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.
|