Functionalists would believe that the death penalty deters crime, but this has not been empirically proven. There were more murders in states with the death penalty (Ballantine, Roberts, and Korgen). Conflict theorists would focus solely on sentencing bias rather than the death penalty in its entirety. Sentencing has been proven to be biased, as in the case of Timothy Tyrone Foster. Foster was convicted of murder in 1987, but his jury was all white and hand-picked by (Vogue) prosecutors. Although biases impact opinions about its necessity, it is only one of many factors that come into play. Symbolic interaction theory does not describe issues with execution because it would consider it a set of symbols intended to prevent people from committing serious crimes. The state of North Carolina is a good example of why this is not true. North Carolina has not executed anyone since 2006 and since then, murders in the state have declined ("Failure to Deter Crime