He played a pivotal role in North Carolina's statewide effort to pass a Death Penalty Moratorium Bill. Due to various appeals and challenges, including over lethal injection as a method of execution, for nearly ten years the state did not execute any prisoners. Earlier it had the fifth-highest execution rate in the nation. Aftermath Citizens of Winston-Salem collaborated on creating the Deborah Sykes Administrative Review Committee to investigate the city's handling of this case. "Over the course of its inquiry from 2005-2007, a citizens committee revealed mistakes made by law-enforcement officers in the handling of the Sykes case and three other rape cases that occurred in the same time frame." They released a 103-page report with a 9000-page appendix in February 2007. The city issued a formal apology to Darryl Hunt and made a settlement for his wrongful conviction and years in jail. Stephen Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, credited Hunt with contributing to the passage of the legislature of a law establishing the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, to investigate cases of wrongful convictions. It was the first such independent commission in the United States. From 2007 through March 2017, it has exonerated ten inmates. Hunt also testified before a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the death penalty appeals process. Hunt's and similar cases contributed to the legislature's passage of the North Carolina Racial Justice Act of 2009, which "allowed death-row inmates to have their sentences reduced to life in prison if they could prove racial bias influenced the outcome of their cases." After the act was passed, most of the 153 persons on death row filed appeals. From 2009 to June 2013, four persons received amended sentences to life imprisonment. State lawmakers repealed the act in 2013, but many appeal cases are pending. In 2016, both candidates for North Carolina State Attorney General campaigned on the basis of retaining the death penalty in the state. Settlement After Hunt was released, his attorneys began negotiation with the city of Winston-Salem over his wrongful conviction and damages. This was during the period when the Sykes Committee was investigating how the city had responded to his case. After the committee made its report, on February 19, 2007, Winston-Salem settled with Hunt, awarding him $1,650,000. He used much of the money to support his effort to help others. In 2004 Hunt had received a settlement