Marcus Robinson listens to an interest in the Ethnic Justice Law session in 2012.The News & Observer, Shawn Rocco/AP Photo
In 1994, Marcus Robinson, a black, was killed and sentenced to death for the murder of Eric Tornblum in 1991, a white teenager, in Camberland County, North Carolina. He spent nearly 20 years at the time of death, but in 2012 his sentence was changed to life without the chance of a conditional release. He was one of the four prisoners of the time when they were executed by the judge who found that racial discrimination had played a role in their trials.
The reason for reviewing their cases at all was due to the 2009 Carolina State Law known Ethnic justice law, This allowed the judges to reduce death sentences to life imprisonment without conditional release when the defendants were able to prove racial prejudice in the charge of the charge or the jury or the verdict.
“The Ethnic Justice Law guarantees that when North Carolina states a penalty at all in our mandate for most of our human being,” former governor of Beef Berdo ” He said When the draft law was signed in the law, “the decision is based on facts and law, not racial bias.”
In 21, Robinson was the youngest person who was sentenced to death in North Carolina. When he was three years old, he was transferred to the hospital with severe episodes after he was exposed to physical abuse by his father and was diagnosed with a permanent brain defect. However, these were not the only concerned aspects of his case.
“We still believe that the law of racist justice is an unprecedented law that has a great relationship with race and has nothing to do with justice.”
Racial discrimination has been banned in choosing the jury since it was banned by the Supreme Court in the 1986 Supreme Court Resolution Patson against Kentucky, But the trial of Robinson was injured. The public prosecutor in the case, John Dickson, rejected unpopular black jury. For example, a potential black jury hit the man because the man was charged with public sugar. However, two “non -black” people with DWI convictions. Among the qualified members in the complex, it hit half of the blacks and only 14 percent of the non -black members. In the end, Robinson was tried by a 12-person juror body that included only three people of an original American and two black colors.
Racial discrimination in the choice of jury was not common in the criminal justice system in North Carolina. A comprehensive study of Michigan State University discussed in more than 7,400 potential jury in 173 cases from 1990 to 2010. The researchers found that the state -level public prosecutors hit 52.6 percent of potential black jury and only 25.7 percent of all other potential jurors. This prejudice was reflected in the death row. Among 147 people in the death row in North Carolina, 35 prisoners were sentenced by white jury bodies. 38 by the jury with only one black member.
Under the Ethnic Justice Law, the death prisoners were One year of When the draft law became a law to submit a request. Each of the 145 -year -old execution materials have made claims, but Robson and three others – Queltel Augustine, Tilon Golvin, Cristina Walters – received hearings. In 2012, Robinson was the first. At the Campeland County Supreme Court, Judge Gregory Wix Ruling this race He played an important role in the trial, and Robinson was resentment of life without conditional release. North Carolina state The decision appealed To the State Supreme Court.
The immediate screams followed the decision. The North Carolina Conference issued to the provincial lawyer a statement Saying: “The issues of the capital reflect the most brutal and brutal perpetrators in our society. If the death penalty is an appropriate penalty for the killers, it should be addressed by legislators in the General Assembly, and not cancellation as (from) racist in our courts.”
The referee attracted a lot of propaganda from all over the country, and the lawmakers in North Carolina felt annoyed. “There are definitely signs in the legislative registry on the existence of some [lawmakers] This really wanted to see the executions to move forward, “says Cassandra Staps, director of the Capital Punishment Project in the American Civil Liberties Union, which also represents Robinson, legislative employees circulated the conversation points of the legislators on the pretext that RJA turns” the provincial lawyers into racism and convicted murderers. “
The judge resented in weeks from Robinson, Senate Speaker Pro Timpur of the State Legislative Council, Philip Berger, He expressed concern Robinson can be eligible for conditional release. He suggested that Robinson – who had just reached the age of eighteen when he committed the crime and was not considered an event – would be unqualified for life without a chance to make a conditional release, referring to the US Supreme Court ruling prohibits events in receiving life penalty without conditional release. He said: “We cannot allow the release of the killers in cold blood in our society, and I expect the state to resume this decision.” “Regardless of the outcome, we still believe that the law of racist justice is a bad perception law that has nothing to do with race and has nothing to do with justice.”
The legislative body took the challenge and Vote The law of racist justice in 2013. This made it impossible for those trying to try to review their sentences for racial bias, but left the fate of the four who were transferred to unclear prison. The governor of the state said in a statement at the time: “The provincial lawyers in the state are almost unanimously in their party conclusion that the Ethnic Justice Law created a judicial vulnerability to avoid the death penalty and not a path to justice.”
Although the law was still in effect when the sentences of the four inmates decreased, they were not safe from the death Force yet. Robinson was legalized legally, but the legal battle has just started.
In 2015, nearly two years after the initial session, the Supreme Court of North Carolina The Supreme Court ordered To reconsider the reduced judgments of Robinson, Augustin, Golvin and Walters, saying that the judge failed to give the state enough time to prepare for “complex” procedures.
Last January, Supreme Court Judge Erwin Spain spent that due to the cancellation of RJA, the four defendants He can no longer use the law To reduce their sentences. “North Carolina has pledged to give an unprecedented look at the role of racial bias in issuing the provisions of the capital,” says Staps. But now, “the legislative council of the state has explicitly turned out of its commitment and canceled the law.”
Robinson returned to the time of death in the central prison in the state capital in Rally. In a petition to the Supreme Court of the state, Robinson’s lawyers note that the double risk item – the law that prevents someone from trial twice for the same crime – drinks North Carolina from trying to repeat the death penalty because the 2012 RJA hearing was acquitted by the death penalty.
“He was never resented from death,” says Staps. “They have no basis for his contract in the execution row.”