The new year has begun with a bang: lots of criminal law news this week. For example, the General Assembly considered Wednesday night whether to override the Governor’s veto of the bill that would have effectively repealed the Racial Justice Act. The Senate voted 31-19 to override the veto, along party lines. But the House did not vote; it appears from this newspaper story that the outcome of a vote was uncertain, but perhaps unlikely to result in an override, and an agreement was reached instead to create a new “House Select Committee on Racial Discrimination in Capital Cases” to attempt to draft a compromise revision of the Act. At least one talking head thinks that the combination of further legislative pondering plus litigation under the still-effective Act will extend North Carolina’s de facto moratorium on executions for another five years. In other news: 1. The North Carolina Bar Association released its first-ever Judicial Performance Evaluation Report, which reveals lawyers’ views about the quality of superior and district court judges who are eligible for election in 2012. A press release about the report and a link to the report itself are available here. Most judges received positive reviews, but there were a few noteworthy outliers. It appears that the Bar Association will attempt to review candidates running against the judges as well. If anyone knows how that’s supposed to work, please post a comment. 2. Speaking of judges, Governor Perdue has named the members of the new Judicial Nominating Commission. The [...]
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