Last Friday, Cumberland County Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks issued the first merits ruling on a claim under the Racial Justice Act (“RJA”), G.S. 15A-2010 et seq. Judge Weeks’ order, which vacates the death sentence previously imposed on Marcus Robinson, is here. It’s 168 pages long, so I suspect most people haven’t read the whole thing. Maybe you’ve read a newspaper article about it, like this one from the News and Observer, or this one from the New York Times. But maybe you’ve been waiting to get the skinny from this blog. Here’s what happened. In 1991, Robinson killed Erik Tornblom. Robinson was tried capitally in 1994, and was convicted and sentenced to death. His direct appeal and collateral attacks were generally denied. When the RJA became law, Robinson filed for relief under the Act. Earlier this year, Judge Weeks heard evidence on one aspect of Robinson’s RJA claim: his contention that “[r]ace was a significant factor in decisions to exercise peremptory challenges during jury selection.” (The Act also allows defendants to claim that the race of the defendant or the race of the victim influenced the decision to seek or to impose the death penalty. I believe that Robinson also made claims under those provisions of the Act, but those claims weren’t heard by Judge Weeks.) The order begins by summarizing the testimony presented by the parties at the hearing. The key evidence for Robinson was a study conducted in part by, and the testimony of, Dr. Barbara [...]
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