Desmond Carter will follow Basden on Tuesday.
Basden and Carter both were convicted of murder in 1993. Both were sentenced to die by lethal injection.
After a series of appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Oct. 2 Carter's plea for review. Basden's plea was denied Oct. 21.
Gov. Mike Easley is now the only person left with the authority to give them clemency before the executions.
Meanwhile, the option of moratoriums on executions such as these has been gaining support in some states. Illinois and Maryland both have instituted moratoriums in the last three years.
A committee of N.C. legislators and residents also considered what action should be taken on the issue of the death penalty. In 2001 the committee compiled a report used to formulate a law outlawing the execution of mentally handicapped people.
Some state officials now are in favor of a full moratorium. "I'm against the death penalty -- period," said N.C. Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, D-Orange.
Activists are hosting vigils this week to protest the executions of Basden and Carter, claiming these cases represent class and racial biases in the state's death penalty system.
"You won't find anyone on death row with money," said Brock Towler, president of the UNC chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Also, when the victim of the crime is white, the chance that a death sentence will be levied multiplies, he said.
But Sen. Hamilton Horton, R-Forsyth, who served on the 2001 committee, said these statistics could be misleading. "A death sentence might just mean they are naughtier than other people. ... You can't let people play games with statistics. We ought to look at it with a jaundiced eye."
Other legislators said they think the statistics are telling of problems in the system.
North Carolina's process of sentencing criminals to death row is inherently flawed, Kinnaird said.
A moratorium is necessary because it is impossible to get a completely objective death sentence ruling, she said.
"When it's a role of the dice and bias is thrown in, then it's time to say, 'Let's take a look at this,'" Kinnaird said.
Members of the Carrboro-based People of Faith Against the Death Penalty say they oppose the penalty on moral grounds and because of flaws in the system. They are trying to rally legislators to their side by passing around a petition that has been signed by more than 600 churches, businesses and community groups, including 21 local governments -- including Chapel Hill.
"We sort of lay the ground work by getting local citizens to support it," said PFADP Executive Director Stephen Dear. "(Then) we find a champion -- someone on the board of the town government -- who will support the resolution."
Though PFADP has been able to find local governmental support in cities across the state, Dear said it will be harder to find legislators in the General Assembly to accept a moratorium.
"Local government officials are not plagued with the 'tough on crime' persona that our state legislators are," he said.
As the death penalty debate continued, Easley held meetings Tuesday to discuss the possibility of clemency in the two capital cases. He will announce the men's fate prior to their scheduled executions, said Cari Boyce, Easley's press secretary.
But for now, Central Prison Warden R.C. Lee will plan to move Basden and then Carter to the solitary white-washed cells of death watch.
The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.
