This article originally appeared in The News & Observer
Lawmakers say North Carolina’s Innocence Inquiry Commission isn’t worth the investment in a year when they’re trying to cut costs. Its director says the agency provides a service few others can.
Eric Miller, WRAL anchor/reporter
Posted 7:23 PM Apr 17, 2025 Updated 7:27 PM Apr 17, 2025
North Carolina’s Innocence Inquiry Commission — a small state agency that investigates prison inmates’ claims that they were wrongfully convicted — would lose all funding under a budget proposal approved Wednesday by the North Carolina Senate.
The commission has exonerated more than a dozen people wrongfully convicted of murder, rape and other serious crimes since its creation in 2006. Senate Republican lawmakers say it hasn’t handled enough cases to be worth the investment in a year when they’re trying to cut costs.
The group has also long faced opposition from police and prosecutors around the state whose work and ethics have been called into question by many of the exonerations; those groups have lobbying arms influential among GOP politicians.
Leaders of the commission, which this week secured the release of another man wrongfully convicted for murder, say they provide a valuable service to the falsely convicted that other non-governmental organizations can’t.
“We open up the road when they reach a dead end,” said Laura Pierro, the commission’s executive director.
Pierro said she was shocked by the funding cut in the Senate’s budget proposal.
The chamber gave final approval to the chamber’s $32.6 billion spending plan with a 30-15 vote on Wednesday, a day after long debate and an initial approval that lasted into the evening. The proposal now goes to the state House of Representatives, which is expected to eventually present its own spending priorities. From there, the two chambers will hash out a final budget.
The commission has 13 full-time employees, and a total annual budget of $1.6 million — approximately 0.005% of the state’s overall budget. Senate lawmakers have been trying to slash costs across state government to accommodate planned state tax cuts.
Sen. Danny Britt, R-Robeson, said the commission has failed to handle enough cases in its 18-year existence. He pointed to other nonprofit organizations that have also been working on exonerations and suggested they could take up the commission’s work.
“They could do that with no expense to the state,” Britt said Tuesday during a Senate appropriations committee meeting. “That’s why we chose that cut.”
Pierro pushed back Wednesday, pointing out the commission has far more legal power than a nonprofit to subpoena witnesses, conduct DNA testing, and look for evidence that law enforcement may claim has disappeared or been destroyed.
“It makes all the difference in the world,” Pierro said.
The commission — which was the first of its kind in the United States — has reviewed at least 3,500 claims of innocence since it was created with bipartisan support by the General Assembly in 2006. In that time, it secured the release of 16 people wrongfully convicted of crimes. Those 16 people served a total of 300 years in prison. “What we do is we search for the truth,” Pierro said.
The agency’s most recent exoneration was announced Tuesday. A three-judge panel ruled Clarence Roberts was wrongfully convicted after serving eight years in prison on second-degree murder charges.
The commission has also worked on other high-profile cases, including the eventual exoneration of Greg Taylor, who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1993. It also secured the exoneration of Leon Brown and Henry McCollum, two intellectually disabled brothers framed for the rape and murder of a young girl by authorities in Robeson County who pressured them into signing false confessions; DNA evidence later identified the real killer.
Pierro is hopeful the state House will take a different view. A spokesperson for House Speaker Destin Hall didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I ask you to give me an opportunity to reintroduce you to the commission, so that you really understand what we do, how we do it, and the benefit we provide to all North Carolinians,” Pierro said.
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