Critics want end to death penalty

Prosecutions tainted by racial bias, fraud in N.C., filed brief says

By: JournalNow Staff | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 31, 2010

RALEIGH

North Carolina's criminal prosecutions are so tainted by racial bias and scientific fraud that the state should consider eliminating the death penalty, innocence advocates said yesterday as they filed a brief supporting a death row prisoner's claim of bias.

"How can you ever purify a system that is so contaminated to allow any kind of death sentences be pursued or carried out?" asked Carol Turowksi, the co-director of the Innocence & Justice Clinic at the Wake Forest University law school. "We're at a point where there should be a moratorium at the very least and maybe there should be some focus on should we even maintain the death penalty in a system that's never going to be perfect."

Turowski and others at a news conference cited evidence of racial bias in criminal sentences, particularly death-penalty cases, and problems with the State Bureau of Investigation's crime lab. Their brief in support of Melvin White, however, focuses on his claim under the state's Racial Justice Act, which allows death-row inmates to use statistics and other evidence to prove that racial bias resulted in the death sentences.

Of the seven people released from North Carolina's death row since 1973, only one was white, the advocates say in their brief, adding that all were convicted of killing one white victim. Two also were accused of killing a black person.

"Science matters. Race matters," said Theresa Newman, a co-director of the Wrongful Convictions Clinic at Duke University's law school.

Attorney Mark Rabil of Winston-Salem criticized the state-run crime lab, which has been under fire since February, when an SBI agent testified that analysts did not always include the complete results of blood tests on lab reports that were submitted to court. That hearing resulted in the exoneration and release of Greg Taylor, who had served almost 17 years in prison for the death of a Raleigh woman.

That testimony led to an outside review of the SBI's blood unit that was released last week. The review found that eight analysts omitted, overstated or falsely reported blood evidence in several cases, including three that ended in executions and another where two men were imprisoned for killing Michael Jordan's father.

"For years, the State Bureau of Investigation and its laboratory have tried to blind us with so-called science," said Rabil, who represented Darryl Hunt, who was exonerated of a rape conviction in 2004. "For years, they have tried to dupe us with what they claim to be valid science when we know that truth is transparent."

The only forensic evidence against White was based on SBI agent testimony linking casing at the crime scene to ones found on a street corner in Arizona, his attorney said.

"We now know that just because you wear a badge to court or carry a gun at your side when you come to testify doesn't mean that what you have to say is true," Rabil said. "We also know that for years, our own subconscious biases have blinded us to so-called justice in this state, especially in the capital punishment system."

A spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office did not respond to a phone call or e-mail for comment.

White, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for the deaths of a Craven County woman and her boyfriend, is one of 159 prisoners on North Carolina's death row, of whom 151 have filed motions under the act. They're asking that their sentences be converted to life in prison without parole.

Meanwhile, two former prosecutors will help district attorneys fight motions filed by death-row prisoners under the act.

Retired Forsyth County District Attorney Tom Keith will help the 43 elected DAs in the state fight the motions, along with retired Wake County assistant DA Susan Spurlin.

The motions for the death-row prisoners cite a study by Michigan State University showing that a defendant is 2.6 times more likely to be sentenced to death if at least one of the victims is white. The study also showed that out of the 159 people on death row, 31 had all-white juries and 38 had only one person of color on their jury.