Entries tagged with “Tilmon Golphin”
Issues
Oct 07, 2020
Groundbreaking ‘Racist Roots’ Project Exposes Racism Endemic in North Carolina’s Death Penalty
North Carolina’s death penalty is a weapon of social control rooted in a racist past. That is the message of a groundbreaking new collaborative project, Racist Roots: Origins of North Carolina’s Death Penalty, by the Durham-based defense organization Center for Death Penalty Litigation (CDPL). Through essays and academic articles containing in-depth analysis, photographs, archival news-clippings, poetry, and stirring personal narratives, the CDPL staff and a legion of notable contributors…
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that three African American death-row prisoners who had proven that their death sentences violated the state’s since repealed Racial Justice Act (RJA) must be resentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.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
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were reduced to life without parole under the state’s Racial Justice Act, then reinstated after the legislature repealed the law. Passed in 2009 and repealed in 2013, the landmark legislation allowed death-row prisoners to challenge their sentences on the basis of statistical evidence of racial discrimination.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
Dec 13, 2012
RACE: Three More Death Sentences Reduced in North Carolina Because of Bias in Jury Selection
On December 13, North Carolina Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks reduced the sentences of three death row inmates to life without parole after finding that race played a significant role in the selection of the juries in their cases. Applying North Carolina’s revised Racial Justice Act, Judge Weeks relied partially on studies showing prosecutors struck qualified African-American jurors twice as often as other potential jurors, both in Cumberland County and statewide. He also relied on evidence…