FERGUSON DECISION REACHED; PRAY FOR PEACE (LET GOD AVENGE NOT MAN)

FERGUSON DECISION REACHED:

A decision/ verdict has been reached by a FERGUSON Grand Jury.

To be announced later Monday afternoon.

PLEASE PRAY FOR PEACE IN THAT REGION.

LET GOD AVENGE NOT MAN.

#JusticeForMikeBrown


Article Sources: CNN; NY Daily News; Washington Post; Youtube

ARTICLE: "Grand Jury Reaches Decision In Case Of Ferguson Officer"

A grand jury has reached a decision on whether to indict Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson, Mo. police officer whose fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager sparked days of turbulent protests, sources close to the process said.

News conferences are being prepared by the county prosecutors’ office and the Missouri governor, sources said. Those news conferences will likely come later today.

The sources gave no indication of whether Wilson, 28, will face state charges in the August shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, which triggered a frank conversation about race and police interaction with African-Americans.

The grand jury’s decision is the latest turn in a case marked in the national consciousness by the stunning images of protesters looting stores and police wearing riot gear and deploying tear gas in the days after Brown’s death.

Details of the grand jury’s deliberations have leaked out in recent weeks, angering the Brown family and protesters who saw it as a signal there would be no charges filed.

Althought a parallel federal civil rights investigation of the shooting is continuing, federal investigators have all but concluded they don’t have a case against Wilson, law enforcement officials have said. Federal investigators are also conducting a broader probe of the Ferguson Police Department.

If Wilson is not charged, government officials are bracing for protests in the St. Louis area and nationwide. They have discussed emergency plans in the event of a violent reaction, while protest and community leaders have mapped out their response in the hopes of avoiding the unrest that exploded after Brown was killed.

North Carolina Racial Justice Act Struck Down By State Legislators: BLACK Suspects & Death Penalty Cases

NC Lawmakers override veto of Racial Justice Act overhaul

State lawmakers voted Monday to override Gov. Beverly Perdue's veto of a bill that overhauls the landmark Racial Justice Act.

About 90 minutes after the Senate voted 31-11 to override Perdue's veto, the House followed suit with a 72-48 vote.

The measure now becomes law.

The original version of the 2009 law allowed defendants to challenge their death sentence based on statistical data.

Now, statistical data alone is no longer enough to convert sentences to life in prison, and defendants would have to show details particular to their case in order to be successful.

"It's time to go froward with real justice," House Majority Leader Paul Stam said, adding that justice "is about individuals, not groups."

Opponents of the revision, mainly Democrats, say that the changes gut the landmark bill, but backers say the law has been abused.

“What we’re doing today is turning our back on the only sensible remedy that has been devised for racism in court as it relates to the death penalty, and I think that’s a sad thing for us to do in North Carolina," House Minority Leader Joe Hackney said.

"We’re supposed to be progressing, rather than regressing," said Rep. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth. "We can still kill people if we want to kill them.

It does not get rid of the death penalty.

These people (who are successful in a Racial Justice Act appeal) will not walk the streets. They will not be your neighbors. They will not walk beside you. They will be incarcerated for life."

"This is nothing but a backdoor attempt, as we all know, to get rid of the death penalty," said Sen. Thom Goolsby, R-New Hanover.

Judges and prosecutors could be trusted, Goolsby said. "Who I don't trust are Statisticians," he said.

The Senate also voted 29-13 to override Perdue's veto of a bill that would allow natural gas drilling in North Carolina.

The House hasn't yet taken up the veto.

Perdue, a Democrat, vetoed the bill Sunday.

The legislation would begin the process of opening the state to natural gas exploration, including the controversial method known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking.".

"This bill does not do enough to ensure that adequate protections for our drinking water, landowners, county and municipal governments, and the health and safety of our families will be in place before fracking begins," Perdue said in her veto message.

Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, told members that the environmental protections in the bill would avoid any ill effects from the horizontal drilling and fracturing processes.

But opponents said the bill would leave landowners vulnerable to abuses by energy companies.

Sen. Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe, said one part of the measure would allow gas drillers to force some landowners to sell their mineral rights.

"You're going to find that people don't like being told their land can be taken without due process," Nesbitt said.







Judge: Race 'significantly' influenced inmate's murder trial

A Cumberland County Superior Court judge made history Friday morning when he commuted a death row inmate’s sentence in the first test of North Carolina’s fledgling Racial Justice Act.

Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks ruled that race significantly influenced jury selection in Marcus Robinson’s 1994 trial in the 1991 shooting death of a white 17-year-old, Erik Tornblom.

The ruling means Robinson, a 38-year-old black man, will be taken off death row and will serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Weeks said Robinson's attorneys "presented a wealth of evidence showing the persistent, persuasive and distorting role of race in jury selection in North Carolina."

"When the government's choice of jurors is tainted with racial bias, that overt wall casts down over the parties, the jury and the court to adhere to the law throughout the trial," Weeks said. "The very integrity of the court is jeopardized when a prosecutors discrimination invites cynicism respecting the jury’s neutrality and undermines public confidence."

The case is the first of more than 150 pending cases to get an evidentiary hearing before a judge under the Racial Justice Act, a 2009 law that allows death row prisoners and capital murder defendants to challenge their sentences or prosecutors' decisions with statistics and other evidence.

Weeks said that, by enacting the Racial Justice Act, the General Assembly made clear that North Carolina's laws reject the influence of race discrimination in the administration of the death penalty.

"It’s a widely accepted truth that race discrimination has historically had an impact on state policy in every aspect of our private and public lives, including education, housing, employment and criminal justice, " Weeks said in his ruling. "Race still divides us, and the Racial Justice Act recognizes that the justice system is not immune from this legacy of discrimination in our nation."

Prosecutors said Friday they planned to challenge Weeks' decision, and Cumberland County District Attorney Billy West declined further comment while the case was being appealed.

"There's justice at last," Weeks' mother, Shirley Burnes, said. "It's bittersweet, because I think about the family (of Erik Tornblom) and my son, but you've got to treat people right. You've got to treat people fair. That's what we depend on when we go through the system."

Tornblom's family left the courtroom visibly upset without commenting on the ruling.

Robinson and co-defendant Roderick Williams Jr. murdered Tornblom in 1991 after the teen gave his killers a ride from a Fayetteville convenience store. Tornblom was forced to drive to a field where he was shot with a sawed-off shotgun.

Robinson came close to death in January 2007, but a judge blocked his scheduled execution.

During a hearing in February, Robinson's defense team argued prosecutors' decisions to reject potential jurors who were black were influenced by race.

They cited a Michigan State University study that concluded black jurors were more likely to be dismissed than white jurors.

The study found that, of almost 160 people on North Carolina's death row, 31 had all-white juries, and 38 had only one person of color. A defendant is 2.6 times more likely to be sentenced to death if at least one of the victims is white, the study also found.

Union County prosecutor Jonathan Perry, who helped the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office argue the case against Robinson, said the study was untrustworthy because it was based on a too-limited sample of death penalty cases to provide meaningful results. The study also failed to detect numerous nonracial reasons that a person might be peremptorily struck from a jury, Perry said.

In his ruling, Weeks reiterated the study's findings, calling it very reliable and an example of the continued role of race in the justice system in Cumberland County and across the state. According to the court, prosecutors deliberately excluded black jurors from service in Robinson's case.

"The state's evidence not only failed to rebut Robinson's evidentiary showing, but in many respects, it reinforced and strengthened it," Weeks said. "The evidence should serve as a clear signal of the need for reform in capital jury selection proceedings in the future."

Weeks also noted that discrimination in jury selection across the state undermines the ability of the justice system to appear unbiased in capital cases.

"The very integrity of the court is jeopardized when a prosecutor's discrimination invites cynicism respecting the jury’s neutrality and undermines public confidence," he said.

Weeks' ruling prompted responses, both applauding the decision and speaking out against it.

People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, one of the most noted advocates for the Racial Justice Act, released a statement calling Weeks' ruling "a huge victory for justice, for the people of North Carolina, for the South and the country as a whole."

"This historic victory for justice would not have come about if not for the courage and persistence of ordinary North Carolina citizens who challenged these legacies of discrimination and demanded passage of the RJA," the nonprofit group said in a statement."

The North Carolina Chapter of the NAACP also released a statement: "Today is a day where we must reflect on a dual tragedy. The loss of life of the Tornblom family is a tragedy that should grieve us all, and the Court's finding is a reminder of the tragedy that racial bias still affects and impacts the judicial process."

The North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys said it wasn't surprised but "respectfully disagreed."

"Race should never play a role in the criminal justice system; not in decisions made by prosecutors, nor rulings made by judges," it said. "Claims of racial bias are best addressed by the trial judge hearing the case, not by generalized statistics presented more than 20 years after conviction."

Last year, the Republican-led Legislature tried to repeal the Racial Justice Act, but Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed the effort. A subsequent vote in the General Assembly fell short of the required number of votes to override the veto.

A House committee is now looking at ways to narrow the scope of the law.

Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger responded to Friday's ruling, saying he's "deeply concerned" that it could make Robinson eligible for parole. He was convicted prior to a 1994 change in state law that allowed prisoners serving life sentences to be eligible for release.

"We cannot allow cold-blooded killers to be released into our community, and I expect the state to appeal this decision," Berger, R-Rockingham, said. "Regardless of the outcome, we continue to believe the Racial Justice Act is an ill-conceived law that has very little to do with race and absolutely nothing to do with justice."

House Minority Leader Joe Hackney, D-Orange, also released a statement, saying the law has worked as it was intended.

"Mr. Robinson will spend the rest of his life in prison without parole for the crimes he committed," Hackney said. "That is appropriate. The courts corrected a death sentence in which race played a significant role. That is also appropriate."



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Sources: AP, CBS News, McClatchy Newspapers, WRAL, Google Maps

North Carolina Prosecutors Love All WHITE Juries For BLACK Suspects: 3 Times More Likely!

Racial Justice Act trial continues with testimony from researcher


A researcher testified today that a Cumberland County prosecutor in Marcus Reymond Robinson's 1994 murder trial was three times more likely to dismiss blacks during jury selection for capital cases than other races.

The testimony comes on the second day of the hearing under the Racial Justice Act, which gives death row inmates a chance to argue that racism played a role in their prosecution.

The prosecutor in Robinson's trial was John Dickson, who is now a Cumberland County District Court judge. Last year, Dickson was subpoenaed to testify at this hearing.

Robinson, who is black, killed a white teenager in 1991. His lawyers hope to use statistics to persuade Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks to convert Robinson's death sentence to life in prison without parole, as specified in the Racial Justice Act of 2009.

Researcher Barbara O'Brien of Michigan State University said she looked at three trials that Dickson took part in that resulted in death sentences. In those three trials, Dickson was 3.3 times more likely to strike a potential black juror than other jurors, O'Brien said.

On Monday, she testified that Dickson peremptorily struck half of the eligible black jurors during Robinson's trial, but only 14.3 percent of the non-black jurors. Lawyers are allowed to remove a certain number of potential jurors at their discretion, but race is not supposed to be a factor.

O'Brien found other patterns in Dickson's selection of jurors. He was 19.5 times more likely to peremptorily dismiss jurors who expressed reservations about the death penalty, and was 8.3 times more likely to dismiss jurors who had jobs that involved helping people.

Conversely, Dickson was less likely to dismiss jurors who had professional careers, O'Brien said.

Robinson's lawyers are trying to show that black jurors were illegally excluded based on race from serving on North Carolina death cases, and in Robinson's case in particular. Racism in jury selection is factor that can lead to that conclusion, under the terms of the Racial Justice Act.

Prosecutor Jonathan Perry, who is from Union County, began cross examining O'Brien this morning, questioning her on her methodology.

Robinson and another man were convicted of killing 17-year-old Erik Tornblom, a Douglas Byrd High School student, after the teen gave them a ride from a gas station. The other man is serving a life sentence.

O'Brien said she hired lawyers to read trial transcripts and other court documents to ascertain information about potential jurors, such as their race, age and gender.

She had previously testified that when the court record was ambiguous or lacked these details, the researchers used voter registration records and a commercial database that tracks people's names, addresses and demographic details to get this information.

The team evaluated information about each juror for factors that might affect whether they would be seated, such as attitudes toward law enforcement, acquaintanceship with lawyers or witnesses in the case, past experiences as a victim of crime and whether he had been accused of a crime.

Perry showed O'Brien an example where her team had made an error in how the classified a juror's information, and she acknowledged the mistake.

"We did the best we could to be as accurate as possible," she said.

Two lawyers independently evaluated each juror, she said, and she followed up where there were discrepancies in their results or where they had questions on how to classify a juror's background, demeanor and other factors.

The case continues this afternoon in Cumberland County Superior Court.







Judge rejects delays as first hearing opens under N.C.'s Racial Justice Act

Change is coming to North Carolina through a new law that lets death row prisoners challenge their sentences if race was a significant factor at sentencing, a defense attorney said Monday of the first case involving the state's Racial Justice Act.

The hearing involving death row prisoner Marcus Robinson opened Monday afternoon in Cumberland County Superior Court after Judge Greg Weeks handled motions earlier in the day and turned down prosecutors' request for extra time.

They wanted a break of eight weeks to finish a statewide survey of prosecutors about their capital cases because not all district attorneys have responded to their requests for help.

Weeks refused, saying he had continued the case in September and November. "The fault in the incomplete study ... is in the prosecutors who have not complied with your request to do what you asked them to do," the judge said.

"It has been a long time coming, but finally change is coming," defense attorney James Ferguson of Charlotte told the judge, who will decide the case without a jury.

In 2009, the Legislature approved the act, which allows death row prisoners and defendants facing the death penalty to use statistics and other evidence to show racial bias played a significant role in either their sentences or prosecutors' decision to pursue the death penalty.

The law says that the prisoner's sentence is reduced to life in prison without parole if the claim is successful.

This hearing, expected to last about two weeks, addresses Robinson's claim that race was a factor in prosecutors' decisions to reject potential jurors who were black. Robinson also claims that race was a factor in the prosecutors' decisions to seek the death penalty against accused murderers and that the victims' race was a factor in whether juries issued death sentences.

Robinson is black. His victim, 17-year-old Erik Tornblom who was killed in a robbery in 1991, was white. A co-defendant, Roderick Williams, is serving a life sentence.

Ferguson showed a statewide map of North Carolina's prosecutorial districts at he said showed race was significant factor in prosecutors' decisions to use peremptory challenges to eliminate black jurors in almost every district.

Black jurors were at least 1.2 times more likely to be rejected than non-white jurors in counties that had applicable death row cases, he said. The range went to more than 3.1 percent, he said, basing his numbers on a study by researchers at Michigan State University.

The study by two law professors also showed that of almost 160 people on death row at the time of the study, 31 had all-white juries and 38 had only one person of color.

"This case is important because it provides an opportunity for all of us to recognize that race far too often has been a significant factor in jury selection in capital cases," Ferguson said.

One of the researchers, Barbara O'Brien, was the first witness, testifying about the methodology of the study.

During a break, Tornblom's stepmother said it was Robinson who brought race into the case because he said he was looking for a white person to target. "The racial part was on his side," said Patricia Tornblom of Hope Mills.

Tornblom gave Robinson and Williams Jr. a ride from a Fayetteville convenience store. Tornblom was forced to drive to a field where he was shot with a sawed-off shotgun.

Robinson is attending the hearing with restraints after Weeks ruled Monday that he should be unshackled in the courtroom. Members of Robinson's family, including his mother, also were in the courtroom.




NC judge weighs death row inmate Marcus Robinson's racial claims


The first Appeal under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, which allows death row prisoners a chance to argue that race was a significant factor in their case, went before a judge in Fayetteville Monday.

Marcus Robinson was sentenced to death in Cumberland County for the 1991 murder of Erik Tornblom, but his attorneys say race was a factor in jury selection.

Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks has set up to two weeks aside to hear Robinson's case.

Prosecutors filed a motion Monday to delay the hearing so they could have more time to prepare, but Weeks denied the motion, saying the case will move forward.

Defense attorneys then filed a motion to ban any gruesome crime scene photos from being shown in court.

Death penalty opponents say the prosecutors who won Robinson's conviction in 1994 dismissed qualified black jurors more than three times the rate of white jurors.

Almost all of the 157 inmates on North Carolina's death row have filed appeals under the two-year-old law. Winning an appeal under the law commutes a death sentence to one of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

It was unclear in the fall if Weeks would be allowed to preside over the case after prosecutors attempted to call him as a witness. They said it would help refute the statistics and evidence showing racial bias during jury selection.

Robinson's lawyers believe it was a power play prosecutors used to try and remove Weeks, who is black, from the case.

In November, Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner ruled that prosecutors failed to show that Weeks was a necessary witness for their case, quashing a subpoena to have him testify.

Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed a bill in December that would have essentially repealed the Racial Justice Act, saying it is essential the legal process isn't tarnished by prejudice.

Perdue signed the Racial Justice Act into law shortly after taking office in 2009. North Carolina and Kentucky are the only states in the country with these types of laws.


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Sources: ABC News, McClatchy Newspapers, Newsobserver, WRAL, Google Maps

Marvin Williams: Mentally Retarded BLACK Inmate On NC's Death Row

Man could escape execution due to NC law


A man convicted of murder in Wayne County more than 20 years ago could get off death row Thursday because of a North Carolina law that says mentally retarded defendants can't be executed.

If a Wayne County Superior Court judge declares Marvin Williams mentally retarded, he would be the 17th death row inmate to escape execution since the law passed in 2001.

Williams killed Theron Price, a World War II veteran and security guard at Dewey Brothers in Goldsboro, where both men worked, during a robbery in 1989. Price died of blunt head trauma.

The legal battle became an emotional one Monday as Price's family sat on one side of the courtroom, hoping for what they see as justice, and Williams' family sat on the other side, hoping that his life will be spared.

Price's family and others are concerned that many judges are rubber-stamping the issue, simply letting people off death row. Attorneys who defend death row inmates say that's not the case.




Williams, 50, sat quietly in the courtroom with his mother behind him as attorneys debated whether he fits the definition of mental retardation.

Defense attorneys acknowledged that mental health experts and advocates prefer to use the term "intellectual disability," rather than "mental retardation." However, that is how North Carolina law words it.

"(Williams) meets both criteria of the statute, that he was mentally retarded at the time of the crime, and therefore, the death sentence that was previously entered should be vacated," said defense attorney Glenn Barfield.

Under North Carolina law, a judge can declare a person mentally retarded if he or she scores 70 or below on an IQ test and shows poor basic life skills before the age of 18.

Those determinations are up to the discretion of judges and what weight they give to IQ tests. Williams has taken multiple tests and has scored above and below 70.

Wayne County District Attorney Branny Vickory argued that Williams knew exactly what he was doing when he repeatedly hit Price over the head, dragged his body into a nearby shed and tried to get into the company's safe with a blow torch.

"It might not have shown (he was) a rocket scientist, but I would contend to you that it didn't necessarily show someone who is mentally retarded, either," Vickory said.

The victim's nephew, Jerry Price, spoke at Monday's hearing and asked the judge not to confuse mental retardation with "cold-hearted meanness and laziness and a total disregard for human life."

"Putting someone to death is a very serious issue. There were laws in place in 1989 when Marvin Williams committed this murder. He violated those laws. A jury of his peers convicted him of his crime," Jerry Price said. "There has never been any doubt that he murdered my uncle. To date, he has shown no remorse whatsoever."

Ken Rose, an attorney with the Death Penalty Litigation Center in Durham, says that inmates were removed from death row in about half of the cases where they claimed mental retardation in the past decade.

None of the 16 people taken off death row under the mental retardation statute have been released from prison. The law also applies to other states, since the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision, after North Carolina's law passed, banning the execution of people with mental retardation.





Judge rejects delays as first hearing opens under N.C.'s Racial Justice Act

Change is coming to North Carolina through a new law that lets death row prisoners challenge their sentences if race was a significant factor at sentencing, a defense attorney said Monday of the first case involving the state's Racial Justice Act.

The hearing involving death row prisoner Marcus Robinson opened Monday afternoon in Cumberland County Superior Court after Judge Greg Weeks handled motions earlier in the day and turned down prosecutors' request for extra time.

They wanted a break of eight weeks to finish a statewide survey of prosecutors about their capital cases because not all district attorneys have responded to their requests for help.

Weeks refused, saying he had continued the case in September and November. "The fault in the incomplete study ... is in the prosecutors who have not complied with your request to do what you asked them to do," the judge said.

"It has been a long time coming, but finally change is coming," defense attorney James Ferguson of Charlotte told the judge, who will decide the case without a jury.

In 2009, the Legislature approved the act, which allows death row prisoners and defendants facing the death penalty to use statistics and other evidence to show racial bias played a significant role in either their sentences or prosecutors' decision to pursue the death penalty.

The law says that the prisoner's sentence is reduced to life in prison without parole if the claim is successful.

This hearing, expected to last about two weeks, addresses Robinson's claim that race was a factor in prosecutors' decisions to reject potential jurors who were black. Robinson also claims that race was a factor in the prosecutors' decisions to seek the death penalty against accused murderers and that the victims' race was a factor in whether juries issued death sentences.

Robinson is black. His victim, 17-year-old Erik Tornblom who was killed in a robbery in 1991, was white. A co-defendant, Roderick Williams, is serving a life sentence.

Ferguson showed a statewide map of North Carolina's prosecutorial districts at he said showed race was significant factor in prosecutors' decisions to use peremptory challenges to eliminate black jurors in almost every district.

Black jurors were at least 1.2 times more likely to be rejected than non-white jurors in counties that had applicable death row cases, he said. The range went to more than 3.1 percent, he said, basing his numbers on a study by researchers at Michigan State University.

The study by two law professors also showed that of almost 160 people on death row at the time of the study, 31 had all-white juries and 38 had only one person of color.

"This case is important because it provides an opportunity for all of us to recognize that race far too often has been a significant factor in jury selection in capital cases," Ferguson said.

One of the researchers, Barbara O'Brien, was the first witness, testifying about the methodology of the study.

During a break, Tornblom's stepmother said it was Robinson who brought race into the case because he said he was looking for a white person to target. "The racial part was on his side," said Patricia Tornblom of Hope Mills.

Tornblom gave Robinson and Williams Jr. a ride from a Fayetteville convenience store. Tornblom was forced to drive to a field where he was shot with a sawed-off shotgun.

Robinson is attending the hearing with restraints after Weeks ruled Monday that he should be unshackled in the courtroom. Members of Robinson's family, including his mother, also were in the courtroom.





NC judge weighs death row inmate Marcus Robinson's racial claims


The first Appeal under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, which allows death row prisoners a chance to argue that race was a significant factor in their case, went before a judge in Fayetteville Monday.

Marcus Robinson was sentenced to death in Cumberland County for the 1991 murder of Erik Tornblom, but his attorneys say race was a factor in jury selection.

Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks has set up to two weeks aside to hear Robinson's case.

Prosecutors filed a motion Monday to delay the hearing so they could have more time to prepare, but Weeks denied the motion, saying the case will move forward.

Defense attorneys then filed a motion to ban any gruesome crime scene photos from being shown in court.

Death penalty opponents say the prosecutors who won Robinson's conviction in 1994 dismissed qualified black jurors more than three times the rate of white jurors.

Almost all of the 157 inmates on North Carolina's death row have filed appeals under the two-year-old law. Winning an appeal under the law commutes a death sentence to one of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

It was unclear in the fall if Weeks would be allowed to preside over the case after prosecutors attempted to call him as a witness. They said it would help refute the statistics and evidence showing racial bias during jury selection.

Robinson's lawyers believe it was a power play prosecutors used to try and remove Weeks, who is black, from the case.

In November, Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner ruled that prosecutors failed to show that Weeks was a necessary witness for their case, quashing a subpoena to have him testify.

Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed a bill in December that would have essentially repealed the Racial Justice Act, saying it is essential the legal process isn't tarnished by prejudice.

Perdue signed the Racial Justice Act into law shortly after taking office in 2009. North Carolina and Kentucky are the only states in the country with these types of laws.


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Sources: ABC News, McClatchy Newspapers, Newsobserver, WRAL, Google Maps

Marcus Robinson vs NC's All WHITE Juries & Judge Greg Weeks: Racial Justice vs Death Penalty

Judge rejects delays as first hearing opens under N.C.'s Racial Justice Act

Change is coming to North Carolina through a new law that lets death row prisoners challenge their sentences if race was a significant factor at sentencing, a defense attorney said Monday of the first case involving the state's Racial Justice Act.

The hearing involving death row prisoner Marcus Robinson opened Monday afternoon in Cumberland County Superior Court after Judge Greg Weeks handled motions earlier in the day and turned down prosecutors' request for extra time.

They wanted a break of eight weeks to finish a statewide survey of prosecutors about their capital cases because not all district attorneys have responded to their requests for help.

Weeks refused, saying he had continued the case in September and November. "The fault in the incomplete study ... is in the prosecutors who have not complied with your request to do what you asked them to do," the judge said.

"It has been a long time coming, but finally change is coming," defense attorney James Ferguson of Charlotte told the judge, who will decide the case without a jury.

In 2009, the Legislature approved the act, which allows death row prisoners and defendants facing the death penalty to use statistics and other evidence to show racial bias played a significant role in either their sentences or prosecutors' decision to pursue the death penalty.

The law says that the prisoner's sentence is reduced to life in prison without parole if the claim is successful.

This hearing, expected to last about two weeks, addresses Robinson's claim that race was a factor in prosecutors' decisions to reject potential jurors who were black. Robinson also claims that race was a factor in the prosecutors' decisions to seek the death penalty against accused murderers and that the victims' race was a factor in whether juries issued death sentences.

Robinson is black. His victim, 17-year-old Erik Tornblom who was killed in a robbery in 1991, was white. A co-defendant, Roderick Williams, is serving a life sentence.

Ferguson showed a statewide map of North Carolina's prosecutorial districts at he said showed race was significant factor in prosecutors' decisions to use peremptory challenges to eliminate black jurors in almost every district.

Black jurors were at least 1.2 times more likely to be rejected than non-white jurors in counties that had applicable death row cases, he said. The range went to more than 3.1 percent, he said, basing his numbers on a study by researchers at Michigan State University.

The study by two law professors also showed that of almost 160 people on death row at the time of the study, 31 had all-white juries and 38 had only one person of color.

"This case is important because it provides an opportunity for all of us to recognize that race far too often has been a significant factor in jury selection in capital cases," Ferguson said.

One of the researchers, Barbara O'Brien, was the first witness, testifying about the methodology of the study.

During a break, Tornblom's stepmother said it was Robinson who brought race into the case because he said he was looking for a white person to target. "The racial part was on his side," said Patricia Tornblom of Hope Mills.

Tornblom gave Robinson and Williams Jr. a ride from a Fayetteville convenience store. Tornblom was forced to drive to a field where he was shot with a sawed-off shotgun.

Robinson is attending the hearing with restraints after Weeks ruled Monday that he should be unshackled in the courtroom. Members of Robinson's family, including his mother, also were in the courtroom.









NC judge weighs death row inmate Marcus Robinson's racial claims


The first Appeal under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, which allows death row prisoners a chance to argue that race was a significant factor in their case, went before a judge in Fayetteville Monday.

Marcus Robinson was sentenced to death in Cumberland County for the 1991 murder of Erik Tornblom, but his attorneys say race was a factor in jury selection.

Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks has set up to two weeks aside to hear Robinson's case.

Prosecutors filed a motion Monday to delay the hearing so they could have more time to prepare, but Weeks denied the motion, saying the case will move forward.

Defense attorneys then filed a motion to ban any gruesome crime scene photos from being shown in court.

Death penalty opponents say the prosecutors who won Robinson's conviction in 1994 dismissed qualified black jurors more than three times the rate of white jurors.

Almost all of the 157 inmates on North Carolina's death row have filed appeals under the two-year-old law. Winning an appeal under the law commutes a death sentence to one of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

It was unclear in the fall if Weeks would be allowed to preside over the case after prosecutors attempted to call him as a witness. They said it would help refute the statistics and evidence showing racial bias during jury selection.

Robinson's lawyers believe it was a power play prosecutors used to try and remove Weeks, who is black, from the case.

In November, Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner ruled that prosecutors failed to show that Weeks was a necessary witness for their case, quashing a subpoena to have him testify.

Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed a bill in December that would have essentially repealed the Racial Justice Act, saying it is essential the legal process isn't tarnished by prejudice.

Perdue signed the Racial Justice Act into law shortly after taking office in 2009. North Carolina and Kentucky are the only states in the country with these types of laws.


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Greg Weeks Black North Carolina Judge vs Marcus Robinson (BLACK Inmate) Black vs BLACK!

Ruling allows black judge to hear NC Racial Justice Act case

A Black Superior Court judge will be allowed to hear the first appeal under the state's Racial Justice Act after another judge on Thursday ended prosecutors' attempts to call him as a witness in the case.

Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks was assigned to hear Marcus Robinson's appeal because he is the senior resident judge in Cumberland County.

Prosecutors wanted to use his position against him, saying they might call Weeks to testify because he has presided over several death penalty trials during his 23 years on the bench. As a witness, he wouldn't be allowed to handle the case.

"We do not think that he's not an appropriate judge to be hearing cases," Cumberland County Assistant District Attorney Calvin Colyer said. "Just not this one because he is more important to us ... as a witness than he is as our judge."

Legal experts and Robinson's attorney questioned that move, saying they thought Weeks' race played a role in prosecutors' efforts to stop him from hearing the case.

"We never expected we'd be standing before a court ... trying to prevent the state from disqualifying an African-American judge," said James Ferguson, an attorney for the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation, which is handling Robinson's appeal.

Weeks didn't attend Thursday's court hearing, but his attorney, Fred Webb, called the subpoena "frivolous."

Ferguson said the move was "unprecedented" and called for it to "be denied on the spot."

"It should be denied unequivocally so that we can proceed with the merits" of Robinson's appeal, he said.

Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner ruled that prosecutors failed to show that Weeks is a necessary witness for their case, and he quashed the subpoena.

After the hearing, all of the attorneys shifted to Fayetteville, where Weeks presided over a hearing at which he delayed Robinson's hearing until January. It had been scheduled to begin next week.

Robinson, 38, who is black, was sentenced to death after being convicted of shooting and killing Erik Tornblom, a white man, during a 1991 robbery.

The Racial Justice Act allows death row inmates to challenge their sentence on the grounds of racial bias. Robinson has alleged that prosecutors excluded a disproportionate number of blacks from his trial jury.

Almost all of the 157 inmates on North Carolina's death row have filed appeals under the 2-year-old law. Winning an appeal under the law commutes a death sentence to one of life in prison without the possibility of parole.





NC judge weighs death row inmate Marcus Robinson's racial claims


The first Appeal under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, which allows death row prisoners a chance to argue that race was a significant factor in their case, went before a judge in Fayetteville Monday.

Marcus Robinson was sentenced to death in Cumberland County for the 1991 murder of Erik Tornblom, but his attorneys say race was a factor in jury selection.

Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks has set up to two weeks aside to hear Robinson's case.

Prosecutors filed a motion Monday to delay the hearing so they could have more time to prepare, but Weeks denied the motion, saying the case will move forward.

Defense attorneys then filed a motion to ban any gruesome crime scene photos from being shown in court.

Death penalty opponents say the prosecutors who won Robinson's conviction in 1994 dismissed qualified black jurors more than three times the rate of white jurors.

Almost all of the 157 inmates on North Carolina's death row have filed appeals under the two-year-old law. Winning an appeal under the law commutes a death sentence to one of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

It was unclear in the fall if Weeks would be allowed to preside over the case after prosecutors attempted to call him as a witness. They said it would help refute the statistics and evidence showing racial bias during jury selection.

Robinson's lawyers believe it was a power play prosecutors used to try and remove Weeks, who is black, from the case.

In November, Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner ruled that prosecutors failed to show that Weeks was a necessary witness for their case, quashing a subpoena to have him testify.

Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed a bill in December that would have essentially repealed the Racial Justice Act, saying it is essential the legal process isn't tarnished by prejudice.

Perdue signed the Racial Justice Act into law shortly after taking office in 2009. North Carolina and Kentucky are the only states in the country with these types of laws.


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Sources: ABC News, McClatchy Newspapers, Newsobserver, WRAL, Google Maps

Marcus Robinson (BLACK NC Death Row Inmate) Revised Racial Justice Act Guinea Pig

NC judge weighs death row inmate Marcus Robinson's racial claims


The first Appeal under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, which allows death row prisoners a chance to argue that race was a significant factor in their case, went before a judge in Fayetteville Monday.

Marcus Robinson was sentenced to death in Cumberland County for the 1991 murder of Erik Tornblom, but his attorneys say race was a factor in jury selection.

Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks has set up to two weeks aside to hear Robinson's case.

Prosecutors filed a motion Monday to delay the hearing so they could have more time to prepare, but Weeks denied the motion, saying the case will move forward.

Defense attorneys then filed a motion to ban any gruesome crime scene photos from being shown in court.

Death penalty opponents say the prosecutors who won Robinson's conviction in 1994 dismissed qualified black jurors more than three times the rate of white jurors.

Almost all of the 157 inmates on North Carolina's death row have filed appeals under the two-year-old law. Winning an appeal under the law commutes a death sentence to one of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

It was unclear in the fall if Weeks would be allowed to preside over the case after prosecutors attempted to call him as a witness. They said it would help refute the statistics and evidence showing racial bias during jury selection.

Robinson's lawyers believe it was a power play prosecutors used to try and remove Weeks, who is black, from the case.

In November, Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner ruled that prosecutors failed to show that Weeks was a necessary witness for their case, quashing a subpoena to have him testify.

Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed a bill in December that would have essentially repealed the Racial Justice Act, saying it is essential the legal process isn't tarnished by prejudice.

Perdue signed the Racial Justice Act into law shortly after taking office in 2009. North Carolina and Kentucky are the only states in the country with these types of laws.


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Sources: ABC News, McClatchy Newspapers, Newsobserver, WRAL, Google Maps

NAACP vs North Carolina's Corrupt SBI Lab (Imprisoning BLACK Men)

NAACP calls SBI report 'disturbing'


North Carolina NAACP President William Barber called a report on work by the State Bureau of Investigation "a disturbing reminder of the old times that are not forgotten" Thursday.

The scathing report released Wednesday says analysts at North Carolina's crime lab omitted, overstated or falsely reported blood evidence in dozens of cases, including three that ended in executions and another where two men were imprisoned for murdering Michael Jordan's father.

Click here to read story.

"We believe the agencies involved have forfeited the trust and faith which people should have in them," said Barber in a written statement. "The conclusion is inescapable from these devastating revelations of deliberate wrongdoing. Every resident of North Carolina has been hurt by these malicious abuses of authority and we all remain potential victims."

But Barber also cautioned against swift action, saying: "There will be time to consider carefully the policy reforms that will be necessary to rebuild confidence in the Justice Department that Attorney General Cooper has promised."

Barber said he planned a news conference Monday to talk about how the revelations may affect law enforcement efforts in North Carolina and what it may mean for death penalty cases and those on death row.








SBI review renews call for death penalty moratorium


Two groups called for more investigation Monday following last week's scathing report on the investigative work done by the SBI's state crime labs.

The audit revealed flawed laboratory work performed by SBI analysts in criminal cases. According to the findings, the SBI withheld evidence, which may have tainted as many as 190 cases over a 16-year time span.

Eighty of the people convicted in those cases are still in prison, four are on death row, three were executed and five died in prison.

The NAACP and the People of Faith Against the Death Penalty are just two of the organizations that participated in a joint news conference Monday in Raleigh.

The groups say the SBI review should lead to more actions by state leaders.

Backed by several death penalty opponents, NC NAACP President Reverend William Barber spoke bluntly.

He says state authorities should go beyond the SBI lab report that shows sloppy SBI lab work may have led to wrong capital crime convictions.

"We have watched several African-American men, at the last minute, be released from death row and sent out of prison doors without a dime for their time, without so much as an official apology, a collective apology, from our elected officials," Barber said Monday.

Also in attendance at Monday's news conference was Pat McCoy, the brother of murder victim Kathy McCoy. He is upset because NC Attorney General Roy Cooper announced a re-investigation of several convictions based on the lab investigation results.

"My heart goes out to victims and their families who will now have to hear that justice wasn't done, and that the case they thought was closed must be reopened," McCoy said.

He's especially worried about findings that show omission of key crime lab work during murder investigations.

McCoy says families and victims suffer as a result. "Please don't dishonor their memory by building cases based on pseudo-science, sloppy work and misconduct," he added.

FBI agents, who examined more than 15,000 cases between 1987 and 2003, found that the SBI withheld blood evidence that may have kept convicted defendants out of prison.

"The full case files of each of these cases should be reviewed by both prosecutors and appropriate defense counsel," AG Cooper said.

Barber says the findings in the report are only the beginning.

"We believe that in some ways because it's preliminary, this is only the tip of the iceberg -- he and his co-investigator audited only one of five of the SBI labs, and so there's still much more work to be done," Barber said.

Baber says he wants NC to end its death penalty policy.

"We're calling the state to reflect, to repent and then to begin a movement toward repeal and a movement toward reform," he added.

Barber and supporters of a moratorium want all six of the SBI's crime labs investigated, not only the ones that were investigated in the report.

They also want Governor Bev. Perdue to commute all death penalty sentences to life sentences while lab work for those convictions is reviewed.

Finally, the group wants does not want any additional death penalty sentences during the expanded investigation.




Questions about SBI lab free Durham man

A judge ordered the release Friday of a Durham man convicted in 1998 in the sexual assault and murder of a 2-year-old girl.

According to ABC11 archived stories, Derrick M. Allen, 31, was 19 when Durham police charged him in the death of Adesha Sikia Artis. According to the transcript of a 911 call made by Allen, he claimed the child passed out while he was getting her dressed in a home they shared off Garrett Road.

An autopsy later revealed she'd been sexually assaulted.

Allen has always maintained he was innocent, and family members said in interviews with ABC11 in 1998 that they believed someone else in the home hurt the child.

Now, an audit of SBI crime lab cases has revealed that a key piece of evidence in the case against Allen - bloody undergarments - actually tested negative for blood.

Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson ordered Allen released without bond on Friday. A date for his new trial has not been set.


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Sources: ABC News, McClatchy Newspapers, Newsobserver, Google Maps

Bev Perdue Won't Seek Re-election! Her Decision Will Help Obama!

Good News for Obama From N.C.: Dem Gov. Declines to Run in ’12


North Carolina Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue will not seek re-election in 2012, a Democratic source confirmed to ABC News.

That decision should improve President Obama’s chances in the state next November, as Perdue is deeply unpopular, and that unpopularity could have hurt the president — and Democrats in general – in North Carolina in 2012.

Perdue will make the announcement this afternoon. The North Carolina Democratic Party would not confirm whether Perdue had declined to run, only that an announcement would be made Thursday.

In April, an Elon University poll showed that Perdue’s approval ratings had sagged behind Obama’s in the state. Perdue’s disapproval rating was 52 percent, while her approval rating was 33 percent.

Obama, meanwhile, enjoyed a 48 percent job-approval rating and a 46 percent disapproval rating in North Carolina. While reliable polls have been hard to come by in North Carolina, since April a string of automated phone surveys have corroborated Perdue’s unpopularity.

Obama carried North Carolina in 2008, 50 percent to 49 percent for Sen. John McCain. Democrats made significant gains in North Carolina in 2006, and, along with Obama’s victory in Virginia in 2008, North Carolina gave the party hope of an expanded electoral map and newfound competitiveness in the South.

Obama’s campaign has said it would focus its efforts again on North Carolina in 2012.

“We put the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., in part because we believe so deeply in this map,” campaign manager Jim Messina said in a YouTube fundraising video that laid out Obama’s potential electoral strategyin late December.

Had Perdue remained in office, she could have dampened the campaign efforts of President Obama, who would presumably have campaigned alongside Perdue and shared the stage with her at North Carolina events.

Perdue’s tenure saw a series of bad headlines and political disasters that sullied her image after she won the race to the governor’s mansion in 2008.

In September, she caused a stir by suggesting that the United States suspend its congressional elections for two years. In November, three of her aides were indicted for allegedly violating state election law in a scheme to pay a staff member $32,000 for work that was kept off the books.

This month, House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., launched an inquiry into whether Perdue breached government protocol by alluding to new unemployment numbers in a speech before their scheduled release by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The top Republican candidate to replace Perdue is Pat McRory, who ran against Perdue and lost in 2008. Democrats do not yet have a leading candidate to step into the race, although Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton and Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx appear to be likely contenders.



Bev Perdue will not seek re-election

First-term North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue will not seek re-election, she announced Thursday.

Saddled with low poll ratings, Perdue, a Democrat, was the most endangered incumbent governor of the cycle and faced grim prospects in the fall against Republican Pat McCrory, a former Charlotte mayor who is expected to formally launch his bid in the coming weeks.

“I have spent my tenure in office — and, in fact, my adult lifetime — fighting for things that I care deeply about. And as anyone who knows me will tell you, I do not back down from tough fights,” Perdue said in a statement.

“But I understand this:
We live in highly partisan times, where some people seem more worried about scoring political points than working together to address the real challenges our state faces. And it is clear to me that my race for reelection will only further politicize the fight to adequately fund our schools.

A reelection campaign in this already divisive environment will make it more difficult to find any bipartisan solutions.”

The announcement resets what’s expected to be a vigorously fought open-seat contest in a state that will host the Democratic National Convention and could be crucial to President Obama’s re-election.

Democrats had been fretting for months about Perdue’s prospects but sources indicated Thursday that the governor came to the decision herself and was not forced out by leaders in Washington or Raleigh.

“She’s a very pragmatic woman. The scenario always was, If the polling didn’t turn around, she’d reconsider,” said a Democratic source close to the process. “She saw the writing on the wall and knew that it would be a very tough year ahead.”
Tough is an understatement.

Recent public polling found Perdue trailing McCrory by 10 points and her approval rating mired in the 30s. She had also been plagued by scandal. In November, three of her former 2008 campaign aides were indicted on obstruction of justice charges following a grand jury investigation that found a staffer was allowed to work off the books.

Her campaign also faced self-inflicted wounds when she suggested in September that congressional elections be suspended for two years, and in May when her son took to Facebook to accuse a McCrory fundraiser of adultery.

Most recently, she issued a picked a fight with the GOP-lead General Assembly through a string of vetoes and proposed a new sales tax to fund education.
Following Perdue’s announcement, which is scheduled for Thursday afternoon, Democrats will swiftly turn to finding a replacement.

Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton and Attorney General Roy Cooper have been floated as potential contenders, but Democrats believe no matter who becomes the nominee they’ll ultimately be in stronger position to hold this critical governorship.

“For the last two years Republicans have made this race about Bev Perdue because that’s all they had. Starting today it’s going to be all about Pat McCrory, a failed mayor, an unsuccessful candidate for governor,”said a Democratic source.

Republicans signaled they won’t allow the eventual candidate to carve out any distance from Perdue.

“As governor, Bev Perdue continues to set the Democrat agenda in Raleigh, which now includes a massive, job-crushing sales tax hike. No matter how hard they try, whoever emerges as the Democratic Party’s successor to Bev Perdue won’t be able to run from the Democrats’ record of higher taxes and disappointing job losses,” said Republican Governors Association Executive Director Phil Cox.


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Sources: ABC News, CNN, Fox News, Politico, WRAL, Youtube, Google Maps