With only weeks left in 2023, time is running out for civil rights activists in North Carolina to achieve an ambitious goal: getting governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, to empty the state’s death row before he leaves office at the end of the year.
A coalition of exonerees, social justice groups, and faith leaders have been pushing Mr Cooper to commute or pardon the sentences of the 136 people on the state’s death row, fearing that the North Carolina GOP’s control of the state house, senate, and supreme court could freeze out future attempts at reform.
