After a two-week evidentiary hearing last February, and closing arguments delivered in August, Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons Jr. issued a 120-page order concluding that racism significantly affected the 2009 Johnston County trial of Hasson Bacote that resulted in the imposition of the death penalty. Bacote first challenged his sentence fifteen years ago under the now-repealed Racial Justice Act. In his order, Judge Sermons stated that the evidence showed a “consistent picture of the role race has played in jury selection throughout Johnston County and Prosecutorial District 11, and in the capital cases tried by [the] prosecutor…” After Governor Cooper commuted Bacote’s sentence to life imprisonment last December, it was unclear what would happen with the pending litigation. Judge Sermons evidently concluded that it was appropriate to make a ruling, stating that the voluminous “statistical, cultural, historical, social science, and other evidence produced in the [Bacote] case” would serve as a guide to courts considering the particular facts of future cases. Attorneys for the State said they planned to appeal the ruling.
Read on for more criminal law news.
AI-generated sexual images. 28 women, all students at North Carolina State University, reported that photos of their likeness have been used without their consent to generate sexual images posted to a website on which users share pornographic materials. It appears that the students’ faces were artificially superimposed over videos of nude women engaged in sexual acts. Authorities obtained a search warrant to gather information associated with the account on which the images were posted. The investigation is ongoing.
Relatedly, the North Carolina legislature passed H591 in 2024 to “modernize” and update preexisting criminal statutes governing sex crimes. Amended G.S. 14-190.5A, which codifies the offense of disclosure of private images, now includes modification by artificial intelligence under the definition of “image.”
No double jeopardy bar in Karen Read case. The highest court in Massachusetts has ruled that double jeopardy does not prevent Karen Read from being tried for a second time on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter, and leaving the scene. The charges stem from a January 2022 incident in which prosecutors contend that Read struck her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, with her SUV while under the influence of alcohol. As discussed previously on this blog, after a mistrial was declared in the first trial, Read’s attorneys moved for an evidentiary hearing to inquire into information they had received from five jurors. The attorneys contended that the five jurors had informed them that the jury was not deadlocked on all charges as reported to the court, but that the jury had in fact reached a unanimous decision to acquit on two of the three charges. The post-trial motion was denied by the trial judge, and now the highest court has affirmed that no inquiry will occur. In the opinion, the justices concluded that it was not proper to allow “posttrial disclosures” to “retroactively” alter the outcome where the jury repeatedly communicated during deliberations that they were unable to reach a verdict on any of the charges.
The case raises an interesting strategic question of whether defenders should consider requesting to poll the jury upon declaration of deadlock. If, in fact, a jury is laboring under the mistaken impression that a partial or split verdict was not acceptable, polling the jury could reveal that the jury was in fact in unanimous agreement that the defendant was not guilty of one or more of the charges. On the other hand, polling the jury after declaration of deadlock may also uncover the reverse: unanimous agreement as to guilt on one or more of multiple charges at issue.
Trump freezes enforcement of anti-bribery statute. This week, President Trump signed an executive order stopping enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The 1977 law bans U.S. companies from giving money or gifts to foreign officials in exchange for business deals. The law has been enforced by the federal prosecutors hundreds of times in the last decade, leading to large settlements against companies such as Raytheon, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, Siemens, and Glencore. Trump’s order pauses all open investigations for 180 days and prevents new investigations from starting. Trump states that enforcement of the law has created an uneven playing field for U.S. companies and that his administration will formulate guidelines for reasonable enforcement. However, critics assert that the freeze will green-light rampant corruption and that enforcement will be deprioritized in the long-term.
Cosa Nostra crackdown. Italian police arrested 181 people last Tuesday night in a concerted effort to suppress the growth of the Cosa Nostra gang. The Sicilian crime organization, made famous by Mario Puzo’s book, “The Godfather,” has made a resurgence in recent years, finding “new energy” in modernized criminal exploits such as online gambling (rather than raffles and lotteries), while maintaining “ancient rituals” and engaging in traditional activities such as extortion, drug trafficking, and violence. Competing mafiosos use encrypted phones along with “old-time tricks” such as informers in the prosecutor’s office. In announcing the arrests, authorities emphasized the importance of deterring young people from becoming new recruits.
Have a good weekend and see you Monday.