"Racial Justice Act: Law could curtail death penalty," by Paul Woolverton is in today's Fayetteville Observer. Here's an extended excerpt:
A new law in North Carolina could help murderers get off death row and stymie prosecutors who seek capital punishment in future cases, according to legal experts.
Last month, North Carolina became the second state after Kentucky to enact the Racial Justice Act, which seeks to ensure that race plays no role in who gets sentenced to death.
Defense lawyers say the law will help ensure fairness. Yet some prosecutors worry it will create an unnecessary burden and strain the court system. Robeson County's district attorney predicts the law will dredge up old cases and further erode the imposition of capital punishment.
"We hope that it serves its intended purpose, and that is to prevent people from being put on death row because of their race," said Ron McSwain, the head of the Cumberland County Public Defender Office.
The law creates mechanisms for defendants to attempt to prove that race factored into their death sentences. If they win their claims, they can't be executed.
The claims can be supported by documented racial incidents - a juror using a racist epithet, for example - or by statistics that showed the race of the accused or victim was a significant factor in whether people are sentenced to death.
Among the 163 people on North Carolina's death row, more than half - 88 inmates - are black. Sixty-two are white.
The Racial Justice Act was spawned in part from a 2001 study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study, which evaluated North Carolina cases from 1993 to 1997, found that murderers who killed white people were 3.4 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed nonwhites.
Defense lawyers say the law addresses a basic fact of life that many people refuse to acknowledge: People are biased and make mistakes.
North Carolina's law applies to two groups:
Those already on death row, who may seek to prove that race played a role in their sentences. They have until Aug. 11, 2010, to ask a judge to overturn their death sentences. Those who prove their cases would see their sentences converted to life in prison without parole.
Those accused of capital murder, who would have to raise the race issue before trial. If they can show that efforts to sentence them to death were racially motivated, death would no longer be an option. The maximum potential punishment would be life in prison without parole.
Editoriareacting to the new law. In the Greensboro News-Record, Editorial writer Doug Clark writes, "Take a direct approach to racial justice."
State legislators and Gov. Bev Perdue should play it straight about the death penalty: Just put an end to it.
There are too many problems with implementation, too much inconsistency in application. Public opinion is slowly turning against it and juries are more reluctant to impose it. It’s time to replace capital punishment with life in prison without parole.
Creating the Racial Justice Act simply adds more confusion and inequity.
When Perdue signed the bill into law last week, she declared it ensures that when “our most heinous criminals” are given the death penalty — which she says she supports — the decision is based “on the facts and the law, not racial prejudice.”
That’s a fine objective, but the Racial Justice Act offers no such assurance.
There’s no question that “racial prejudice” has accounted for shameful injustices. But the answer to disparate treatment in the courts based on racial prejudice is not to require disparate treatment based on racial distinctions. That’s what this law does.
And:
Here’s my suggestion. Gov. Perdue should commute the sentences of every last one of them, all 163, white, black, Hispanic, whatever, to life in prison without parole.
Now that’s the direct approach to racial justice.
"Imperfect penalty," is the editorial in the News & Observer.
House Speaker Joe Hackney, a lawyer, spoke with authority when he said he had seen the "subtle impact of race" in courtrooms. Certainly the state should eliminate that to the degree it can.
But the larger problem is that no such act is going to make the death penalty foolproof, and considering the number of convicted people who were later freed by DNA evidence across this country in recent years, it cannot be. The justice system is not perfect, and the penalty of death is one punishment that cannot be reversed. North Carolina should avoid the chance of a deadly mistake, and close its death chamber for good.
The Greenville Daily Reflector has the editorial, "Color blind: Act serves North Carolina's interests."
Tuesday will mark three years since the execution of Samuel R. Flippen, the 43rd execution in North Carolina since the death penalty was reinstituted in 1977, and also the most recent. The state has since imposed a de facto moratorium on capital punishment, one based on legal objections as well growing public opposition to the practice in North Carolina.
In 2006, the N.C. Medical Society objected to a requirement that a doctor be present for the administration of lethal injection., but an N.C. Supreme Court ruling in May cleared the way for executions to resume.
However, attitudes are changing in North Carolina, with some election-year polling showing declining support for capital punishment. That may be fueled by several cases of wrongful imprisonment in the state in recent years. But there is also concern about racial bias in capital cases, since black defendants are more likely to face execution than whites.
The Racial Justice Act intends to address that reasonable objection. It raises the threshold of fairness by allowing Death Row inmates and those facing capital punishment to argue that race was a significant factor in the imposition of that penalty. It represents the most effective and straightforward way to have these cases decided on the merits and to cleanse the system of racial bias.
If the state chooses to proceed with executions — and that itself warrants further debate — it must confirm the integrity of the process that claims life. The Racial Justice Act helps in that effort, and North Carolina will be served by its passage.
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