Area clergy heard two death row inmates tell of the injustices that almost led to their executions during a session Saturday hosted by death penalty opponents who said the lethal process is too costly and too arbitrary to be effective.

The session was one of several hosted by The People of Faith Against the Death Penalty in an eight-day blitz across eastern North Carolina that has drawn more than 400 people, said executive director Stephen Dear. At Saturday’s session, clergy discussed if an unfair trial and death penalty conviction could happen locally after Delbert Tibbs and Gary Drinkard relayed their stories about an unfair judicial process.

The death penalty process is unfair, particularly to minorities and poor people living in rural areas, said Dear, who was born in Elizabeth City and is son of former Daily Advance publisher David Dear. Most people on death row, 98 percent, cannot afford an attorney and are often under-represented, said Dear.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 43 death row inmates have been executed in North Carolina since the death penalty was re-enacted in 1977. Before 1976, 784 were executed, many without adequate defense, said Dear.

Gary Drinkard, who was arrested in 1993 for the robbery and murder of a junkyard dealer in Alabama, said his court-appointed attorney did little to defend him. “It wasn’t like he was trying to win the case or trying to prove my innocence,” said Drinkard, despite the fact that witnesses in the case were “proven to be liars or they were trying to get out of charges they had done themselves.”

After five years in prison and two appeals, Drinkard’s conviction was reversed and he escaped death row. Since his release, Drinkard testifies of his experience as a speaker for Witness to Innocence, a national anti-death penalty organization based in Philadelphia.

Tibbs, also speaking on behalf of Witness to Innocence, said he became a murder investigation target in Florida after he was hitchhiking and police stopped to question him. Tibbs said his traveling lifestyle — “I was a bum or I appeared to be,” he said — raised suspicions and he became a chief suspect, a black man accused of the murder and rape of white victims. Tibbs said he was naive about prejudice, but he now feels his time on death row and his ultimate release was for a purpose. “God wanted me to go to death row, and I think he wanted me to go to death row so that I could be a witness,” said Tibbs.

After the testimonies, local clergy discussed if it was possible that someone from the Albemarle could also be wrongfully sent to death row. Keith Rivers, president of Pasquotank County’s NAACP, said two factors could make it a possibility. “It’s not just a black thing, it’s an economical thing,” said Rivers, pointing to the county’s low per capita income and 18 percent poverty rate.

Clergy at the session, about a dozen, also discussed how to approach their congregations about death penalty concerns.

Raymond Rivers Sr., a deacon representing Olive Branch Missionary Baptist Church and former president of the NAACP, said he already opposed the death penalty before the meeting, but that the testimonies helped confirm what he already believed. “It’s always good to talk to people and hear firsthand from people who have been there,” he said. Rivers said testimonies like those of Tibbs and Drinkard would help people better understand concerns about the death penalty.

The area pastors agreed that changing the community’s perception of the death penalty will not always easy.

“I don’t think people are going to jump from the death penalty to nothing, but I think they will make that jump if there’s something better,” said Shawn Blackwater, pastor of Riverside United Methodist Church. Blackwater said that the community needs to have a better picture of “restorative justice” and how it would benefit society.

“Restorative justice” would focus more on helping victims instead of punishing perpetrators, Dear said. The death penalty process is actually more costly than life-imprisonment. The death penalty is “three times more expensive than a life sentence without parole,” said Dear. The money would be better spent helping victims, he said.

The death penalty is an ineffective deterrent as well, said Dear, who pointed to figures from the Death Penalty Information Center to back up his claim. “Despite the high number of executions, the South has the highest murder rate of the four regions in the country. The Northeast, with the fewest executions, have the lowest number,” according to the center’s internet web site. Since 1976, the South has executed 1,000 death row inmates compared to four in the Northeast.

The value of human life is another factor in the death penalty debate, said Dear. “People can have value even after they have done some horrific thing,” he said.