Black Man Fights Death Sentence Over Alleged Racial Bias In Jury Selection

Lawyers for a Black man in North Carolina presented closing arguments in his death row case on Wednesday (August 21), per WRAL News .

Hasson Bacote was sentenced to death in 2009 after he was convicted of shooting 18-year-old Anthony Surles during a robbery. Bacote is fighting his death sentence under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, which allows death row inmates to appeal over racism in their prosecution.

In 2009, a jury of 10 white people and two Black people handed down Bacote's death sentence. Bacote's lawyers argue that his case was mishandled and tainted with racism in jury selection and training.

If a judge rules in Bacote's favor and lifts his death sentence, more than 100 other death row inmates in North Carolina could appeal their cases under the Racial Justice Act. Though the law was repealed in 2013, people who started their appeals before that time are allowed to continue their cases following a 2020 ruling by the state Supreme Court.

Gretchen Engel , the executive director at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, said she hopes Bacote's case will spark a reckoning and move Governor Roy Cooper to grant reductions or pardons.

"That would be really compelling to Governor Cooper, [a] really strong message about the untenable nature of the death penalty and a call for him to exercise his unbridled power to grant commutations," Engel said.

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