Posted on 04/20/2012 8:42:42 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Concluding that racial bias played a significant factor in the sentencing of man to death here 18 years ago, a judge on Friday ordered that the man’s sentence be reduced to life in prison without parole, the first such decision under North Carolina’s controversial Racial Justice Act.
Reading a summary of his ruling from the bench, Judge Gregory A. Weeks of Cumberland County Superior Court said that “race was a materially, practically and statistically significant factor in the decision to exercise peremptory challenges during jury selection by prosecutors” at the time of the trial of the inmate, Marcus Reymond Robinson. The disparity was strong enough, the judge said, “as to support an inference of intentional discrimination.”
From the jury box where they sat, the relatives of the man Mr. Robinson killed, Erik Tornblom, watched in disappointed silence. Mr. Robinson, wearing all white, was seated with his lawyers, his head lowered as the judge read his ruling.
The state said it would appeal.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I grew up in NC... sadly moved away a long time ago, and it tears me to see just what a bastion of liberalism it is slowly becoming.
Why bother to have sentencing guidelines or jury recommendations, anymore? If you're black and you commit the most brutal of crimes, you go to jail. Save the DP for whitey.
Yeah. Us, too. - A friend of ours was murdered and robbed on a lonely NC backroad several years ago. He had stopped to help three Negro men who were acting like they were having car trouble. - The friend had a reputation for carrying a wad of money; was getting up in years, so was an easy mark I suppose. The last I heard, the guys who murdered him were in prison with no chance of parole; but these days who knows?
The man was sentenced 18 years ago-—proving there was no intent to actually execute him anyway.
This should not even be a case. Had they carried out the sentence in a timely matter it would be over and done with.
It is totally ridiculous to convict and sentence a person to death and wait 18 years to perform the duty.It isn’t fair to the families of either the perpetrator or the victim, and it is not justice by any means.
IMO any prisoner who has been on death row for over two years should either be executed immediately or sentenced to life without parole, since the intent to execute is not there.
Over 600 prisoners on death row in california and 99.9% of them will die of old age if some prisoner doesn’t kill them
You forgot suicide. Many on Death Row in CA opt for suicide as so few executions actually take place. There are still Carter-era convicts waiting their turn.
Would like to see a source for your stats.
Agree with your basic point, but I suspect your numbers are high.
The group you reference does indeed commit murders in wildly disproportionate numbers, but I don’t think they are THAT disproportionate.
Death Row should be a permanent population of 5....one moves in, one moves out.
Wow. That statistic seems almost unbelievable.
Can you cite the source(s)? I am well aware that young adult black males commit a highly disproportionate amount of crimes/murder, but that number is astronomical.
That judge bears a strong resemblance to Henry Waxman!
The judge is one of Holder’s people...
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