RALEIGH
A bill aimed at stopping racial bias in the administration of the death penalty stalled yesterday in a legislative committee.
The bill, which is known as the "North Carolina Racial Justice Act," would lay out procedures for defendants to challenge the imposition of the death penalty by presenting statistics that show general racial disparities in how the death penalty has been used in previous cases.
If a defendant showed statistical disparities, a judge could prevent a prosecutor from seeking capital punishment. The bill would also allow death-row inmates to challenge their death sentences on the same basis, and if successful, their sentences would be converted to life in prison.
Two of the bill's chief supporters are state Reps. Larry Womble and Earline Parmon, both D-Forsyth.
The N.C. Senate approved a version of the bill last month -- but only after a successful Republican amendment added a new provision that was intended to remove a legal challenge that has put executions on hold in North Carolina.
Womble and Parmon, joined by groups supporting the original version of the bill, harshly criticized the Senate amendment. Republicans, however, said yesterday that the amendment is now mostly inconsequential because of a recent judge's ruling that resolves the legal challenge and could pave the way for executions to resume within months. The legal challenge involved the way in which top state officials approved a new procedure for lethal injection.
Yesterday, a new version of the bill -- stripped of the Senate amendment -- came before the N.C. House's ways and means committee. The committee previously approved a similar version of the bill, but committee members appeared to give the bill more scrutiny yesterday.
They discussed the bill for nearly an hour, with legislators raising questions on potential cost increases for district attorneys and on the overall fairness of using statistics to try to prove racial bias.
By the end of the meeting, it was clear that several legislators wanted to discuss the bill further, and members of the public also wanted a chance to speak on it. For that reason, the committee's chairman, Rep. Bill Faison, D-Orange, decided not to call for a vote on the bill. He said that the committee could resume its discussion at its next meeting two weeks from now.
The House Republican leader, Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, said after the meeting that he believes that the bill is getting more resistance as legislators study it more.
"I think it's as dead as a doornail," said Stam, R-Wake.
Faison, who supports the bill, disagreed with Stam, saying that he believes that the bill had enough votes to get approved by the committee if he had called for a vote. But he said he first wanted to give everyone a chance to be heard.
"People should be able to express representative views for and against it. I think that's minimal due process," Faison said.
After the meeting, Womble was upset that Faison did not push for a vote, and the two were seen engaged in an intense conversation.
"I wish we had taken a vote today," Womble said afterward. "We'll just have to persevere."
Womble, Parmon and other supporters are trying to push the bill through the House because the 2009 legislative session may be nearing an end, and the bill still has a number of hurdles to clear before becoming law. After the House ways and means committee, it must go through a judiciary committee and then come before the full House. After that, the House and Senate would have to reconcile their differing versions of the bill.
The version of the bill that Womble and Parmon presented at yesterday's committee meeting contained a strategic change from earlier versions. The bill's official legislative title -- which is important for procedural reasons -- has been altered and lengthened considerably. The title now stretches for 26 lines and describes in great detail exactly what the bill does.
Giving a bill an elaborate title is a way to block unfriendly amendments, because the N.C. House does not allow amendments that conflict with or are outside the scope of a bill's official title.
■ James Romoser can be reached at 919-210-6794 or at jromoser@wsjournal.com.
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