Opinion
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Death-penalty bias
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Published: July 26, 2009
The problems with the death penalty in this state have been underscored time and time again, including through three high-profile cases from other parts of North Carolina in which inmates who had been on death row were freed from prison. The penalty has been on an unofficial moratorium since 2006 as officials try to resolve questions regarding whether doctors should participate in executions. But with problems from past cases continuing to mount, a bill that addresses racial bias in death-penalty cases is timely.
The bill filed by Reps. Larry Womble and Earline Parmon of Forsyth County would allow judges to throw out the death penalty in a specific case if they found a trend indicating racial bias in other cases. Forsyth County District Attorney Tom Keith and other prosecutors have many objections to the bill, including that it amounts to a legislative end-run to abolish the death penalty, paints them as racist and is based on questionable statistics.
Every black person on death row convicted of killing a white person didn't land there because of racial bias. Even if this bill, the Racial Justice Act, were to pass, there's no guarantee defense attorneys would have much success with it. The argument behind the bill was rejected by the Supreme Court in 1987, as the Journal's James Romoser noted in a recent story. Only one other state, Kentucky, has a version of the Racial Justice Act.
But racial bias, just as misconduct by police, prosecutors and defense attorneys, should be explored more thoroughly. Every effort should be made to identify and eliminate every flaw in the system. Attorney General Roy Cooper, who hasn't had much to say about this bill, should be leading the charge to reform the death penalty in this state.
Defense attorneys nationwide have long raised issues of racial bias in death-penalty cases, especially in regard to jury selection. But this bill would ease the process in North Carolina cases, despite the contentions of Keith and other prosecutors that each case should be decided on its own facts.
"You can't just look at an individual case, because each capital case is a microcosm of the entire criminal justice system," said Mark Rabil, a Winston-Salem lawyer whose efforts finally won exoneration in 2004 for Darryl Hunt, a black man who spent more than 18 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of the murder of Deborah Sykes, who was white.
Proving racial bias, like any endeavor involving human motivations and feelings, is extremely difficult. Socioeconomics often enters the picture as well.
And as Rabil noted, many of the biases that can enter into a capital-murder trial are unintentional and subconscious. Under the bill, testimony from witnesses such as attorneys and police officers could be offered to try to prove or disprove bias.
It would also allow the admission of statistical evidence. Defendants could cite statistical racial disparities on a statewide basis or from their local jurisdictions. Prosecutors could introduce their own statistics.
Supporters of the bill note that the percentage of blacks on the state's death row greatly exceeds the percentage of blacks in the general population. But opponents say that the percentage of blacks who are convicted of murder is higher than the percentage of blacks who land on death row.
Black murder victims outnumber white ones in this state. But a Journal review of Department of Correction records found that of all executions since 1984, 80 percent were against people convicted of murdering white victims. Only 18 percent were against people convicted of murdering black victims.
The bill has passed in the House, but faces a tough battle in the Senate. The Senate version, which passed in May, had a section aimed at resuming executions. That provision is necessary for the bill to pass in the Senate, the Raleigh News & Observer reported.
Keith, the Forsyth DA, likes the provision. And he said he could support the bill if it weren't retroactive, because it could clear up doubts that people have about the death penalty.
Keith's office has neither the time nor the staff to deal with the old cases this could reopen, he said. "The amount of work that we'd have to do is absolutely incomprehensible," he said.
That work would also be costly.
If the bill passes, judges who accept defense arguments of racial bias could stop district attorneys from seeking the death penalty or, after a trial, convert a jury's death sentence to life in prison without parole. Inmates currently on death row would have one year from the bill's enactment to appeal on grounds of racial bias.
It's highly doubtful that this bill, if passed, would lead to death row being emptied. "I don't think there's just going to be willy-nilly throwing out death sentences," said Matthew Robinson, a criminologist at Appalachian State University.
"And frankly, if a lot of death sentences get thrown out because of this bill, it's because they need to be thrown out, because there's a serious problem in this state," Robinson said.
The Racial Justice Act won't fix the myriad problems with the administration of capital punishment in North Carolina. But it would encourage the court system to tackle questions of bias in these cases and attempt to resolve, once and for all, whether there is a widespread pattern of bias. Before this state returns to executions, it should do whatever it can to answer all the questions tied to them.
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