"Gov. Perdue to decide soon on legislation impacting Racial Justice Act," is the NC News Network post by Alyssa Marcus and David Horn.
Gov. Bev Perdue said she is still figuring out her next step on a bill that essentially does away with a 2009 law that allows convicted murderers in North Carolina to use statistics to persuade a judge that racial bias contributed to their death sentence. State lawmakers approved the measure last month.
"I'm moving in one direction. I know where my head is and where my heart is and so I'm going to listen as I should to other people and at the end of the day I'm going to make a decision very soon," said Perdue.
The governor has until Dec. 29 to veto the bill, sign the measure, or let it become law without acting.
Today's Winston-Salem Journal carries the OpEd, "Perdue must veto Racial Justice Act repeal," by Frank R. Baumgartner. He's a professor of political science at UNC Chapel Hill. Here's an excerpt from this must-read:
The past few weeks have seen a remarkable effort of lobbying by the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys, culminating in the vote by the legislature to repeal the Racial Justice Act (RJA), a law that the DAs do not like and do not want to see enforced. And, indeed, the law creates a fundamental new right, though only for an extremely small set of petitioners, those 157 individuals who currently sit on death row. The RJA allows their lawyers to present evidence of statistical patterns of racial bias across the state or in any particular jurisdiction. They need not demonstrate a discriminatory intent in their individual case, and this is the element that is the subject of appeal. (The only relief, if we can call it that, available to inmates who demonstrate bias is that a death sentence will be replaced with a penalty of life without the possibility of parole. Opponents to the RJA have attempted to raise doubts on this issue, but those should be considered scare tactics, as the law is clear: No one will go free.)
The RJA is a truly innovative and important piece of legislation in that it specifically allows the statistical arguments that the repeal now eliminates.
A large state-wide study suggests that, controlling for other factors, those with white victims are more than twice as likely to receive a death sentence compared to those who kill minorities. Further and perhaps more shocking, African-American citizens otherwise qualified to serve on capital juries are rejected at much higher rates than whites; many of those on death row were sentenced by juries with no minorities, whereas our population is more than 20 percent African-American. In January 2012, hearings are scheduled in Cumberland County to address these issues. In contrast to claims that the law will clog the court system with needless claims, a single case is going forward. If it is found to be baseless, a judge will so decide. If the evidence is convincing to the court, then we should all be concerned.
Baumgartner examines homicides in the state by race and provides a link to, "Racial Discrepancies in Homicide Victimization and Executions in North Carolina, 1976-2008." It's available in Adobe .pdf format.
Guilford County State Rep. Pricey Harrison writes the OpEd, "Race still matters in life-and-death cases," for the Greensboro News-Record.
Now, let’s be honest about why our lawmakers voted to repeal the Racial Justice Act.
They’re not ready to confront the reality that race still matters in life-and-death cases. They don’t want to admit that our justice system still places more importance on the lives of white people, and still excludes minorities from positions of power.
Last year, studies found that people convicted of killing white victims are almost three times as likely to get the death penalty as those who kill minorities. Another study found that qualified black jurors are being systematically excluded from capital trials.
To me and many of my fellow lawmakers, those studies were a red flag. A sign that we needed to look more closely at our capital punishment system.
But opponents of the Racial Justice Act simply dismissed them.
Earlier coverage of the North Carolina Racial Justice Act begins at the link.
Comments