A group of pastors urged state legislators to pass a bill that would allow defendants to challenge the application of the death penalty by citing statistical racial disparities in the overall use of capital punishment.
The bill, which was introduced by state Reps. Larry Womble and Earline Parmon of Forsyth County, is needed to provide a check on a criminal-justice system in which racial bias plays a major role in determining who ends up on death row and who doesn't, said the Rev. Carlton Eversley, the president of the Ministers Conference of Winston-Salem and Vicinity.
And the proof of that racial bias, Eversley said, can be seen clearly in the case of Darryl Hunt, a black man who spent 19 years in prison for killing and raping Deborah Sykes, a white copy editor at the now-defunct Winston-Salem Sentinel. In 2003, Hunt was exonerated after another man, Willard Brown, confessed to the Sykes' killing.
"Anyone who believes that race plays no role in who gets the death penalty is sadly mistaken," he said yesterday during a news conference held at Dellabrook Presbyterian Church, where he is the pastor.
He was among 11 pastors, including the Rev. Nathan Parrish of Peace Haven Baptist Church, the Rev. Judith Dancy of Winston-Salem Friends Meeting and the Rev. Kelly Carpenter of Green Street United Methodist Church, who were at Dellabrook.
A similar news conference was held in Greensboro at New Light Baptist Church. Both conferences were organized by People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, a nonpartisan organization based in Carrboro.
The bill, known as the "N.C. Racial Justice Act," would allow judges to overturn a death sentence if a defendant proved through statistics that race played a significant factor in how the death penalty was applied in previous cases, either in that county, prosecutorial district of the state as a whole.
A defendant could use statistics to try to show that race was a factor either in a prosecutor's decision to pursue the death penalty or in a jury's decision to impose it.
Opponents of the bill, including the state's prosecutors, say that the bill elevates what they say are ambiguous statistics over the particular facts of a case. And they worry that the bill could mean the end of the use of the death penalty in North Carolina.
The pastors yesterday made clear that they were opposed to the death penalty and that they would like to see it abolished.
But they also said that this bill doesn't even come close to doing that.
"It recognizes the racial disparity that's been with us for far too long," Carpenter said.
Stephen Dear, the executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, said that the bill would act as a check on the criminal justice system.
"I don't see how anybody would be opposed to that," he said.
Eversley said that conservative Republicans should be the first in line to support a bill that helps to ensure that the death penalty is meted out fairly.
The N.C. Senate has voted in favor of the bill but only after amending it to settle a legal dispute that has put executions on hold in North Carolina.
Last week, the bill was approved by a committee in the N.C. House. It still needs to be approved by the full House.
■ Michael Hewlett can be reached at 727-7326 or at mhewlett@wsjournal.com.
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