In 2012, Marcus Robinson is carefully listening to the hearing of the Race Justice Law.The News & Observer, Shawn Rocco/AP Photo
In 1994, Marcus Robinson, who was black, was sentenced to death for the murder of Erik Tornblom, a white teenager in North Carolina, North Carolina, in 1991, in 1991. He spent about 20 years during his death, but in 2012 he was revived without the chance of draining the sentence. His sentences were one of the four prisoners of death initiated by a judge who found that race discrimination played a role in the hearing.
The reason for reviewing their cases, Race Justice Law, This allowed judges to be sentenced to prison without conditional release when they were able to prove racial prejudices in accusations, jury elections or sentences.
Old Gov. Bev Perdue, “Racal Justice Act, North Carolina, the most disgusting criminals of our state, the hardest punishment” Old Gov. BEV PERDUE in question When he signed the law into the law, “The decision is based on facts and laws, not racial prejudice, but on facts.”
At the age of 21, Robinson was the youngest person condemned to death in North Carolina. At the age of three, after being physically abused by his father, he was hospitalized with severe seizures and was diagnosed with permanent brain dysfunction. However, these were not the only disturbing aspects of his case.
“We continue to believe that the Law of Race Justice is a badly designed law that has little interest with the race and has nothing to do with justice.”
Race discrimination in the election of the jury was banned by the Supreme Court in the 1986 Supreme Court’s decision. Batson / Kentucky, But Robinson’s trial was infected with him. Prosecutor John Dickson rejected disproportionately appropriate black potential jury members. For example, the man hit a black potential jury member because he was once accused of public drunkenness. However, DWI accepted two non -black ”people with convictions. Half of black people, one of the appropriate members of the pool, and only 14 percent of non -black members. Finally, Robinson was tried by a jury of 12 people, including only three colors-one is an indigenous American individual and two black people.
Race discrimination in the choice of jury in the criminal justice system of North Carolina was not uncommon. A comprehensive Michigan State University study looked at more than 7,400 potential jury members in 173 cases from 1990 to 2010. The researchers found that 52.6 percent of the appropriate potential black jury members of prosecutors throughout the state of the state hit only 25.7 percent of all other potential jury members. This prejudice was reflected in the order of death. 35 prisoners from 147 people during the death of North Carolina were convicted by white juries; 38 by only one black member and juries.
In accordance with the race of race justice, prisoners in order of death one year When the bill is a law of lawsuits. 145 prisoners of the state made allegations, but only Robison and three other people – Quintel Augustine, Tilmon Golphin and Christina Walters – were held. Robinson’s was the first in 2012. In the Supreme Court of Cumberland, Judge Gregory Weeks He directed that race He played an important role in the hearing and Robinson was angry with life without any conditional release. North Carolina He objected to the decision To the high court of the state.
Your decision was followed by a scream. North Carolina Regional Lawyers Conference expression “Capital cases reflect the most ruthless and disgusting criminals in our society. Whether the death penalty is a suitable sentence for the murderers should not be masked by our general assembly as racism allegations in our courts.”
The decision drew a lot of publicity from all over the country, and North Carolina deputies were angry. “In the legislative registration, certainly some of them [lawmakers] This really wanted to see that executions are progressing, Cass says Cassandra Stubbs, Director of the Aclu Death Penalty Project, representing Robinson, the legislative employees, RJA’s “regional lawyers and prisoner killers, death and prisoner murderers as“ fatal ”.
The judge weeks angered Phillip Berger Robinson for the state legislature. concern This Robinson may be suitable for conditional evacuation. Robinson, who was 18 years old when he committed the crime and would not be accepted as a child, referred to the decision of the US Supreme Court, referring to the decision of a US Supreme Court, which prohibits children from taking life sentences without conditional release, and would not be suitable for life without a conditional release. “We cannot allow cold -blooded killers to be released into our community and I expect the state to object to this decision,” he said. “Regardless of the result, we continue to believe that the Law of Race Justice is a badly designed law that has little interest with the race and has nothing to do with justice.”
The State Legislative Assembly took over this difficulty and He voted to remove it Race Justice Law in 2013. This made it impossible for people to review their sentences for racial prejudice for racial prejudice, but left the fate of four people who moved to the prison of life uncertain. Gov. “The regional lawyers of the state are almost unanimously accepted as a result of the judiciary to prevent the death penalty, not the way to justice, but the state lawyers of the state’s regional lawyers are almost unanimously accepted.”
When the four prisoners decreased, the law was still in force, but it was not yet safe than Death Row. Robinson’s prisoners were legally reduced, but the legal war had just begun.
In 2015, about two years after the first hearing, the North Carolina High Court He ordered the Supreme Court Robinson, Augustine, Golphin and Walters to rethink reduced sentences, the judge’s “complex” trials could not give enough time to prepare for the “complex” trials, he said.
Last January, the Supreme Court Judge Erwin Spainhour decided that RJA had four defendants because it was abolished He could no longer use the law To reduce sentences. “North Carolina promised to take an unprecedented look at the role of racial prejudice in the capital penalty, S said Stubbs. But now, “The State Legislative Assembly has clearly returned from its commitment and abolished the law.”
Robinson returned to his death in the central prison in Raleigh, the capital of the state. In the petition to the Supreme Court of State, Robinson’s lawyers point out that the double danger substance that prevents someone from being tried twice for the same crime – the double danger substance that allows North Carolina’s death penalty to re -imagine the death penalty – 2012 RJA hearing.
Stubbs says, “He never measles death,” he says. “He has no basis to keep him during death.”
