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Volume 15, No. 10 July 1, 2013

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News
Racial Justice Act repealed
Published Thursday, June 27, 2013 by Taylor Shaw

RALEIGH Last week, Governor Pat McCrory signed legislation repealing the landmark Racial Justice Act while trying to restart capital punishment in the state. Senate Bill 306 reverses the 2009 Racial Justice Act, legislation that allowed death row inmates to appeal their sentences if they believed race played a factor in their conviction. If proven, they could receive life without parole instead. The legislation ensured that capital punishment was given without prejudice and provided tools to address historical and systematic discrimination in the justice system. McCrory said by repealing the RJA, he fulfilled a promise he made to North Carolinians. The policy implemented of the law was seriously flawed, he said. Nearly every person on death row, regardless of race, has appealed their death sentence under the Racial Justice Act. McCrory said it created a judicial loophole to avoid the death penalty and not a path to justice. House Democratic leaders stood in strong opposition, while the Senate previously approved the bill. [The bill] invites racial discrimination back into the justice system and courtrooms, Rep. Larry D. Hall said. Advocates of the Racial Justice Act say that racial bias is only one of the many factors that should make the state cautious with the death penalty. Its a down of these past prosecutorial to repair the Lead Attorney right-dirty shame that our political leaders, in light revelations of systematic breakdown and misuse of our process, chose to destroy a viable remedy rather than race-based defects found in the system, N.CC NAACP Irving Joyner said.
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The Triangle Tribune | Sports | Black Community Newspaper - Racial Justice Act repealed

7/1/13 3:41 PM

Lead Attorney Irving Joyner said. Many of the 153 inmates on death row were convicted before DNA testing and other modern tools of forensic analysis were commonly used. In many cases, key evidence was either lost or discarded. In 2012, Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks found evidence proving qualified black jurors were systematically excluded from serving in capital trials across the state. Through research conducted by the University of Michigan, if a defendant is black and the victim is white, he is three times more likely to face the death penalty. Five innocent men have been released from death row since 1999 under the Racial Justice Act after spending decades in prison. Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, a national nonprofit organization, is extremely disappointed in the reversal. North Carolina can do better for families of homicide victims and all citizens than restarting executions, the organization said in a press release. We can do better to restore confidence in our judicial process than removing reform that is working. No one has been executed in the state since 2006. Republican legislators want to sweep aside evidence of racial bias and rush to execute people, some of who could be innocent, Sen. Earline Parmon (D-Forsyth) said. Other states are repealing the death penalty, but our Republican leadership is pushing to execute people before all of their legal claims have been heard. Even those who support the death penalty should agree that capital sentences must be handled down impartially and with respect for due process, yet this bill makes it harder, if not impossible, to achieve that goal, said Sarah Preston, American Civil Liberties Union of N.C. policy director. Under new law, doctors, nurses and pharmacists will be able to participate in executions without fear of punishment from the state licensing boards. The attorney general will notify the Department of Public Safety when a condemned prisoners appeals are exhausted, and officials must also keep the General Assembly up-to-date on the status of death row appeals.

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