Yes, the death penalty is legal in North Carolina. First-degree murder remains punishable by death under state law, juries continue to impose death sentences, and more than 120 people sit on the state’s death row. No one has actually been executed since August 2006, however, because of unresolved litigation over the lethal injection protocol and pending claims that race influenced capital sentencing. The legal machinery is intact; the executions have stopped.
The Only Crime That Can Bring a Death Sentence
North Carolina reserves the death penalty for a single offense: first-degree murder. Under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-17, a killing qualifies when it is willful, deliberate, and premeditated, or when it occurs during the commission of certain serious felonies such as arson, rape, robbery, kidnapping, or burglary.1North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina Code Chapter 14 – Article 6 Killings by poison, starvation, torture, or a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon of mass destruction also fall within the first-degree definition.
A conviction alone does not produce a death sentence. First-degree murder is a Class A felony punishable by either death or life imprisonment without parole, and the choice between those two outcomes is made in a separate sentencing phase. Under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-2000, the prosecution must prove at least one statutory aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt before death becomes available, and the jury then weighs those aggravators against any mitigating circumstances the defense presents.2North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina Code 15A-2000 – Sentence of Death or Life Imprisonment for Capital Felonies If the jury cannot unanimously agree that death is warranted, the sentence defaults to life without parole.
Who Cannot Be Sentenced to Death
Two categories of defendants are statutorily excluded. People with intellectual disabilities cannot be executed. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-2005 defines intellectual disability as significantly below-average intellectual functioning combined with significant limitations in adaptive behavior, both present before age 18, and the defendant carries the burden of proof. An IQ of 70 or below on a recognized standardized test counts as evidence but is not sufficient on its own.3North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina Code 15A-2005 – Intellectual Disability; Death Sentence Prohibited
Anyone who was under 18 at the time of the killing is also protected. The first-degree murder statute itself directs that such defendants be sentenced under the state’s juvenile sentencing provisions.1North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina Code Chapter 14 – Article 6 This tracks the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in Roper v. Simmons, which held that executing anyone for a crime committed as a juvenile violates the Eighth Amendment.
Why No One Has Been Executed Since 2006
The last execution in North Carolina took place on August 18, 2006, when Samuel Flippen was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his two-year-old stepdaughter.4North Carolina Department of Adult Correction. History of Capital Punishment in North Carolina Nothing has happened since, even though juries have continued handing down new death sentences.
The first obstacle appeared in 2006, when a federal judge found “substantial questions” about whether the state’s lethal injection protocol created an undue risk of excessive pain. In 2007, the North Carolina Medical Board prohibited doctors from doing anything more than observing executions, which conflicted directly with the state’s requirement for qualified medical personnel to administer the procedure. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that the medical board could not block physician participation, but by that point an unofficial moratorium had taken hold. The legislature responded in 2015 by removing the requirement for physician oversight and by shielding the identities of drug suppliers from public disclosure. Executions still did not resume.
Litigation over the specific drugs, dosages, and training used in the protocol remains unresolved. Until courts sign off on it, setting a new execution date remains practically impossible, even for inmates who have exhausted their appeals.
The Racial Justice Act Keeps Cases in Limbo
North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act, passed in 2009, let any death row inmate challenge a sentence by showing that race played a significant role in the decision to seek or impose it, whether through jury selection, sentencing patterns, or prosecutorial conduct. A successful claim reduces the sentence to life without parole.
The legislature repealed the Act in 2013 and attempted to apply the repeal retroactively to defendants with pending claims. In 2020, the North Carolina Supreme Court in State v. Ramseur struck down that retroactive application as an unconstitutional ex post facto law, holding that everyone who had filed a claim before the repeal retained the right to pursue it.5Justia Law. State v. Ramseur
The first post-Ramseur case to move forward was Hasson Bacote’s. On February 7, 2025, a Johnston County Superior Court judge ruled that prosecutors had struck Black jurors from Bacote’s trial at three times the rate of white jurors and that race played an impermissible role in jury selection. The judge found evidence of prosecutors using thinly veiled racist language to describe Black defendants. Bacote’s sentence had already been commuted, but the ruling provides a legal roadmap for more than 100 other death row inmates with pending Racial Justice Act claims and established that defendants do not have to prove discrimination occurred specifically in their own case to win relief.
Governor Cooper’s 2024 Commutations
On December 31, 2024, outgoing Governor Roy Cooper commuted the death sentences of 15 people on North Carolina’s death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.6Office of the Governor of North Carolina. Governor Cooper Takes Capital Clemency Actions It was the largest single use of capital clemency in the state’s modern history. The authority comes directly from the North Carolina Constitution, which grants the Governor the power to issue reprieves, commutations, and pardons for all offenses except impeachment, without any requirement for legislative approval.
After the commutations, North Carolina’s death row holds 123 people, according to the Department of Adult Correction’s roster.7North Carolina Department of Adult Correction. Death Row Roster The population has been shrinking through commutations, successful appeals, and natural deaths. When the attorney general determines that a death row inmate has exhausted all appeals, the attorney general directs the Secretary of the Department of Adult Correction to set an execution date, but that step has not been taken since 2006.8North Carolina Department of Adult Correction. Death Penalty
How Executions Would Be Carried Out
If executions resume, the method will be lethal injection. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15-188 requires that a condemned person receive an intravenous injection of substances in a lethal quantity, with the specific procedure set by the Secretary of the Department of Adult Correction.9North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina Code 15-188 – Execution Method Electrocution and lethal gas, both used earlier in the state’s history, have been abolished by statute.10North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina Code 15-187 – Death Penalty If a North Carolina court declares lethal injection unconstitutional or it becomes unavailable, the Secretary has 120 days to select an alternative method already adopted by another state and not struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Executions take place inside a permanent death chamber at Central Prison in Raleigh. Male death row inmates are housed at Central Prison, and female inmates are held at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women, also in Raleigh.8North Carolina Department of Adult Correction. Death Penalty
The Current State of Capital Punishment
The death penalty in North Carolina exists as a sentencing option that, in practice, produces life-without-parole outcomes through a far more expensive and lengthy process than a non-capital prosecution. The statutes authorizing executions remain fully in force. Juries can still impose death sentences, prosecutors can still seek them, and the death chamber at Central Prison still stands ready. Pending Racial Justice Act claims and unresolved lethal injection litigation show no sign of clearing soon, so the gap between what the law allows and what the state actually does is likely to continue.