North Carolina Lawmakers Vote To Repeal Racial Justice Act

North Carolina Lawmakers Vote To Repeal Racial Justice Act

The majority Republican North Carolina House lawmakers have voted to do a way with the remaining parts of the Racial Justice Act, which provides death row inmates to contest their death sentences if they can prove that racial discrimination played a part in the sentencing.

via WRAL

House lawmakers have given tentative removal to repeal the remaining sections of the North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act, the 2009 law that allows death row inmates to seek to have their sentences commuted to life without parole if they can prove that racial bias played a role in their death sentence.

Republican leaders repealed large portions of the law in 2012. Senate Bill 306 would repeal what’s left of the law, leaving in limbo scores of cases pending review under it.

Rep. Skip Stam, R-Wake, said the RJA had become a de facto moratorium on the death penalty.

“No one wants actual racial discrimination. What we don’t want also is for race to be used for a pretext – a pretext in order to stop the death penalty,” he said in Tuesday’s floor debate.

“We don’t need this Racial Justice Act,” said Rep. Sarah Stevens, R-Surry. “It has created nothing but a delay in the system, a tremendous amount of cost.”

While the motives of the right-wing goons are always questionable at best, this IS kind of a tricky issue. Are you in favor of the Racial Justice Act and allowing death row prisoners to get a shot at remaining alive if they can prove racial discrimination was to blame for their being sentenced to die?

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