District Attorney Jim O'Neill has agreed to allow four pending first-degree murder cases to be delayed until after a study on the death penalty and race is completed next summer.
Motions in the four murder cases were filed under the Racial Justice Act, and a judge in Forsyth Superior Court was scheduled to hear those motions yesterday.
But O'Neill was able to reach an agreement with Mark Rabil, an assistant capital defense attorney, to postpone the cases, which included one set to start in January.
The motions were the first in Forsyth County to be filed under the Racial Justice Act, which Gov. Bev Perdue signed in August. The law allows defendants to use statistics and other evidence to prove racial bias in the application of the death penalty.
In the motions, defense attorneys asked that the start of the trial in each case be delayed until a $500,000 study being done by two law professors at Michigan State University is finished in August. The motions also asked for discovery information from prosecutors on what criteria they used in pursuing the death penalty and whether race was a significant factor.
O'Neill said yesterday that he has always been a strong supporter of the death penalty, but because capital cases are so serious, they should be approached cautiously.
"People can believe in different sides of this argument," O'Neill said. "I believe in one side. I also believe that this community deserves a cautious approach to every death-penalty case. It's important that we move cautiously and slowly before deciding to put someone's life in jeopardy."
Last week, O'Neill was sworn in as interim district attorney, replacing Tom Keith, who retired Nov. 30.
Rabil, who has had sharp disagreements with Keith over his handling of racially charged cases, praised O'Neill's decision.
"Certainly, there has been the perception over the last three or four decades that perhaps the district attorney's office was not sensitive to issues involving race, and I think Jim has taken a good step here in letting discovery go forward on these cases," he said.
The decision to delay immediately affects the case of Gerald Spease, whose murder trial was scheduled to start Jan. 11. Spease, who is accused of setting a fire June 17, 2006, that killed Tammy Dianne Wilson, faces the death penalty if convicted. A motion to delay the trial under the Racial Justice Act was filed late last week.
Motions had also been filed in the following cases:
□ Mikal Deen Mahdi, who is on death row in South Carolina. Mahdi is accused of killing a gas-station clerk in Winston-Salem in 2004 during a crime spree that started in Virginia.
□ Alfredo Garza Ayala, who was charged with first-degree murder last year in the death of his wife, Linda Nelly Munoz-Rivera, 42, of 108 Chestnut Trail.
□ Amar Mushar Wilson Sr., who was charged with first-degree murder in the death of his 2-year-old son.
O'Neill said he believes that the pursuit of the death penalty by Forsyth County prosecutors in the past has been racially neutral and that it is unfair to compare Forsyth with other counties.
However, he also said that it didn't make sense to try a capital murder case in January until prosecutors and defense attorneys know the results of the death-penalty study.
"As a criminal lawyer, a capital case is the most serious, gut-wrenching trial that we take part in, and in the end, justice is the most important thing," O'Neill said. "And if it takes a couple of months before we can pick back up, if that's what justice is, what justice requires, so be it."
mhewlett@wsjournal.com
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