NC Racial Justice Reform

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RayThom
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NC Racial Justice Reform

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From the National Center for State Courts newsletter.

It's a start.

NC Supreme Court Issues Major Decisions Regarding Capital Jury Trials

In a set of cases claiming the prosecution systematically sought the death penalty using unlawful discriminatory methods, the North Carolina Supreme vacated the death sentences because the legislature’s retroactive repeal of the North Carolina Racial Justice Act (RJA) was unconstitutional.

The RJA was enacted in 2009 and provided that “[n]o person shall be subject to or given a sentence of death or shall be executed pursuant to any judgment that was sought or obtained on the basis of race.” The RJA implemented a hearing procedure authorizing a defendant to raise an RJA claim either at a pretrial conference or in postconviction proceedings.

Upon the filing of a claim, the RJA mandated that “[t]he court shall schedule a hearing on the claim and shall prescribe a time for the submission of evidence by both parties.” The law placed the burden of proof on the defendant and provided, in pertinent part: “A finding that race was the basis of the decision to seek or impose a death sentence may be established if the court finds that race was a significant factor in decisions to seek or impose the sentence of death in the county, the prosecutorial district, the judicial division, or the State at the time the death sentence was sought or imposed.

If the court finds that race was a significant factor in decisions to seek or impose the sentence of death in the county, the prosecutorial district, the judicial division, or the State at the time the death sentence was sought or imposed, the court shall order that a death sentence not be sought, or that the death sentence imposed by the judgment shall be vacated and the defendant resentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.”

In State v. Ramseur and State v. Burke, the defendants raised racial discrimination claims (including Batson violations) citing the 2009 RJA as authority. However, the legislature later amended and then repealed the RJA in 2013 to reduce the availability of RJA relief. It made these amendments retroactive. The retroactive repeal effectively nullified the pending RJA claims in the Ramseur and Burke cases.

The state supreme court found the retroactive repeal of the RJA’s ameliorative provisions were unconstitutional ex post facto laws. The court stated, “by retroactively eliminating the RJA’s substantive claim and its accompanying relief, the RJA Repeal increases the severity of the standard of punishment attached to the crime of first-degree murder and deprives defendant of a defense to the 'nature or amount of the punishment imposed for its commission [citations omitted].' As such, the retroactive application of the RJA Repeal to defendent{s} violates the the prohibition against ex post facto laws."

This may mean that over 100 people on North Carolina's death row may now challenge the death sentences as racially discriminatory under the RJA.

Same subject from a different publication.
https://eji.org/news/north-carolina-sup ... lty-cases/
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“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.” 

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