North Carolina Coalition for a Moratorium

North Carolina is under a moratorium on executions, perhaps indefinitely, due to problems with lethal injection as the execution method. A Court has mandated some level of doctor involvement in lethal injection executions. However, the North Carolina Medical Court has threatened to sanction any doctor who participates.

In February of this year, a Superior Court Judge put all executions in North Carolina on hold due to flaws in the lethal injection protocol. Shortly thereafter, the Governor and members of the Council of State approved a new lethal injection protocol requiring the participation of doctors in executions. This protocol is being challenged in administrative hearings and in the courts. The NC Department of Corrections has sued the N.C. Medical Board because of the Board?s assertion that physicians may not ethically participate in executions.

Meanwhile, two death row inmates, Levon Jones and Jonathan Hoffman, have maintained their innocence and, after years on death row, have been awarded new trials by the courts. North Carolina continues to average five new death sentences per year, 20 or so less than our average in the mid 1990s.

Statewide, death penalty support is down to 48%. The leading North Carolina Democratic gubernatorial candidates are generally favorable to a moratorium. Democrats have a majority in both chambers of the Legislature, but the abolition/moratorium community is having a considerable amount of difficulty acquiring support from 10 eastern NC conservative Democrats on most favorable bills.

Over the past year, the North Carolina Moratorium Coalition has grown significantly in membership. It is continuing to partner with new allies, like the NAACP, The Darryl Hunt Innocence Project, Murder Victim Families for Reconciliation, El Pueblo and the North Carolina League of Women Voters, to advance moratorium, reform and abolition legislation.