republican dictionary.
Spelling from the Republican dictionary. I bet you’re “pro-life.”
Yup. Now we’ve got to feed ‘em and house ‘em for the rest of their lives.
I will never understand why the family of the murdered victims are forced to pay taxes that are used to feed and shelter the savages that murdered their love ones. How is that fair?
They and corrupt cooper should have to work for free the rest of ther lives for the victims families.
Why We have record crime. Victims rights should prevail not criminals. Roy is horrible
This a** got to live while his victim never got to grow up. As much as I detest the Chinese, I’ll give them credit for one thing: When you receive the death penalty over there, you don’t get the benefit of endless appeals like the murderers do over here. Pathetic.
I agree with supreme leader.
Democrats love murderers and hate babies.
Just like a Biden Puppet
He would have done this regardless of who the president is…
Never understood this whole dance anyway. Posturing on an issue. This is another waste of time and energy.
A liberal is just a conservative that hasn’t been mugged yet!
We are doomed unless every democrat is beaten in every election. How is it that they all think with the same moronic brain? So we can’t execute murders but it’s perfectly fine to murder innocent babies?
Somebody make it make sense!
I had two friends murdered back in the early 1990s. One was really brutal and he got the death penalty. He died recently in prison but not from being executed. There is no use in giving people the death penalty because the evangelicals oppose it. Give them life without parole and be done with it. The other murderer was out in less than ten years, but he has been in and out of jail/prison over the years. I have lost track of him now.
“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” I couldn’t agree more with Adam Smith.
But he did it to follow Biden’s lead
BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY! Tell me why a brutal murderer should live and on top of that we pay for it!