Five death row inmates filed motions this morning challenging their death sentences on the basis of racial bias, the first test of a ground-breaking law passed last year by the state legislature that allows inmates to challenge their sentences on the basis of race.
All five inmates -- Kenneth Rouse in Randolph County, Guy LeGrande in Stanly County, Shawn Bonnett in Martin County, Jeremy Murrell in Forsyth County, and Jathiyah Al-Bayyinah of Davie County -- are black men convicted of killing white victims. Rouse and LeGrande had all-white juries sentence them to death.
The 159 prisoners on North Carolina's death row must make such claims by Aug. 10, the day before the anniversary of the signing of the Racial Justice Act law. Adopted over the objections of prosecutors, some law enforcement organizations and victims rights advocates, the law is designed to combat racial disparities in death sentences and is one of only two of its kind in the country.
The five men are looking to have their sentences changed to life in prison.
The law allows defendants in death penalty cases and death row inmates to challenge prosecutions on grounds of bias. It also allows judges to consider statistics and trends of racial disparities in death sentences to change a death sentence to life in prison without parole or to stop prosecutors from seeking capital punishment at the outset.
Similar filings from other death row inmates are expected in coming days. The appeals will lean heavily on a recent study by Michigan State College of Law professors that found that race played a role in death row convictions.
The study done by Catherine Grosso and Barbara O'Brien found that more than 40 percent of defendants on North Carolina's death row were sentenced to death by a jury that was either all-white or included only one person of color. The researchers also found that in selection of juries, prosecutors statewide struck qualified blacks from the potential jury pool at more than twice the rate of whites.
In addition, they found that in cases with at least one white victim, a defendant is 2.6 times more likely to be sentenced to death than if the case does not involve a white victim.
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