NORTH CAROLINA (USA): JUDGE OVERTURNS DEATH SENTENCE UNDER RACIAL JUSTICE ACT

April 20, 2012: In North Carolina, Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks ordered Marcus Robinson’s death sentence to be reduced to life in prison without parole.
Earlier this year, lawyers for Robinson, 35, black, suggested that race played an improper role in jury selection on capital cases around the time of his trial.
They presented findings of a study conducted by law professors at Michigan State University that concluded that qualified black jurors were struck from juries at more than twice the rate of qualified white jurors in the state’s 173 capital cases between 1990-2010.
Reading a summary of his ruling from the bench, Judge Weeks said that “race was a materially, practically and statistically significant factor in the decision to exercise peremptory challenges during jury selection by prosecutors” at the time of Robinson’s trial.
Judge Weeks also said that the disparity was strong enough “as to support an inference of intentional discrimination.” Judge Weeks’s decision, the first under the state’s 2009 Racial Justice Act, is expected to set a precedent for other North Carolina inmates who have also challenged their death sentences on similar grounds.
North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act allows capital defendants to present evidence of racial bias, including statistics, in court. (Sources: New York Times, April 20, 2012)