DURHAM -- The city’s last death-row inmate will not be executed, a judge decided today.
Isaac Stroud, 56, convicted in 1995 of beating his girlfriend to death, will instead serve two sentences that should keep him in prison for the rest of his life.
Stroud sought relief from his death sentence under the Racial Justice Act passed in 2009, but Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson took Stroud off death row not because of alleged racial bias in his jury selection but because mental illness kept Stroud from helping with his own defense.
