On August 10, 2009, the North Carolina Legislature passed a historic piece of civil rights legislation, the North Carolina Racial Justice Act (RJA), which was intended to reform racial discrimination in that state’s death penalty cases. This week, the North Carolina Legislature repealed the very same legislation.
By Will Matthews, ACLU of Northern California at 2:45pm
The North Carolina state Senate late Monday voted to repeal an historic 2009 law that would have helped ensure that death sentences handed down in the state were not the result of racial bias.
The Racial Justice Act allows death row prisoners like Marcus Robinson a hearing in which they can present statistics and other evidence showing that death sentences state- and county-wide were tainted by racism and that their death sentence should be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
By Denny LeBoeuf, Capital Punishment Project at 5:26pm
North Carolina’s district attorneys have seen the promise of that state’s Racial Justice Act (RJA) up close, and they don’t want it to get any closer. This week they sent a letter to state legislators asking them to scuttle the RJA fast.
By Denny LeBoeuf, Capital Punishment Project at 4:16pm
Yesterday at the Supreme Court, a New Orleans prosecutor defended the conviction of a man despite the admitted failure of her office to turn over evidence they were required to provide to his defense team. This fraudulently obtained conviction was then used to help send Juan Smith to death row. The prosecutorial misconduct was so severe — and the shameful history of New Orleans prosecutors so blatant — that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan asked the hapless prosecutor: “Did your office ever consider just confessing error in this case?”
By Brian Stull, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 5:31pm
A couple of weeks ago, we told you about the plans of Texas prosecutors to execute Hank Skinner this coming Wednesday, despite that crucial DNA evidence that could exonerate him has never been tested. Today the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals put the brakes on these plans, staying Skinner's scheduled execution.
In a brief order, the court held that the execution could not go forward while Skinner's application for DNA evidence testing remained unresolved. The court also noted that Skinner's application for DNA testing relied on changes to the Texas statute concerning DNA testing that had been prompted by his case. The court stated that it needed time "to fully review the changes in the statute as they pertain to this case."
By Denny LeBoeuf, Capital Punishment Project at 4:43pm
The confederate flag, deliberately adopted as a symbol of white race domination and control, no longer flies on the steps of the Shreveport, Louisiana courthouse. Last week, Caddo Parish commissioners voted 11-1 to take it down, after litigation charging racial bias in several death penalty cases argued under the flag got the attention of the Louisiana Supreme Court and the national media.
This week we got the welcome news that the state of Alabama will not appeal a ruling ordering a new trial for ACLU client Montez Spradley, who was sentenced to death despite inadequate and very weak evidence, after his trial judge rejected the jury’s 10-2 vote for a life sentence .
As we’ve written before, Spradley, a young African-American man, has always vigorously maintained his innocence in the 2004 murder of a 58-year-old white grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama. The prosecution's case against Spradley was alarmingly thin and riddled with inconsistencies, and in ordering a new trial the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals found that much of it was "improperly admitted."
By Brian Stull, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 6:07pm
It's Halloween. So what could be scarier than a state throwing a person in prison for arson when the fire was accidental?
Executing him.
That's the lesson of a report released Friday by the Texas Forensic Science Commission. The report is the latest twist in an ongoing legal saga following Texas's 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. In 2004, before Texas executed Willingham for the alleged arson murder of his three children, the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole had received a report by a renowned fire scientist named Dr. Gerald Hurst. Dr. Hurst's report showed that the "fire-science" testimony accusing Willingham of arson at his trial was farcical and anything but scientific. Governor Rick Perry received the report too. Willingham's execution went forward despite that the debunked "fire science" had been the centerpiece of the state's case against him.
By Brian Stull, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 2:01pm
If prosecutors don’t change course, on November 9th Hank Skinner could be the 476th person executed by the State of Texas since 1976. Problem is, Skinner, like Troy Davis, may well be innocent, and Texas prosecutors have so far blocked DNA testing of evidence that could prove it.
In March, over the objection of prosecutors, the United States Supreme Court cleared the way for Skinner to bring a federal civil rights lawsuit to compel DNA testing of the untested evidence. Even though that litigation remains pending and unresolved, prosecutors have obtained an execution date for Skinner and appear poised to execute him before the court rules on his claim.
