No. 119, Apr. 26- May 2, 2001

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Report by UNC professors finds NC death penalty racially unfair

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Apr. 16— Race still plays a major role in who lives and who dies for murders committed in North Carolina, a comprehensive new University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill study has found. Opponents of the death penalty feel this indicates the need for a state-imposed moratorium on the death penalty, until it can be further examined.

Dr. Isaac Unah and John Charles Boger, professors of political science and law, respectively, at UNC conducted the nine-month study. Helping were eight Class of 2000 UNC School of Law graduates who fanned out across the state to pore through extensive court, police and lawyers’ records on a 502- case subsample of almost 4,000 homicides. They released preliminary findings from the rigorous effort today.

“We found that in North Carolina when a white person is murdered, a defendant is significantly more likely to get the death penalty than when a black person is murdered,” Unah said. “We also found that the race of the defendant, in interaction with the race of the victim, can be a factor in who gets the death penalty.”

Their work, which involved examining and analyzing what happened in NC homicide cases between 1993 and 1997, is the first scientific investigation of the death penalty in North Carolina in more than 20 years, the two said. It’s also the first systematic search for evidence of racial discrimination in capital sentencing anywhere in the South since 1984 and the most recent in the United States.

The new study is especially timely, they said, because the NC General Assembly will soon consider a legislative study commission recommendation to call a temporary halt to executions in North Carolina. “While the study is ongoing, we are very confident that the fundamental findings will not change,” Unah said. “Race still does matter, particularly when a non-white murders a white.”

Between 1993 and 1997, when defendants murdered whites, their odds of receiving a death sentence, on average, increased by 3.5 times over those who killed non-whites, the two said. That race-of-victim bias is substantial and statistically significant. The effect appeared in a wide variety of analyses and stages of the criminal justice process from indictment and trial to capital juries’ final penalty decision.

Overall, non-white defendants who murdered whites received a death sentence at more than twice the rate of whites who killed whites -- 6.4 percent to 2.6 percent, they found. “Even when the research narrowed to ‘death-eligible’ homicides -- homicides eligible for death under North Carolina’s statutes -- the racial disparities remained large,” Unah said. “Of non-whites who murdered whites, 11.6 percent received death, while only 6.1 percent of whites who murdered other whites and only 4.7 percent of non-whites who killed other non-whites were sentenced to death.”

“The five-year period we examined was as near to the present as we could get and still have cases that have been tried and appealed,” Boger said. “What we have found is clear and disturbing evidence that North Carolina’s capital system in the 1990s continues to be infected with patterns of racial discrimination that cannot be explained by any of the legitimate sentencing considerations that have been sanctioned by North Carolina’s legislative and judicial branches.”

In designing their study, Unah and Boger worked closely with Dr. David Baldus of the University of Iowa, the nation’s leading expert on capital sentencing systems, to collect data on 113 separate factors about each crime. Among those were charges, nature of the crimes, each defendant’s background and character, evidence, motives, victims’ backgrounds and both aggravating and mitigating factors.

In 1941, in the first study of its kind, Dr. Guy Johnson of what is now UNC’s Odum Institute for Research in Social Science published a report showing that among 330 murder cases in five NC counties, 32 percent of all black defendants — but only 13 percent of white defendants — received death sentences when victims were white. In addition, death sentences were imposed in 17.5 percent of all white victim cases but only four-tenths of 1 percent of black victim cases.

Relying on that research and subsequent similar studies, the US Supreme Court in Furman vs. Georgia struck down all capital punishment statutes in 1972 as unconstitutional. That decision forced states to re-write their death penalty laws to try to eliminate race as a factor in how defendants were punished.

“We suspect that if a state like North Carolina, which has done a number of things to try to mitigate the effects of racial disparities in capital sentencing, still has those disparities, then it’s not alone, and this is probably a regional and maybe even a national problem,” Boger said. “In my personal opinion, the death penalty ought to be put on hold for now. There are enough serious questions about it that North Carolina ought to take a close look at it unpressured by the imminence of particular executions.”

The NC Supreme Court, the NC Court of Appeals, the state’s trial courts, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the NC Department of Corrections, the Institute of Government at UNC and the Administrative Office of the Courts all cooperated with the study.

North Carolina political prisoner begins trial

Compiled by Brendan Conley

Apr. 24-- Jury selection is nearly complete in the murder trial of North Carolina Native American activist Eddie Hatcher. The trial is taking place at the Robeson County Courthouse in Lumberton, North Carolina. Human rights organizations claim that Hatcher has been framed by local officials who oppose his work for social justice.

Hatcher is charged with first-degree murder in the May 31, 1999 drive-by shooting death of Brian McMillan. In October, Hatcher was found guilty of the May 19, 1999 non-fatal shooting of Michael Anthony Locklear. Hatcher said that Locklear had robbed his home, and he shot the man in self-defense. Hatcher was sentenced to 75 days in jail, which he had already served.

Hatcher has been held without bond since June 1, 1999. He was first held at Central Prison in Raleigh, but on January 3, 2000, he won an appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court to be moved to Robeson County Jail.

“The state’s case is a pile of nonsense cobbled together in a desperate attempt to try to show that Eddie Hatcher committed this crime,” said Maurice Geiger, director of the Rural Justice Center, in a statement. “There is no credible evidence against Hatcher.” Geiger said that the crime could not have happened in the way the state’s prosecutors contend.

Hatcher gained national notoriety in 1988 when he and Timmy Jacobs, another Tuscarora Indian, took over the offices of the Robesonian newspaper in Lumberton. They took hostages and demanded an investigation into local corruption, including alleged drug-trafficking by local officials, and the unsolved murders of 27 Indians and blacks in Robeson county.

In a Federal trial under Ronald Reagan’s 1984 Anti-Terrorist Act, Hatcher was found justified in his actions and not guilty on all counts. A later trial by the state of North Carolina, on the same charges, resulted in five years of prison and two years of parole and house arrest. About one year after completing all paroles and continuing his political activities in Robeson county, Hatcher was charged with murder.

Hatcher is represented by Woodberry Bowen and Sue Berry of Lumberton. Superior Court Judge Cash Martin is hearing the case.

Jury selection was interrupted on Wednesday, April 11, as the judge considered a motion to have the charges dismissed because of official misconduct. Hatcher said that jailers confiscated legal documents from his cell on Jan. 30. The motion states that Hatcher’s defense is thus “irreparably impaired.” No decision has been made on this motion.

District Attorney Johnson Britt and Judge Martin have excused dozens of potential jurors. Britt used many peremptory challenges to remove Native Americans and African-Americans. Berry, Hatcher’s attorney, raised objections under a US Supreme Court ruling that challenges cannot be used to dismiss excessive numbers of minorities. Judge Martin overruled the objections.

Sources: Eddie Hatcher Defense Committee: www.eddiehatcher.org; Robesonian.

Earth Day Critical Mass successful
Energized participants plan monthly rides

By Olya Milenkaya

Asheville, North Carolina, Apr. 22— In protest of fossil fuels, cars, and the current state of the world, and in celebration of the Earth, fifteen people participated today in a Critical Mass (CM) bike ride.

The participants, consisting of Asheville residents and students from UNCA and Warren Wilson College, met at around 4pm at the parking lot at the Oteen Ingles. They decided to try to block at least one lane for the duration of the entire route, which ended at Pack Place after coming down Tunnel Road and circling around a few downtown blocks. From the start, the cyclists took over both lanes of Tunnel Road and kept them for the entire bike ride. The weather was great and everyone’s spirits were high.

“There was a certain solidarity focus for this ride and that was great,” said Joe Novelli, one of the participants. The riders stayed together in a tight group and traveled at a pace that was comfortable for everyone. Together, the riders made up chants such as “More bikes! Less cars!” and yelled them whenever there was an audience.

In the tunnel, the everyone began chanting, and their yells were amplified. Angry drivers honked their horns in an unsuccessful effort to drown out the chants. The bikers continued, pedaling rather slowly, their voices louder than the honking.

After the tunnel, Asheville police started following the group. They never approached the action or said anything and there was no confrontation of any kind. In fact, a policeman on a bike joined up with the group. Joe Novelli and the police officer were biking together at the back of the pack. Novelli said, “We introduced ourselves and I said ‘Thanks for coming out and biking with us,’ and then he said, ‘Thank you for letting me tag along.’” They then proceeded to talk about Critical Mass and its significance, especially on Earth Day.

The action ended at Pack Place, where Food Not Bombs served up great food. There the riders met up with about six other people who held their own Critical Mass after meeting at a different location due to some misunderstanding about the meeting spot. They blocked one lane for their entire ride.

All of the participants were excited and inspired by the great success of the Critical Mass, and decided to hold monthly rides. From now on a Critical Mass will be held on the first Sunday of every month, starting at 4pm. The next CM (May 6th) will begin at Pack Place; a permanent meeting location will be decided upon by the participants.

 

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