Posted on 04/20/2012 10:24:23 PM PDT by Zakeet
In a landmark ruling, a North Carolina judge vacated the death penalty Friday of a convicted murderer, saying prosecutors across the state had engaged for years in a deliberate and systematic pattern of racial discrimination while striking black potential jurors in death penalty cases.
In a 167-page order harshly critical of prosecutors, Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks said they "intentionally used the race of (jury pool) members as a significant factor in decisions to exercise peremptory strikes in capital cases." He ruled that discrimination was a factor not only in the case Weeks heard involving convicted murderer Marcus Reymond Robinson, who is black, but also in capital cases involving black defendants across North Carolina.
The ruling was the first under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, passed in 2009, which allows judges to reduce death sentences to life in prison without parole in cases where defendants prove racial bias in jury selection. Prosecutors fought the law, calling it a back-door attempt to overturn the death penalty.
[Snip]
Prosecutors have 60 days to appeal Weeks' ruling. Republicans, who control the state Legislature, have attempted to repeal the Racial Justice Act but have been vetoed by Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue.
[Snip]
Robinson was convicted of killing 17-year-old Erik Tornblom with a shotgun blast to the face during a robbery that netted $27.
Tornblom's stepmother, Patricia Tornblom, and his father, Richard Tornblom, have bitterly opposed the act and said earlier this year that Robinson should be executed. They sat in silence Friday as Weeks read his ruling.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
You are going to have to cite me to it then bacause I don’t see it. From what I can see, read, and hear I am like Aetius. Ijust see thw whites becoming more timid each day and each time they are attacked.
Call it a matter of faith. Just like the old dog who keeps getting kicked over and over without responding, until that last time...
” Another of Obamas Sons.”
Cold blooded murderer
But that means he can still pardon every black federal prisoner with the stroke of a pen? How many individuals do you think that might amount to? And what do you think that would do to the crime statistics going forward?
I agree. It’s more lawfare pushed by black and leftist radicals who have no concern about justice, just racial grievance.
I meant whites as a group. I didn’t mean specifically you, or specifically me. I don’t hang my head for having traits I was born with and suspect you don’t either.
* red emphasis mine .. BOP = (Federal) Bureau of Prisons
Okay. So imagine 82,000 hardened criminals suddenly released into society all at once. Ever hear of the Northfield, Minnesota raid by the James and Younger gangs and how that turned out?
Still, the ones that didn't kill each other when loosed would likely head straight back to their old home territory, which ain't here.
The natives hereabouts have had the jailbreak scenario in the backs of their minds for many decades, and are appropriately bristly.
Well I hope you’re right. Id love to be proven wrong on this. I just don’t know what you see that makes you think this is going to happen.
As our largely accidental, and mostly unwanted policy of unending mass immigration makes the country ever more diverse, as as the black leadership continues to be dominated by leftist radicals, and as the GOP continually cedes ground both in policy and in the agreed upon proper parameters of debate, I see no reason for hope.
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