Bobby Norfleet
Senate budget would expand medical release for aging, sick prisoners
State senators have proposed expanding the eligibility criteria for the medical release of people in North Carolina prisons, potentially giving thousands of sick and aging people in state custody an opportunity to go home before they die. The law change, which can be found on page 310 of the Senate budget, comes after an NC […]
Disability Rights NC attorney Susan Pollitt and investigative reporter Kelan Lyons
It’s a hard truth that North Carolina’s criminal justice system regularly metes out wrongful and inequitable sentences, and recently, NC Newsline investigative reporter Kelan Lyons detailed one such deeply disturbing case. Bobby Norfleet was convicted of a crime in 1979 as a young man – trying unsuccessfully to set a fire to a house – […]
Weekend reads: Rep. Cotham’s big jump, absentee ballot restrictions, and what’s in the House budget
1. Rep. Tricia Cotham’s party switch gives the House GOP a veto-proof majority Rep. Tricia Cotham formally announced she is switching parties to become a Republican, giving the GOP a veto-proof majority in the state House. Cotham bashed Democrats at a news conference Wednesday morning where Republicans welcomed her to the GOP. Cotham said Democrats had […]
Bobby Norfleet wasn’t the only elderly imprisoned person in NC eligible for parole
Earlier this week NC Newsline published an in-depth story about Bobby Norfleet, a 67-year-old man who was sentenced to life in prison in 1979. The story is about the myriad ways the justice system failed Norfleet, a poor and disabled Black man who grew up in a big, loving family in small Eastern North Carolina […]
NC Newsline report spotlights a grave injustice, and state leaders should take action
Read the investigative story by Kelan Lyons.
A miscarriage of justice, a life in prison
This story mentions sexual assault. It was April 2022, and come summer 66-year-old Bobby Norfleet would begin another year behind bars. He bore the marks of 44 years in North Carolina prisons. He had a lump in his left leg. He didn’t have any teeth. His dentures had broken, so talking was difficult. Bobby’s younger […]