A jury that is scheduled to be selected Monday in the Lisa Louise Greene case will have the option to sentence her to life in prison or death by lethal injection if she is found guilty of first-degree murder. A recent decline in the number of death penalty sentences handed down by juries will make the case interesting for Cabarrus County prosecutors.
Greene is accused of intentionally starting a fire at her Midland mobile home on January 10, 2006 that killed her children, Daniel Macemore, 10, and Addison Macemore, 8. In court documents obtained by the Independent Tribune, Cabarrus County District Attorney, Roxann Vaneekhoven, said that the crimes Greene is accused of are “especially heinous,” and that the death penalty was necessary.
Isaac Unah, a UNC political science professor who has studied North Carolina death penalty cases, said juries have returned fewer death verdicts in recent years because of a national debate against the death penalty.
“Juries, like everyone else, watch the news and they hear things about cases of individuals put to death who are later exonerated, death penalty cases are always in the news,” Unah said. “There’s a national trend against the death penalty. Juries are citizens as well.”
A 2006 Gallup poll found that 65 percent of Americans were in favor of the death penalty, but Unah believes that poll numbers are inflated because they are only yes or no answers.
“On a gut level most people feel that the death penalty is necessary,” he said. “But we continually see a decline in death sentences because once juries begin to think about the implications and irreversibility of their decision they side against that option.”
Tyler Gladden, convicted in the 2002 contract murder of Tara Chambers and her child, was sentenced to life plus 50 years on Aug 4. Cabarrus jurors had the option to sentence Gladden to die.
Gladden’s case was the first death penalty case in seven years for Cabarrus County. Cabarrus County prosecutors do not keep records of how many death penalty cases they’ve tried and it is unknown how many juries have returned a sentence of life in prison instead of the death penalty.
Since North Carolina lifted automatic death penalty sentences for first-degree murder cases in 1967 and allowed juries to decide death sentences, only four Cabarrus County individuals have been sentenced to die.
David Lawson was the last man executed from Cabarrus County. He died in the gas chamber on June 2, 1994, after being convicted of killing Wayne Shinn. According to previous reports, Shinn caught Lawson breaking into his Concord home in 1980. After a fight ensued, Lawson shot Shinn and his father, who survived, at point blank range in the back of the head.
Lawson made national headlines when he asked the Phil Donahue Show to televise his execution. The U.S. Supreme Court denied that request.
Since Lawson, three other Cabarrus County men from have waited their turn for the needle. Two of them, Andrew Craig and Francis Anthony were removed from death row when a superior court judge vacated their death sentences for a life sentences in 2002.
Ernest McCarver’s death sentence was put on hold by a Supreme Court ruling in 2001 that asked a lower N.C. circuit court to review medical information that he was mentally retarded. McCarver’s stay of execution was handed down only hours before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection, North Carolina’s only method of execution. He is on death row. He was convicted of the robbery and murder of a Cabarrus County restaurant owner, Woodrow Hartley.
Individuals must be convicted of first-degree murder and at least one of 11 aggravating circumstances to be eligible for the death penalty in North Carolina. - Josh Lanier
