Entries tagged with “Marcus Robinson”
Issues
Jul 13, 2022
Marcus Robinson Remembered for Pioneering Racial Justice Case
Marcus Robinson (pictured), the first person to be granted relief under North Carolina’s trailblazing Racial Justice Act, has died. Robinson, who was sentenced to death in 1994 for a crime he committed shortly after turning 18, died June 9, 2022. He was 49 years old. An obituary by his family and a tribute by his attorneys remembered Robinson for his devotion to his family and his sense of humor, as well as his role in challenging the racial disparities in North Carolina’s death penalty.
Issues
Sep 28, 2020
North Carolina Supreme Court Restores Life Sentences to Three Prisoners Whose Death Sentences Violated Racial Justice Act
The North Carolina Supreme Court has ordered that three African American death-row prisoners who had proven that their death sentences violated the state’s since repealed Racial Justice Act (RJA) must be resentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. In three decisions issued on September 25, 2020, the court ruled that North Carolina had violated constitutional principles of double jeopardy and the prohibitions against after-the-fact enhancements of punishment when the…
Issues
Federal Death Penalty
,Aug 17, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of August 10, 2020
NEWS (8/14/20) — Alabama: The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling granting a new trial to death-row prisoner Steven Petric based upon his lawyer’s ineffective representation at trial. Petric had been convicted and sentenced to death in 2009 for a rape and murder in suburban Birmingham two decades earlier. Prosecutors said DNA evidence from semen and cigarette butts linked Petric to the crime, and they presented extensive evidence arguing that Petric had raped…
Issues
Jun 08, 2020
North Carolina Supreme Court Strikes Down Racial Justice Act Repeal, Permits Race Challenges by 140 Death-Row Prisoners
The North Carolina Supreme Court has struck down the state legislature’s attempted retroactive repeal of the state’s Racial Justice Act (RJA), restoring the rights of approximately 140 death-row prisoners to seek redress of death sentences that they had claimed were substantially affected by racial bias. The Court issued its rulings in the cases of death-row prisoners Andrew Ramseur (pictured, left) and Rayford Burke (pictured, right) on June 5, 2020, holding that “the retroactive application…
Issues
Mar 05, 2018
North Carolina Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Racial Justice Act Death-Penalty Cases
The North Carolina Supreme Court announced on March 2 that it will hear appeals from three of the four prisoners whose death sentences were reduced to life without parole under the state’s Racial Justice Act, then reinstated after the legislature repealed the law. Passed in 2009 and repealed in 2013, the landmark legislation allowed death-row prisoners to challenge their sentences on the basis of statistical evidence of racial discrimination. Marcus Robinson (pictured), Quintel Augustine…
Issues
Dec 21, 2015
North Carolina Court Reverses Racial Justice Act Ruling, Orders New Hearings
The North Carolina Supreme Court has reversed the historic rulings of a Cumberland County, N.C. trial court that had overturned the death sentences of four North Carolina death-row prisoners under the state’s Racial Justice Act. Ruling entirely on procedural grounds, the state’s high court expressed no opinion on the lower court’s fact findings that North Carolina prosecutors had engaged in a decades-long practice of intentional race discrimination in jury selection in capital cases. In April…
Issues
Jun 15, 2012
RACE: After Judge Finds Statewide Racial Bias in Jury Selection, North Carolina Legislators Move to Repeal Racial Justice Act
On June 13, the North Carolina House of Representatives approved a bill to essentially overturn the state’s Racial Justice Act (RJA), a groundbreaking law that allowed a finding of racial bias in sentencing or jury selection based on sophisticated statistical studies. If passed into law, the new bill would require courts to revert to the older and more problematic process of finding direct racial bias by the prosecution or jury against an individual defendant in order to reverse a death…
Issues
Apr 20, 2012
RACE: North Carolina Judge Overturns Death Sentence Under Racial Justice Act
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)…