NC death row adds only 1 in 2008

WINSTON-SALEM — North Carolina is about to finish 2008 with the fewest number of death sentences since capital punishment was reinstated in 1977 after rulings by the U.S. Supreme
Court.

The Winston-Salem Journal reports that the only person added to the state’s death row in 2008 was James Ray Little, condemned to death in Winston-Salem last month for killing a taxi driver.

Death sentences have been declining for a decade as the public reconsiders capital punishment and doubts were raised about fairness.

Three people have been exonerated and set free from the state’s death row in the past two years. During the mid-1990s, more than 20 people a year were being sentenced to death in North Carolina.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)