19 years since last execution, NC still in death penalty moratorium

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – It has been 19 years since North Carolina executed someone on death row, with the last inmate executed being Samuel Flippen in 2006. Nearly 20 years later, the state is no closer to ending a years-long moratorium on the death penalty.

Right now, 121 people are still sitting on death row, but because of that moratorium, they won’t actually face execution any time soon.

Lawmakers are divided on how to move forward. This past session, Republican lawmakers filed a bill to bring back the firing squad and the electric chair as execution methods. It would actually make the electric chair the default method for executions. Republicans who support the bill hope it would restart executions in the state.

Democratic lawmakers filed a bill to completely repeal the death penalty. Senator Graig Meyer was one of the sponsors of that bill.

“Those of us who want to repeal the death penalty don’t want to repeal punishment for the crimes. We just believe the punishment should not be state-sanctioned death that’s done in our names and paid for with our dollars,” Senator Meyer said. “We believe people should be held accountable, and that’s why our bill would take all of those prisoners on death row and put them into prison for life with no possibility for parole.”

Neither bill advanced in the General Assembly.

Senator Meyer says he also has strong concerns about executing innocent people, as the state has exonerated people in the past who had spent time on death row.