As N.C. Attorney General from 1974 to 1984, Rufus Edmisten says he may have put more people on death row than any other attorney general in North Carolina’s history. Now, he’s no longer sure he supports the death penalty.
“I don’t want to shock all my law enforcement friends. I don’t want anybody to have a heart attack over it, but I’m about to change my mind on this thing,” Edmisten said in an interview this week.
Edmisten’s comments are the latest of many signs that the tide is turning in North Carolina. A once-stalwart death penalty state is beginning to lose its conviction that it is infallible enough to execute people.
Two weeks ago, Guilford County Rep. Jon Hardister became North Carolina’s first Republican legislator to publicly oppose the death penalty. Hardister said he supports the work of N.C. Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, which wants to replace the death penalty with life in prison with no possibility of parole.
“I don’t trust the government to do it right,” said Hardister. He was among several N.C. conservatives who met with Nebraska Sen. Colby Coash, a Republican who led the successful effort last year to repeal the death penalty in his conservative home state.
People like Edmisten and Hardister are finding all kinds of reasons to oppose executions.
Edmisten pointed to the recent execution in Georgia of Kelly Gissendaner, who received the death penalty while her co-defendant, who actually pulled the trigger, will be eligible for parole in a few years. He described the arbitrariness of who is sentenced to death in the U.S. as “Russian roulette.”
Edmisten also acknowledged the prevalence of prosecutorial misconduct, which has led to several innocent people being sentenced to death in North Carolina.
Hardister pointed to the inefficiencies and high costs of the death penalty, as well as the Republican party’s pro-life stance. (During his speech to Congress last month, Pope Francis announced his opposition to the death penalty on pro-life grounds.)
As Patrick Gannon wrote in the News & Observer last week, “The time has come for a serious talk about whether capital punishment is right for North Carolina. Maybe politicians need to do more than applaud the values they say they support.”
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