USA - North Carolina. Judge Orlando Hudson commuted Isaac Jackson Stroud's death sentence, replacing it with a life sentence

Judge Orlando Hudson commuted Isaac Jackson Stroud's death sentence, replacing it with a life sentence plus 30 years. Stroud, 56, was convicted in 1995 for killing Jocelyn Mitchell, 35, on May 1, 1993. Stroud sought relief from his death sentence under the Racial Justice Act passed in 2009, but Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson took Stroud off death row not because of alleged racial bias in his jury selection but because mental illness kept Stroud from helping with his own defense. Stroud’s is the 1st of 154 Racial Justice Act cases to be resolved after a deadline last August for death-row inmates to file for relief under the new law. Lawyers for Isaac Jackson Stroud successfully argued in Durham County Superior Court that he is mentally ill and incapable of fully participating in his own defense, which would disqualify him under state law from being subject to the death penalty. The decision averts a case premised on the 2009 Racial Justice Act, which allows convicts to use statistical evidence to argue that bias played a role in their sentencing. A hearing on Stroud's appeal under the statute was scheduled for March, but now that his death sentence has been commuted, there's no need to go forward with it, Ozer said.