| Viewing Single Post From: Blog and Media Roundup - Monday, June 29, 2009 | |
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| abb | Jun 29 2009, 04:24 AM |
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http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/opinion/hsedits/56-1176034.cfm Urging justice on death row Jun 29, 2009 Bookmark and Share We favor a bill currently making its way through the state Legislature that would allow death row defendants to challenge their convictions on the basis of race. And we're pleased that the primary sponsor of the Racial Justice Act is Durham State Sen. Floyd McKissick Jr. The bill has passed the Senate and could go before a House of Representatives committee on Tuesday. From there, it could move to the full House. We hope it receives a full hearing and is ultimately signed into law. Sen. McKissick is on the right track. There are no do-overs with the death penalty, so the justice system had better be doubly and triply sure that if it is imposed, the defendant is guilty of a heinous crime beyond a shadow of a doubt of fact, discrimination or prosecutorial misconduct. We have seen too many executions and near-executions in this state where those questions had not been adequately addressed. Certainly blacks are sentenced to death at a much higher percentage than whites in North Carolina. Currently serving on death row in North Carolina are 88 blacks, 65 whites, four Latinos, one Asian and nine Native Americans. That's 52 percent blacks on death row in a state that has a 74 percent white, 21 percent black population. According to the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, more than 1,000 men have been executed in 12 southern states since 1976. But 70 men have also been exonerated from death row, including five black men from North Carolina who collectively spent at least 60 years behind bars for murder convictions that were eventually reversed. As NAACP President William Barber told The Herald-Sun's John McCann, famous cases like the exoneration of Darryl Hunt of Winston Salem after spending 18 years behind bars don't prove the system works -- instead, they prove that the system is capable of failing in important ways. We're pleased questions in court about whether doctors can participate in executions have created a de facto freeze on capital punishment in North Carolina. But whatever the outcome of that controversy, death row defendants deserve to be sure their cases are being heard fully and fairly. |
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| Blog and Media Roundup - Monday, June 29, 2009 · DUKE LACROSSE - Liestoppers | |
1:13 AM Dec 1
