Judge Wayland J. Sermons, Jr. heard Hasson Bacote’s Racial Justice Act claim in Wake County Superior Court on May 20, 2021.
The first case re-evaluating the role of racial bias in the death penalty began last week in Wake County, the result of a landmark 2020 state Supreme Court decision.
Hasson Bacote was convicted of murdering Anthony Surles, an 18-year-old high schooler in Johnston County in 2007, WRAL reported. A jury sentenced Bacote to death in 2009.
That same year, the General Assembly passed the Racial Justice Act, which then-Gov. Bev Perdue signed into law. The RJA allowed individuals on death row to seek sentences of life without parole if they could prove racial bias or discrimination was a significant factor in the decision to seek or impose the death penalty in their case.
FUNDRAISERS held in memory of an inspirational Stourbridge woman have raised an incredible £17,000 for Stourbridge s Mary Stevens Hospice where she spent her final days. Kate Turner (nee Winning), aged 47, passed away at the hospice on December 1 after a re-occurrence of the acute myeloid leukaemia that she had so bravely and successfully battled as a young woman more than 20 years ago. Much-loved Kate courageously fought a three-year battle against the deadly disease in the late 1990s during which she endured chemotherapy, radiotherapy, a bone marrow transplant thanks to sister Sarah, then a second ground-breaking transplant of stem cells after a relapse.
The N.C. Supreme Court ordered on Friday a new trial for Molly Corbett and Thomas Martens in the 2015 murder of Irish businessman Jason Corbett, saying that the two were denied a fair trial.
The decision comes about two months after the court heard oral arguments in the case via video due to the ongoing pandemic. In a 4-3 decision, the state Supreme Court upheld the decision by the N.C. Court of Appeals to overturn the murder convictions of Molly Corbett and Martens.
In the next three weeks, they will be moved from state prison to the Davidson County Jail. Their attorneys will ask a judge to set a bond affordable enough for them to be released from custody. In 2016, after they were charged with murder, they were each released on a $200,000 bond.
KILLERS Tom and Molly Martens have dramatically won a full retrial over their conviction for the murder of Irish businessman Jason Corbett (39).
The North Carolina Supreme Court today ratified a Court of Appeal decision that the father and daughter should have a new trial as it was deemed their ability to argue self defence at their 2017 trial had been unfairly hindered.
It was decided by a majority decision of four judges to three on the Supreme Court just three months after an oral hearing was granted to both the defence and prosecution teams in Raleigh.
However, one dissenting judge pointed out that the evidence against the defendants in this case was overwhelming.
THE Irish family of a murdered father of two said they have placed their faith in God and will now work to help US prosecutors convict his killers for a second time.