View This Email In Your Browser

Nearly 15 years after Hasson Jamal Bacote first filed a claim under the Racial Justice Act, a judge ruled last week that racism not only significantly affected Bacote’s case, but pervaded every death penalty case ever tried in Johnston County.  […]

Michael Hewlett is a courts and law reporter for The Assembly. He was previously a legal affairs reporter at the Winston-Salem Journal and has won two Henry Lee Weathers Freedom of Information Awards.

Anne Blythe, a former reporter for The News & Observer, has reported on courts, criminal justice, and an array of topics in North Carolina for more than three decades.

Jeffrey Billman is a politics and law reporter for The Assembly. The former editor-in-chief of INDY in Durham, he holds a master's degree in public policy analysis from the University of Central Florida.