<article name>

Steve McHone, Elias Syriani, Kenneth Boyd, Perrie Simpson, Patrick Moody, Willie Brown, and Samuel Flippen.

These are the names of the seven people that have been executed by the state of North Carolina in the past year. Sadly, all seven of their deaths occurred after the creation of a legislative study committee set up to study the very problems that exist in their cases.

After a four-month hiatus, the House Select Study Committee on Capital Punishment is set to meet again next week.

Since House Speaker Jim Black appointed the study committee in November of last year, only the state of Texas has executed more people than North Carolina. Meanwhile, states around the country are reconsidering how they conduct the business of death and whether that business should be conducted at all.

In December, New Jersey passed a moratorium on executions. Concerns about lethal injection have shut down executions in many states including California, Missouri, and Florida.

Here in North Carolina, the machinery of death is fraught with similar problems, including racial bias, arbitrariness, cost, mental illness, and inadequate defense. Legislators on the study committee have heard testimony from expert witnesses on many of these problems yet the executions have rolled on.

Reforms are needed to protect the mentally ill, inmates who had unqualified attorneys, and people who never even intended to commit a murder. The study committee can recommend these reforms and should. They should also recommend a moratorium.

Rather than marching people to the execution chamber, the state should be taking a long hard look at its system of capital punishment. Two-thirds of North Carolinians want a moratorium on executions.

Let’s hope legislators start listening soon before an eighth life is lost in the debate.