North Carolina Repeals Law Allowing Racial Bias Claim in Death Penalty Challenges | dailyNewsCrunch.com: A law that allowed death-row inmates to challenge their sentences based on racial bias claims was repealed by the North Carolina legislature on Wednesday, paving the way for executions to resume in a state that has 152 people on death row.
The law, the only one of its kind in the country, allowed inmates to use state and county statistics and other material to claim that race played a role in their sentencing.
In the weeks before the State House of Representatives took up the Racial Justice Act, most lawmakers acknowledged it was headed for repeal.
Those who voted to rescind it recited the names of people whose killers were on death row and said the law had clogged the courts and denied justice to victims.
Defenders of the act spoke of innocent black men on death row who had been exonerated and shared deeply personal experiences with racism.
After one more perfunctory pass through the State Senate, which already passed a version of the measure, the bill repealing the act will head to Gov.
