Today's News & Observer reports, "udge stays on racial justice case." It's written by Anne Blythe.
A Superior Court judge in Nash County on Thursday rejected an effort by Cumberland County prosecutors to have an African-American judge removed from one of the first Racial Justice Act cases to move through the courts.
Cumberland County prosecutors had sought to remove Greg Weeks, a Cumberland County judge, from the Racial Justice Act case of Marcus Robinson, a death row inmate for 20 years.
And:
Prosecutors contended they might need to call Weeks, a black judge who oversaw several death penalty cases in Cumberland County, as a witness to their character. On Thursday, Judge Quentin T. Sumner ruled that prosecutors had not shown that Weeks would be a material witness in their case and allowed the Cumberland County judge to continue to preside over the case.
"Ruling allows black judge to hear Racial Justice Act case," is the WRAL-TV report.
A black Superior Court judge will be allowed to hear the first appeal under the state's Racial Justice Act after another judge on Thursday ended prosecutors' attempts to call him as a witness in the case.
Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks was assigned to hear Marcus Robinson's appeal because he is the senior resident judge in Cumberland County.
Prosecutors wanted to use his position against him, saying they might call Weeks to testify because he has presided over several death penalty trials during his 23 years on the bench. As a witness, he wouldn't be allowed to handle the case.
"We do not think that he's not an appropriate judge to be hearing cases," Cumberland County Assistant District Attorney Calvin Colyer said. "Just not this one because he is more important to us ... as a witness than he is as our judge."
Legal experts and Robinson's attorney questioned that move, saying they thought Weeks' race played a role in prosecutors' efforts to stop him from hearing the case.
"We never expected we'd be standing before a court ... trying to prevent the state from disqualifying an African-American judge," said James Ferguson, an attorney for the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation, which is handling Robinson's appeal.
Weeks didn't attend Thursday's court hearing, but his attorney, Fred Webb, called the subpoena "frivolous."
And:
Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner ruled that prosecutors failed to show that Weeks is a necessary witness for their case, and he quashed the subpoena.
"Death Penalty Debate: New Study On Race & Jury Selection," is the title of Dave Jordan's related report on WITN-TV.
Tye Hunter is the Executive Director for the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. Hunter says, "Are we going to kill people based on, ya know they're probably right?"
Hunter's center represents 40 people currently on death row. "When people support the death penalty one of their assumptions is there's no question about the person's guilt, that any questions about the person's guilt has been resolved in the accused's favor and that lots of courts and judges have looked at this. But our system, it's not that accurate."
Hunter says the cases of death row inmates having their convictions tossed out and set free are a clear example of a broken system. Some of those exonerations helped lead to the current death penalty moratorium. Since then, three more people have been set free, while others wait.
So where ultimately is the debate over the death penalty headed? More litigation certainly could be filed, but Bennett suggests letting voters decide. "I would love to see this state have a referendum on the death penalty and abide by whatever the public decides."
But Hunter says it's not quite that simple. Several current legal challenges need to be resolved in the courts, such as how North Carolina executes those on death row, execution protocol, and whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. And the argument over the role race plays is about to be ratcheted up. Hunter says, "We're gonna show the court system some things and they are not going to like it. I don't like it. It's uncomfortable."
At a hearing next week in Fayetteville, Hunter's firm will detail a study on jury selection completed by Michigan State. He says the study reveals on all cases with people still on death row in North Carolina, qualified African Americans were kicked off the jury two to three times the rate of white people all over the state for twenty years.
Earlier coverage of the North Carolina RJA begins at the link.
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