USA - North Carolina. N.C. House panel supports repealing Racial Justice Act

N.C. House panel supports repealing Racial Justice Act. A 2-year-old law that helps North Carolina prisoners challenge their death sentences on the basis of racial bias would be repealed under a bill endorsed by a divided House judiciary committee. By a 9-6 vote, the House committee recommended to the full House to repeal the Racial Justice Act, which allows defendants to offer statistical evidence to show race played a key factor in putting a disproportionate number of people from a racial group on death row or on trial for their lives. A judge who agrees that the defendant's case is tainted could reduce a death sentence to life in prison. Republicans have been critical of the law since it was passed by the Democratic-led Legislature and signed by Gov. Beverly Perdue. Now in charge, GOP lawmakers have a chance to nullify the law. The bill now goes to the House floor. Republican backers of the bill say the law is vague, expensive to carry out and has extended what's effectively a death penalty moratorium in North Carolina since 2006. Nearly all of North Carolina's 158 death row inmates filed paperwork under the law seeking to overturn their sentences, including white prisoners who killed white victims.