THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 20, 1994 TAG: 9406200031
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: 940620 LENGTH: GREENSBORO
Six people have been executed in North Carolina since a new death penalty law was enacted in 1977, including David Lawson, who died last week in the gas chamber. North Carolina reinstated the death penalty in June 1977, but the first execution under the law wasn't until 1984. Since then, executions have occurred at a rate of about one every 18 months.
{REST} Contrast that with the period from 1910 to 1961, when executions averaged eight a year. The state took over executions from the counties in 1910. In 1961, the last execution took place under the old death penalty law.
During the 1930s, the average jumped to 13 a year. Some condemned inmates were put to death within three months of convictions. In several instances, two people were executed on the same day.
Now, defendants receive better legal representation. Their attorneys are successful in delaying death sentences or getting them changed to life in prison.
``I'm not sure we as a society really want to speed up the process, as some people want to do,'' Marshall Dayan of the North Carolina Appellate Defender's Office told the Greensboro News & Record. He represents death row inmates, including Lawson, in the appeals process.
Barry McNeill, the deputy state attorney general who argues for the death penalty in the appeals courts, blames the long delay between conviction and execution on Dayan's office and on capital punishment foes.
They file countless appeals and requests for stays of execution, McNeill said, sometimes to the same court three times. Each time, McNeill's office must file a rebuttal.
That diverts his staff from pursuing other death penalty cases, McNeill said.
The appeals are not filed simply to clog the judicial system, Dayan said. When the public sees a case like Lawson - who had been on death row 13 years - they think otherwise.
``The process isn't about delay,'' Dayan said. ``It's about identifying constitutional errors. If we are a society that believes in law, we want to make sure that people are being killed in a lawful manner.''
In some of these long-running cases, the court eventually concluded the original trial was flawed, Dayan said.
The oldest man on North Carolina's death row is Robert Bunning of Greensboro, who was sentenced to death after a 1992 conviction for killing a man during a card game. He is either 64 or 58 years old, depending on which is correct: a birth date at the state Correction Department or the Guilford County court records.
And his appeals process is just in its infancy.
The next execution could come in about seven months, state officials say.
Kermit Smith of Halifax County, on death row since 1981, has a final appeal pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was convicted of the 1980 rape and murder of a North Carolina Wesleyan College student.
A ruling on his final appeal is expected in October. If the court rejects the appeal, an execution date would be set, perhaps for December. Further legal moves could push the date into 1995.
Dayan and others argue that the death penalty consumes too many resources and should be abolished. A Duke University study in 1993 showed that carrying out capital punishment costs the state $167,000 more than if the inmate served 20 years in prison. The study also cited other studies showing that only 10 percent of convicted murderers sent to death row are executed.
State Supreme Court Chief Justice James Exum repeated his opposition to capital punishment last week, citing cost as one factor. Exum said his court devotes 40 percent to 50 percent of its time to capital cases.
And retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell revealed recently that he no longer favors capital punishment because the lengthy appeals process means the majority of death row inmates won't be executed.
by CNB