Publications & Testimony

(Superior Court, Judge Gregory Weeks, April 22, 2012) The first ruling under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act Read the complete opinion. 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…

Marcus Robinson was the first defendant to receive a hearing under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act. His sentence was reduced to life without parole due to evidence of racial bias in jury selection. Timeline of Robinson’s case: August 5, 1991: Marcus Robinson is indicted for the murder of Eric Tornblom. August 5, 1994: Robinson is sentenced to death. 1999: State post-conviction appeal is unsuccessful. 2006: Federal post-conviction appeal is unsuccessful. January 25, 2007: Judge orders…

On April 20, North Carolina Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks issued an historic ruling under the state’s Racial Justice Act finding intentional bias by the state in selecting juries for death penalty cases. In what may be the first ruling of its kind in the country, the court held 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 Marcus Robinson’s (pictured)…

In a recent op-ed in the Gainesville Sun, Florida Judge Charles M. Harris (pictured) called the state’s capital punishment system “totally defective” and “far less satisfactory” than alternatives like life without parole. Judge Harris, who has been on the bench for over 20 years, argued that life without parole “has rendered death by execution redundant and the amount we spend on it wasted.” He continued, “[D]eath by execution is excessively expensive. Most people who support the death penalty…

A report released on April 18 by the prestigious National Research Council of the National Academies based on a review of more than three decades of research concluded that studies claiming a deterrent effect on murder rates from the death penalty are fundamentally flawed. The report concluded: “The committee concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide…

April 22 will mark the 25^th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in McCleskey v. Kemp in which the Court rejected (5 – 4) a claim of racial bias based on a sophisticated statistical study of the death penalty in Georgia. Warren McCleskey, an African-American death row inmate convicted of killing a white police officer, presented the Court with analysis showing that defendants charged with killing white victims had odds of receiving a death sentence that were 4.3 times higher than…

A recent study of the death penalty in Nevada compared the costs of defending capital and non-capital murder cases. The study, conducted by Dr. Terance Miethe of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, looked at the time spent by defense attorneys at various stages of a case. The study’s findings included: — Clark County public defense attorneys spent an average of 2,298 hours on a capital murder case compared to an average of 1,087 hours on a non-capital…

A recent editorial in the New York Times called Connecticut’s decision to repeal the death penalty part of “a growing movement against capital punishment.” The editorial attributed the trend away from the death penalty to new research that shows “gross injustice in its application and enormous costs in continuing to impose it.” The problem of arbitrariness recently came to light in Connecticut, where “a powerful, comprehensive study provided evidence that state death sentences are haphazardly…

On April 11, the Connecticut House of Representatives passed (86 – 62) a bill to abolish the death penalty for future crimes. The same bill passed the Connecticut Senate on April 5. Governor Dannel Malloy has pledged to sign the bill, which will make Connecticut the 17^th state to abolish the death penalty, and the 5^th to do so in the last 5 years. In a statement released after the House vote, Gov. Malloy said, “When I sign this bill, Connecticut will join 16 other states and almost every other…

Following the recent handing down of a death sentence in Philadelphia, the Executive Director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation blamed the outcome on an inadequate indigent-defense system. Marc Bookman (pictured), writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, reviewed the case and found, “There isn’t a single motion filed by the attorneys in defense of their client. Nor is there a request for a jury questionnaire, which is standard in most jurisdictions that regularly handle capital…