jmccann@heraldsun.com; 419-6601
DURHAM -- The state's newly signed Racial Justice Act aimed at addressing racial bias in the state's capital murder cases amounts to an opportunity for people convicted of capital murder to prove allege played a significant role in them being put on death row -- for example, the racial makeup of a jury could have caused bias.
If a judge agreed with that, he or she could replace a death sentence with a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
"I think the Racial Justice Act is a much-welcome action," Durham defense lawyer Lisa Williams said.
Williams in February looked at murder cases in Durham over a five-year period, and she said the numbers bore out that the Durham District Attorney's Office was significantly more likely to select cases for capital prosecution when the defendant was black and the victim was white.
"Where you got the biggest pop was when the defendant was black and the victim was white," said Williams, who is representing Keith Kidwell, a black man charged with killing a white man. The death penalty no longer is being sought in that case.
District Attorney Tracey Cline said Williams' claim about prejudicial sentencing in Durham doesn't hold water.
"That's impossible, because in the last five years we have not tried anybody for capital murder," Cline said. "We have never used race as an issue or circumstance as to whether someone should face life or death."
Cline looked back over roughly the last 20 years, and she said there have been eight capital murder cases in Durham: six of those cases involved a black person killing another black person; one case involved a white person killing a black person; and another case involved a white person killing a white person -- examples that go against the notion that black people are more likely to get the death penalty for killing white people, the district attorney said.
Cline said her office gets a bad rap on account of not having pursued the death penalty in cases where the defendants were young and black and accused of killing another black person. That makes it seem like she and her assistant district attorneys are devaluing black life, Cline said. The reality is Cline and her assistants figure jurors won't send a young person to death row, or those in Cline's office think in terms of the young defendants being able to get their lives back on track.
Williams' contention that black people are more likely to get slapped with the death penalty when the victim is white may get tested when the murder trial for slain UNC student body president Eve Carson gets going. Carson was white, and her accused killers are black and from Durham. The case occurred, however, in Orange County.
State NAACP President William Barber has said black defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty for killing white people.
