In researching this report, our staff relied heavily on University of North Carolina Associate Professor Seth Kotch’s comprehensive book “Lethal State: A History of the Death Penalty in North Carolina.” We also drew information from multiple sources including the N.C. Department of Public Safety, Documenting the American South, the Equal Justice Initiative’s report, Lynching in America, and Michelle Alexander’s book, “The New Jim Crow.” Information about specific cases was drawn from court records, as well as from CDPL’s own files and institutional knowledge of North Carolina death penalty cases. In the cases of our contributors, they relied on their own independent research.