There are no scheduled executions on North Carolina’s death row. The state has not carried out an execution since August 18, 2006, when Samuel Flippen was put to death by lethal injection, and nearly two decades of litigation over physician participation, the lethal injection protocol, and racial bias in capital sentencing have kept the death chamber at Central Prison idle. A 2025 law aims to restart the process, but pending cases still need to resolve before any inmate receives an execution date.1North Carolina Department of Adult Correction. History of Capital Punishment in North Carolina
Why the State Has No Executions Scheduled
The current standstill began in 2007, when the North Carolina Medical Board announced that any physician doing more than observing an execution could face discipline. State law required medical oversight of lethal injection, so the ruling shut the process down. The Department of Adult Correction sued, and the North Carolina Supreme Court eventually held that the board could not discipline participating doctors. By then, years had already been lost.
Parallel litigation questioned whether the state’s lethal injection protocol amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Drug sourcing problems that hit other states affected North Carolina too. Federal courts left the door open for future challenges even after the U.S. Supreme Court turned aside several lethal injection claims elsewhere.
Then came the Racial Justice Act, passed in 2009, which let death row inmates challenge their sentences with statistical evidence that race influenced jury selection or the decision to seek death.2North Carolina General Assembly. Session Law 2009-464 – Senate Bill 461 A successful claim converted the death sentence to life without parole.
The Racial Justice Act Cases Still in Court
The legislature repealed the Racial Justice Act in 2013. The North Carolina Supreme Court later ruled that applying that repeal to inmates who had already filed claims violated the prohibition against ex post facto laws, restoring the right of roughly 140 death row prisoners to pursue their bias challenges.
Those hearings are grinding through the trial courts. In 2025, a judge found that race played a key role in the capital trial of Hasson Bacote, affecting both jury composition and the sentencing decision, and ruled that racial discrimination tainted every death sentence in that prosecutorial district. Similar hearings are still to come for other inmates. Until they finish, execution dates cannot be set for anyone with a pending claim.
The 2025 Law Aimed at Restarting Executions
In September 2025, the legislature passed House Bill 307, known as Iryna’s Law, targeting the barriers that have kept executions on hold. Its main provisions:
- Any pending appeal or motion in a capital case older than 24 months must be scheduled for a hearing by December 2026, with a hard deadline of December 2027.
- Prosecutors may seek the death penalty when a capital felony is committed against someone on public transportation, a new aggravating factor.
- The bill lifts the prohibition on electrocution and lethal gas. Lethal injection remains primary, but if courts strike it down, the state may use any method approved by another state that the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled unconstitutional.
The bill was forwarded to Governor Josh Stein with an October 3, 2025 deadline to sign, allow it to become law without signature, or veto. A veto could be overridden by a three-fifths legislative majority. Even if the law takes effect, the Racial Justice Act hearings and other pending litigation still have to resolve before individual execution dates can be scheduled.
Cooper’s 2024 Commutations
In December 2024, outgoing Governor Roy Cooper commuted 15 death sentences to life without parole, the largest single grant of capital clemency in North Carolina history. Before that action, only five death sentences had been commuted in the state since 1976, and no prior governor had commuted more than two. All earlier commutations occurred just before a scheduled execution. Cooper’s decision removed roughly a tenth of the death row population from the pool of people who could ever face an execution date.
What Still Has to Happen Before Any Date Is Set
An execution date cannot be scheduled until an inmate has exhausted every layer of legal review. That process routinely takes a decade or longer.
Direct Appeal and Post-Conviction Review
After conviction, the case goes on direct appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court. If that fails, the inmate can file a motion for appropriate relief, the state’s consolidated post-conviction procedure covering what used to be handled through separate motions for new trial and habeas corpus.3North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina General Statutes 15A-1411 – Motion for Appropriate Relief A ruling on that motion can itself be appealed or reviewed by writ of certiorari.4North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina General Statutes 15A-1422 – Review Upon Appeal Once state remedies run out, the inmate can seek federal habeas corpus review, which can extend to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mental Competency
Federal constitutional law and state statute both prohibit executing someone whose mental illness or defect keeps them from understanding the punishment and the reason for it.5North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina General Statutes Chapter 15A Article 56 – Incapacity to Proceed If competency is raised before a scheduled execution, clinical evaluations and a court determination must follow, which can delay or permanently block the process.
How an Execution Date Actually Gets Set
Once appeals end, the original sentencing court sets the execution date in its judgment. The clerk of superior court prepares certificates confirming the sentence and transmits them to the warden at Central Prison and to the Attorney General between 10 and 20 days before the scheduled date.6North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina Code 15-189 – Sentence of Death; Prisoner Taken to Penitentiary No execution can proceed without those certificates in hand.
The warden designates and supervises trained correctional staff to carry out the sentence and reports annually to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Justice and Public Safety on the readiness of the execution team.7North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina Code 15-190 – Person or Persons to Be Designated by Warden to Execute Sentence After nearly twenty years without an execution, the practical readiness of that team is itself an open question. Official notification of a scheduled date goes to the inmate, defense counsel, and victims’ families.
Only first-degree murder qualifies as a capital offense in North Carolina, and only when the prosecution proves at least one aggravating circumstance at a separate sentencing hearing. Lethal injection is the current method, carried out in the death chamber at Central Prison in Raleigh, with the Secretary of the Department of Adult Correction setting the specific procedures.8North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina Code Chapter 15 Article 19 – Execution HB 307 would expand the available methods if it takes effect.
Clemency as the Final Off-Ramp
The Governor of North Carolina has constitutional authority to grant reprieves, commutations, and pardons for all offenses except impeachment. A commutation converts a death sentence to life imprisonment. An inmate or their attorneys can submit a clemency petition citing personal history, rehabilitation, questions about guilt, or concerns about trial fairness. Historically, governors have used the power sparingly, which makes Cooper’s 15 commutations in 2024 a significant departure from decades of practice.
Who Is Currently on Death Row
As of the most recent official count, 123 people are on North Carolina’s death row: 121 men and 2 women. Black inmates make up 61 of the 123, while Black residents represent roughly 22 percent of the state’s population.9North Carolina Department of Adult Correction. Death Row Roster That disparity is what the Racial Justice Act was designed to address, and it is the reason so many pending claims stand between the current roster and any future execution date.
Because the moratorium has held for so long, the death row population is aging in place. North Carolina classifies incarcerated people over 50 as elderly, and a substantial majority of death row inmates now fall into that category, with chronic conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer becoming more common. In practical terms, many are more likely to die of natural causes than to face an execution date.