First Racial Justice Act case reaches court

FAYETTEVILLE -- 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 in Cumberland County Superior Court after Judge Greg Weeks handled motions, including prosecutors' request to give them extra time to present their case after the defense finishes.

"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 if racial bias played a significant role in either their sentences or in prosecutors' decision to pursue the death penalty.

If the claim is successful, the law says that the prisoner's sentence is to be reduced to life in prison without parole.

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. The 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.

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

Study of jurors

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

The study, conducted 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 juries containing 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 a ride from a Fayetteville convenience store. Tornblom was forced to drive to a field where he was shot with a sawed-off shotgun.

Also Monday, prosecutors asked the judge to allow the defense a break of eight weeks to finish a statewide survey of prosecutors about capital cases because not all DAs have responded. Weeks refused, saying he had continued the case in September and November.