DURHAM -- A Durham murder case that defense lawyers said would have highlighted the need to change state law to allow capital case defendants to challenge their prosecution on racial bias grounds no longer fits the bill.
Orlando Hudson, Durham's chief resident Superior Court judge, declared that the state could not seek the death penalty against Keith Kidwell, 24, a black man accused of murdering a white convenience store clerk.
Kidwell, who has been jailed since 2005, when Crayton Nelms was found beaten to death at his store, planned to fight capital charges against him with a local death penalty study.
The analysis of 177 murder cases, compiled by a UNC- Chapel Hill political scientist, concluded that over a five-year period in Durham, prosecutors were six times more likely to seek capital punishment when a black suspect had been accused of killing a white person compared with when the victim was black.
Critics have described the study as flawed, saying that it relies on too few cases. Durham, which often accepts pleas before bringing a capital case to trial, has only had eight capital murder cases since 1982.
Defense lawyers Jay Ferguson and Lisa Williams were scheduled to elaborate on the findings this month in a Superior Court hearing. But Hudson made it a moot point when he ruled that there was not enough evidence of aggravating factors to proceed with a capital case.
