Capital punishment in North Carolina

When the prosecution seeks the death penalty, the sentence is decided by the jury and must be unanimous. To avoid any racial bias in the decision, North Carolina created the Racial Justice Act and passed it in 2009.^[4]

In case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, a life sentence is issued, even if a single juror opposed death (there is no retrial).^[5]

The power of clemency belongs to the Governor of North Carolina. On December 31, 2024, outgoing Governor Roy Cooper granted clemency to 15 inmates on North Carolina's death row.^[6] Prior to those granted, North Carolina had over 120 offenders on death row. 89 of those cases petitioned for clemency, which were sent to the Governor's office to be reviewed.^[7]

The method of execution is lethal injection.

In April 2025, a bill was proposed to legalize both firing squad and the electric chair as alternative execution methods.^[8]

First-degree murder is punishable by death in North Carolina if it involves one of the following aggravating factors:^[5]

1. The capital felony was committed by a person lawfully incarcerated.
2. The defendant had been previously convicted of another capital felony.
3. The defendant had been previously convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence to the person.
4. The capital felony was committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest or effecting an escape from custody.
5. The capital felony was committed while the defendant was engaged, or was an aider or abettor, in the commission of, or an attempt to commit, or flight after committing or attempting to commit, any homicide, robbery, rape or a sex offense, arson, burglary, kidnapping, or aircraft piracy or the unlawful throwing, placing, or discharging of a destructive device or bomb.
6. The capital felony was committed for pecuniary gain.^[9]
7. The capital felony was committed to disrupt or hinder the lawful exercise of any governmental function or the enforcement of laws.
8. The capital felony was committed against a law-enforcement officer, employee of the Division of Adult Correction of the Department of Public Safety, jailer, fireman, judge or justice, former judge or justice, prosecutor or former prosecutor, juror or former juror, or witness or former witness against the defendant, while engaged in the performance of his official duties or because of the exercise of his official duty.
9. The capital felony was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.
10. The defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person by means of a weapon or device which would normally be hazardous to the lives of more than one person.
11. The murder for which the defendant stands convicted was part of a course of conduct in which the defendant engaged and which included the commission by the defendant of other crimes of violence against another person or persons.

Death row for males is located at the Central Prison. Female death row prisoners are housed at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. Both prisons are located in Raleigh.

Before the state took over the administration of the death penalty, local governments had the power to execute individuals for their crimes. Public hangings were a common punishment used. In 1910, North Carolina assumed the power for execution.^[10]

Walter Morrison, became the first person to receive capital punishment via the electric chair at the Central Prison in Raleigh on March 18, 1910. Morrison was sentenced to death for rape. In 1936, a new form of execution was used, the gas chamber. Allen Foster became the first incarcerated individual to be put to death by the gas chamber on January 24,1936 in North Carolina.^[10]

In 1983, North Carolina allowed the incarcerated individuals to choose between lethal injection and the gas chamber. By 1998, the main method of execution became lethal injection.^[10] For years, this was the most common method in South Carolina and the state was one of the most frequent that executed death-row prisoners, but, for years, struggled to obtain the drugs necessary to execute via lethal injection, leading to an unintended 13 year pause in executions.^[11] In 2011, Jeffrey Brian Motts was the last person executed in South Carolina prior to the 13 year pause in executions.^[12] During this time, both North and South Carolina, as well as other states, were unable to obtain drugs from pharmaceutical companies necessary for lethal injection due to the companies fear of retaliation and protests from anti-death penalty advocates.^[13]

While lethal injection drugs became more difficult to obtain, other forms of execution became legally possible, such as the electric chair and firing squad. South Carolina’s Act 43 requires electrocution to be used as the default method of execution, though inmates may opt for a firing squad or lethal injection when it is available. Passed in 2021 after the state struggled to secure lethal injection drugs, the law makes South Carolina the only state where the electric chair serves as the primary method.^[14]

A South Carolina man, Brad Sigmon, was executed by firing squad in March, 2025, after being convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat in 2001. He became the first U.S. prisoner in 15 years to be executed using this method, which he chose over electrocution or lethal injection due to fears about the pain associated with both.^[15]

• One trend that has been seen, is an increase in life without parole sentences, while the rates of death penalty sentences have declined. Life without parole (LWOP) has become more a default for the maximum sentencing for more serious crimes.^[16] As of 2025, there are around 200,000 inmates serving LWOP sentences in the United States.^[17] In North Carolina, there were around 3,940 inmates serving LWOP in 2024.^[18] While rates are increasing for LWOP sentences, death penalty punishments have been on a decline. Since 2001, the size of death row has been decreasing every year in the United States. As of 2025, there are about 2,100 inmates on death row, which in 2023 there were 2,241.^[19]

• List of people executed in North Carolina
• List of people executed in North Carolina (pre-1972)
• List of death row inmates in the United States § North Carolina
• Crime in North Carolina
• Law of North Carolina

• Death Row Roster
• Racial Justice Act