"NC prosecutors seek judge's removal from case," is Martha Waggoner's AP report via the News & Observer.
Prosecutors in the first case being heard under a North Carolina law that allows death row prisoners to challenge their sentences on the grounds of racial bias have filed a motion asking that a black judge be removed from presiding over the case.
Cumberland County prosecutors said in a motion filed Tuesday that they want Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks removed because he may be called as a witness in the case of Marcus Robinson, who's challenging his death sentence under the state's Racial Justice Act. Their motion doesn't mention the judge's ethnicity, but has angered some legal experts who believe race is the behind the move.
"It looks like they're trying to get rid of an African-American judge and have the case heard by someone who likely would not be African-American," said Duke University law professor James Coleman. "They're accused of manipulating the jury on the basis of race. It's ironic that they would do something that looks like they're trying to ... manipulate the judge who would hear the case. It's tone deaf. It's unbelievable to me."
The judge who hears the motion should require the prosecutors to say that they will call Weeks as a witness, not that they might, and identify the testimony they seek from him, Coleman said. Otherwise, attorneys can remove judges simply by saying they might be called as a witness, he said.
"Cumberland prosecutors want Judge Weeks off Racial Justice Act case," by Paul Woolverton for the Fayetteville Observer.
The prosecutors have subpoenaed Weeks to testify at a hearing next week. Weeks is fighting the effort. A hearing on the subpoena is scheduled for Thursday morning in Nash County Superior Court. Weeks asked for a judge outside of Cumberland County to handle the hearing.
Robinson's is one of the first cases to go forward under the Racial Justice Act, which provides condemned inmates a means to get off death row, though not out of prison, if they can prove racial bias led to their death sentences.
In letters dated Sept. 14 and Sept. 21, Assistant District Attorneys Cal Colyer and Rob Thompson told Weeks that he presided over murder cases that were included in a study of race and the death penalty in North Carolina. The statewide study found that in Cumberland County, anyone who murders a white person is more likely to be sentenced to death than someone who kills a non-white person. The study is a key piece of evidence that Robinson's lawyers are using to show a pattern of racial bias in Cumberland County courts.
The prosecutors say several other judges have been removed from trials involving the Racial Justice Act because they presided over cases that were included in the study and could have been called as witnesses.
And:
Lawyers for Robinson oppose the effort to take Weeks off the case. They say other judges were taken off Racial Justice Act cases because they previously had served as prosecutors, not because they were judges in capital cases.
In a news release issued Tuesday, Robinson's lawyers say the effort to subpoena Weeks and push him off the case appears to be racially motivated. Weeks is black.
"In my many years as an attorney, I have never seen a party use such a flimsy pretext to try to get rid of a judge," Duke University law professor James E. Coleman said in the statement. "There is a written record of what the prosecutors did in each of the cases in which their conduct is at issue. Calling the judge as a witness would add nothing to that record. And the idea that they may call the judge as a character witness is absurd; it seems designed only to create a bogus conflict for Judge Weeks."
"Prosecutors seek to remove black judge from Racial Justice Act case," by Bruce Mildwurf fir WRAL-TV.
Robinson's appeal is scheduled for next week, and Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner will hear arguments in Nash County Thursday morning on whether Weeks should remain on the case.
Irving Joyner, a law professor at North Carolina Central University, who isn't connected to Robinson's case, said he believes the subpoena is unethical.
"That's just improper, and I think it's a violation of the rules of professional responsibility for any lawyer to engage in a scheme like that," Joyner said.
Almost all of the 157 inmates on North Carolina's death row have filed appeals under the 2-year-old Racial Justice Act. Winning an appeal under the law commutes a death sentence to one of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Earlier coverage of North Carolina's Racial Justice Act begins at the link. Thanks to Gerda Stein for distributing.
Comments