American Civil Liberties Union

North Carolina's death penalty system has finally been exposed as just another failed government program. In light of two recent shocking revelations, the time has come to shut the system down.

First, an independent audit of one unit of the State Bureau of Investigation's (SBI) crime labs ordered by Attorney General Roy Cooper found that the SBI had cooked the books and misrepresented blood analysis lab results in more than 200 cases, including seven capital cases: four current death row inmates and three executed men. The audit focused only on the SBI's analysis of blood evidence, one of six units of the SBI lab. We don't yet know how many cases were contaminated by false reports and findings in other SBI lab sections, such as firearms and DNA evidence.