The Death Penalty Information Center has pre­pared a sum­ma­ry of North Carolina v. Robinson, the first rul­ing issued under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act. The opin­ion by Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks on April 22, 2012, reduced Marcus Robinson’s (pic­tured) death sen­tence to life with­out parole. DPIC’s sum­ma­ry high­lights the sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence of racial bias in elim­i­nat­ing poten­tial black jurors that led the court to rule in Robinson’s favor. The Court con­clud­ed ​“that Robinson has estab­lished that race was a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor in deci­sions of pros­e­cu­tors to exer­cise peremp­to­ry strikes…from 1990 to 2010,” and that the State’s rebut­tal was insuf­fi­cient to rebut Robinson’s case. Graphs and per­ti­nent quotes in the sum­ma­ry empha­size key points from the rul­ing and from the Michigan State University study that formed the back­bone of Robinson’s evi­dence. See DPIC’s sum­ma­ry of the rul­ing.

In his opin­ion, Judge Weeks also not­ed the effects of biased jury-selec­tion on poten­tial jurors: ​“Discrimination in jury selec­tion frus­trates the com­mit­ment of African-Americans to full par­tic­i­pa­tion in civic life. One of the stereo­types par­tic­u­lar­ly offen­sive to African-American cit­i­zens is that they are not inter­est­ed in see­ing crim­i­nals brought to jus­tice. African-Americans who have been exclud­ed from jury ser­vice on account of race com­pare their expe­ri­ences to the injus­tice and humil­i­a­tions of the Jim Crow era.”

(DPIC Summary, post­ed May 29, 2012.) See Race and lis­ten to DPIC’s pod­cast on Race. Read the com­plete court opin­ion.

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