Five Racial Justice Act claims filed today

Five death row inmates have asked the courts to convert their death sentences to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole under the Racial Justice Act – a groundbreaking state law passed in 2009. Here are some highlights from a press release distributed this morning by the Center for Death Penalty Litigation:

Durham, NC — One year ago, the North Carolina General Assembly took the trailblazing step of passing the Racial Justice Act, a guarantee that no person would be put to death because of racial bias in our state’s justice system.

This week, the law is finally being put to the test. Five death row inmates have asked the courts to convert their death sentences to life imprisonment without parole. All can prove that race played a key role in their trials.

The cases were filed today in Union, Randolph, Martin, Forsyth and Davie counties….

The cases are supported by three new comprehensive studies of the death penalty in North Carolina.

‘We would like to live and practice in a system where race does not matter,’ said Ken Rose, staff attorney at CDPL. ‘But the results show that white victims are valued more highly than black ones, and that black jurors are being denied their right to serve. This evidence of racial bias cannot be ignored.’

One of the new studies, from Michigan State University, shows that prosecutors in capital trials used peremptory strikes to exclude eligible blacks from juries at more than twice the rate that they excluded whites. Of the 159 inmates now on death row in North Carolina, 31 were sentenced by all-white juries, and another 38 had only one minority on their sentencing juries.

Two more studies, one from Michigan State University and one from the University of Colorado, show that those who kill whites are more likely to get the death penalty than those who kill blacks. The MSU study found that a defendant is 2.6 times more likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white. The UC study found that a defendant’s odds of getting the death penalty increase by 2.96 times if the victim is white.

The findings echo those of previous studies in North Carolina and around the country….

The inmates who filed motions today argue that death penalty practices in their districts and individual cases corroborate the MSU study and show that race was a significant factor placing them on death row.

Kenneth Rouse, Randolph County, 1992: Black defendant, white victim, all-white jury, prosecution struck 100% of qualified black jurors, 34% of qualified white jurors.

One juror claimed after the trial that “blacks do not care about living as much as whites do.” The juror routinely referred to blacks as “n—–s,” and stated that “bigotry” was influential in his decision to vote for death. No federal court considered Rouse’s claim of race discrimination because his lawyers filed his appeal one day late. Rouse is one of five death row prisoners sentenced to death by an all-white jury in Randolph County. The prosecutor in Rouse’s case has a history of striking black potential jurors. Even the US Supreme Court has taken notice of the problem and sent yet another Randolph County capital case back for an inquiry into whether the prosecutor struck jurors in a racially discriminatory manner.

Guy LeGrande, Stanly County, 1996: Black defendant, white victim, all-white jury, prosecution struck 100% of the qualified black jurors, 26% of qualified white jurors.

LeGrande’s white co-defendant, who was the mastermind of the murder, was allowed to plead to second degree murder. In testimony at his trial, LeGrande was referred to as a “n—– from Wadesboro.” LeGrande, who is severely mentally ill, was allowed to represent himself at trial. The district attorney in his case regularly wore a noose lapel pin, a racially charged symbol of lynching, in the courtroom. He gave noose pins to his assistant district attorneys as “morale boosters” when they obtained a death sentence. One of the three recent exonerees, yet another black defendant who was sentenced by an all-white jury, was prosecuted by the same district attorney. His exoneration came after the revelation that the prosecutor hid favorable evidence from the defendant.

Shawn Bonnett, Martin County, 1996, Black defendant, white victim, two black jurors, prosecution struck 78% of the qualified black jurors, 6% of qualified white jurors.

Bonnett and three other men were charged with the robbery and murder of a white store owner. It was not contested that Bonnett was not the shooter or the mastermind in the case, and none of his three co-defendants were sentenced to death. The prosecution in Bonnett’s trial used their peremptory strikes to exclude 78% of the qualified black potential jurors, while accepting 94% of the white jurors. At the time of the trial, the population of Martin County was 45% black.

Jeremy Murrell, Forsyth County, 2006, Black defendant, white victim, one black juror, prosecution struck 80% of the qualified black jurors, 26% of qualified white jurors.

Prosecutors in Murrell’s trial used their peremptory strikes to exclude a large proportion of qualified black prospective jurors from jury service. Meanwhile, prosecutors removed very few prospective white jurors from the panel. When asked to explain why they had cut nearly all the blacks from the jury, prosecutors claimed to have done so because those prospective jurors were close in age to the defendant, had failed to reveal their criminal records, or had a family history of mental illness. However, the prosecution gave its approval to white prospective jurors who were the exact same age as the defendant, had failed to reveal the exact same criminal charges as the struck black jurors, and also reported family histories of mental illness.

Jathiyah Al-Bayyinah, Davie County (Iredell County jury), 1999, again in 2003, (granted a new trial, re-sentenced to death), Black defendant, white victim, two all-white juries, 1999 case – prosecution struck 100% of the qualified black jurors, 24% of qualified white jurors, 2003 case – prosecution struck 67% of the qualified black jurors, 21% of qualified white jurors

On appeal, Al-Bayyinah, who is Muslim, presented evidence that his trial attorneys were ineffective in failing to present mitigating evidence of racial violence and tension in Statesville at the time he was growing up. In rejecting his claim, the court specifically cited as reasons why the claim was being denied that he became a Muslim, and the “the peaceful murder victim was an elderly white man.” One of the investigating officers in his case manufactured a fraudulent statement incriminating to the defendant and altered computer files to conceal the deception, and another later pled guilty to embezzlement from the sheriff’s department. Of the seven defendants currently on death row from that prosecutorial district, four were sentenced by all-white juries.”