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Carrboro, Chapel Hill call for death-penalty repeal

Posted on July 5, 2012July 11, 2012 by Staff

By Rose Laudicina
Staff Writer

According to Chapel Hill Town Council Member Penny Rich, it’s not unusual for the municipalities in Orange County to be more forward-thinking than other towns in North Carolina.

And when it comes to the topic of the death penalty, Orange County is once again ahead of the curve.

Both Chapel Hill and Carrboro recently passed resolutions calling for North Carolina, the federal government and the U.S. military to repeal the death penalty.

In both instances the resolution passed unanimously.

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen and the Chapel Hill Town Council were the first two local governments in North Carolina to pass such a resolution.

“We are a forward-thinking county,” Rich said. “It is not unusual for the two municipalities to be the first to act on things.”

People of Faith Against the Death Penalty (PFADP) Executive Director Stephen Dear said that while he is happy that the two towns passed the resolution, he is not completely surprised.

“It means that once again our community is setting an example for towns and counties across the state and the country on a critical public-policy issue,” he said.

Dear said he and his organization contacted the two mayors and several members of the two boards to explain to them why they should call for a repeal.

“We were not surprised that it passed unanimously,” Dear said. “We are very grateful for the support and we hope other local-government leaders will see the unanimous support for it and it will influence their thinking.”

In addition to educating the board members, PFADP held a community forum in Chapel Hill to give members of the public an opportunity to discuss the death penalty.

Dear said banning the death penalty could save money by keeping people off death row and instead having them sentenced to life in prison without parole, something he is working hard to make people understand.

“People think it is more expensive to have someone in prison, but it is actually cheaper than the death penalty because of the extraordinary cost of the trials,” he said.

Dear explained that trials that include a death-penalty sentence are more expensive because they are more intricate, take more time and are more labor-intensive than trials that do not hold a death-penalty sentence.

“States without the death penalty have significantly lower homicide rates than states that have the death penalty,” he said, adding that the death penalty has not been shown to be a deterrent to those committing crimes.

Additionally, both Dear and Rich said that time and time again death-penalty sentences have been shown to be influenced by racial and class bias.

“Personally, I am against the death penalty,” Rich said. “I don’t think it is racially fair. More people of the African-American race get sentenced to the death penalty than white folks do; it is unfair.”

While Chapel Hill and Carrboro may be the first towns to officially ask for the repeal of the death penalty, some 750 businesses and congregations across North Carolina have also passed similar resolutions.

But while support for repealing the death penalty is growing, Dear doesn’t believe it will be banned in North Carolina any time soon.

“It will be years,” Dear said.

Even so, Dear holds out hope that North Carolina will be the first Southern state to ban the death penalty, and he will continue to work toward educating the public and garnering more support.

“We hope to change the dialogue around the death penalty,” he said. “It is broken, expensive and a product of a bygone era.”

“I am very proud of the leaders of Chapel Hill and Carrboro for setting this great example.”

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