News & Observer | newsobserver.com | Jones Street: 2005

June 4, 2005 Takaaki Iwabu [/assets/story/image_buynow.comp]
Dick Taylor, center, CEO of the N.C. Academy of Trail Lawyers, talks to Rep. Ray Rapp, a Democrat from Mars Hill, as he lobbies for a death penalty moratorium.

A vote on a controversial bill that calls for a death penalty moratorium was postponed Wednesday for a couple of weeks. House Speaker Jim Black and the bill's supporters said they lacked votes for its passage. Conferring at right in the photo are Rep. Jean Farmer-Butterfield, a Democrat from Wilson who supports the bill, and Rep. Jeff Barnhart, a Republican from Concord who opposes it. The bill would halt executions for two years for a study on the state's death penalty system.

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