JOINT CAUCUS ADVISORY 

Friday, April 18, 2008

Raleigh – Capital Punishment has been on hold in North Carolina since August 2006.

After the Supreme Court lifted a temporary national stay on lethal injection in Kentucky, North Carolina and 28 other states, Republicans in the General Assembly are calling for a decision.

Does North Carolina have a death penalty for murder or not?

It’s a question only the General Assembly can answer, says House Republican Leader Paul Stam (R-Wake). “The Assembly’s lack of action is unfair to the families of innocent victims. It undermines a full deterrent benefit that studies show is effective.”

Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) agrees. “Before the Supreme Court temporarily halted executions to consider the Kentucky case, enforcement of North Carolina's death penalty was interrupted by administrative overreaching accompanied by legislative democrats' failure to act,” Berger said. “With this decision, democrats, particularly those who have campaigned as supporters of the death penalty, no longer have any legitimate excuse for a continuing moratorium in North Carolina.  Actions speak louder than words, and the people of North Carolina want to know that their elected officials mean what they say.”

In addition to the litigation that surrounds every execution, procedural rulings and appeals have also put executions on hold in North Carolina as 166 inmates await execution. Last year, the North Carolina House refused to address an added threat by the North Carolina Medical Board to punish any physician who attended an execution.

North Carolina law requires a physician to attend all executions, and the immediate and lasting effect of the Medical Board’s threat was to begin the “de facto” moratorium on capital punishment.

Early in the 2007 Session of the General Assembly, Republican leaders criticized the Medical Board for threatening doctors who were only following the law. By September, Wake County Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens agreed, ruling the Board had acted outside its authority.

Long before Stephen’s ruling, however, Reps. Tim Moore (R-Cleveland), William Current (R- Gaston), Mark Hilton (R-Catawba), joined Rep. Stam and 39 co-sponsors in drafting House Bill 442, to establish the principle that North Carolina’s Medical Board had no authority to counter state law.

The bill was immediately referred to the House Health Committee but repeated calls for a hearing were ignored.

House Republicans were undeterred, however, and on June 13, 2007 Rep. David Lewis (R-Harnett) offered an amendment to the Medical Practice Act to accomplish the same result. “The Lewis Amendment” was at first set aside for consideration during the required Third Reading, scheduled for the following Monday June 18.

But when the bill came up on Monday’s calendar, and before any debate had occurred, bill sponsor Rep. Lucy T. Allen (D-Franklin) immediately “moved the previous question,” a non-debatable motion designed to kill debate or any further consideration of amendments. A party-line vote on Allen’s motion prevented consideration of The Lewis Amendment.

After the bill passed, Rep. Stam moved to reconsider so the Lewis Amendment could be added.  Again opponents of the death penalty voted to table that motion also, without allowing further debate.  Most consider the vote for Allen’s motion, and a vote on the motion to table to be a vote in favor of a moratorium on the Death Penalty. A year later Republicans remain determined to restore the death penalty for first degree murder. “The death penalty for first degree murder only satisfies the ends of Justice if it is actually enforced,” said Stam.

Senator Berger said, “It is past time for sentences of first degree murder, by violent criminals who have had their punishments stayed by this moratorium, to be carried out. That is the least that can be done for victims and their families.”

In the Kentucky ruling, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia wrote “the unelected have no business setting aside constitutionally permitted punishment when deemed appropriate by the people.”

Immediately after the decision, Virginia Governor Timothy Kane lifted a moratorium on executions, Oklahoma’s attorney general said he would request execution dates as early as June for two inmates who have run out of appeals and Florida Governor Charlie Crist said he has asked state lawyers to put together a “short list” of death warrants.

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