STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 08-22-19
GOV. COOPER EXPECTED TO VETO ICE LAW
[RALEIGH] It is now up to Gov. Roy Cooper whether a measure passed by the NC House this week requiring NC sheriffs to honor detention requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for illegal immigrants will become law. The state Senate passed the law in June. Sheriffs in Durham, Wake, Guilford and there counties refused to hold immigrant suspects for ICE agents, saying it was against the law. Republican lawmakers threatened to punish those sheriffs who didn’t comply. If Cooper allows the law to stand, sheriffs can be removed from office for obeying.
FOREST OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCES 2020 RUN FOR GOVERNOR
[WINSTON-SALEM] Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest has now officially entered the GOP primary for governor, joining Rep. Holly Grange of Wilmington. During a speech at the Winston-Salem Fairgrounds a week ago, Forest said as governor, he would create “a new vision” for North Carolina that would reject socialism, identity politics and abortion rights. Forest seeks to unseat Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
NC DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION TO LAY OFF HUNDREDS OF WORKERS
[RALEIGH] Hundreds of temporary and contractual workers are now facing pink slips from the NC Dept. of Transportation, due to the high costs of repairing roads after hurricane damage and settling a large lawsuit. More than 1,000 positions are on the block, including construction inspectors, contractors and pot hole laborers. A spokesman says the layoffs will be temporary, with most expected to be rehired next year.
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UNC LAW PROFFESSOR RICHARD MYERS
NCNAACP PRES.. CONCERNED ABOUT
TRUMP’S NEW PICK FOR NC COURT
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
After realizing that his initial pick for the federal judicial seat in North Carolina’s Eastern District, Raleigh Attorney Thomas Farr, will not be confirmed, Pres. Donald Trump has nominated a conservative UNC-Chapel Hill law school professor instead. And while both Republican North Carolina U.S. senators praise the choice, the president of the NC NAACP has expressed his concerns, and maybe gearing up to fight this nomination as well.
Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, president of the NCNAACP called Professor Richard Myers , Trump’s new nominee announced just last week, a “…thoroughly good gopher for injustice.”
Rev. Spearman and others in the progressive movement are alarmed that in the past two and-a-half-years since Trump has taken office, the U.S. Senate, under the leadership of Republican Senate Majority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), has confirmed over 160 nominees to the federal bench, including two to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Couple that with the fact that McConnell defiantly blocked several nominees from Democratic President Barack Obama while he was in office, and progressives like Spearman are geared up go fight every Trump nominee that is presented.
As of now, Professor Myers, a registered Republican, is on that list.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Myers’ family moved to Wilmington in his youth. Graduating from UNC-Wilmington, he worked as a reporter for a Wilmington newspaper 1991-95, and earned his law degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1998, later joining the law school there.
Myers’ eventually clerked for conservative Judge David Sentelle on the D.C. Court of Appeals. Sentelle, a North Carolina native, according to NCNAACP Pres. Spearman, had a close association with conservative U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), and was seen as a federal jurist conservatives could count on.
Myers also worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Justice Dept., focusing on white collar crime.
“I believe he will serve the Eastern District honorably, and I look forward to the Senate’s consideration of this well-qualified nominee,” Sen. Burr said in a statement.
Sen. Tillis also lauded Myers.
“Professor Myers’ extensive experience serving in the Department of Justice prosecuting white collar and violent crime, as well as his well-deserved reputation as one of our state’s best legal scholars provide him with the background and qualifications required to serve the Eastern District with distinction. I look forward to advancing his nomination through the Senate Judiciary Committee.”
But Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-NC-1) wants to know more about Myers.
“The Eastern District deserves diversity on the Federal bench,” Butterfield said in a statement. “There has never been an African American judge in the district despite having a minority population greater than 30%. President Obama attempted on two occasions to achieve racial diversity in the Eastern District, but on both occasions the nominations were blocked by Republican Senators.”
“I'm confident that President Trump consulted with Senator Burr and Senator Tillis prior to making this nomination,” Butterfield continued. “Our senators should have pushed for integrating the Court.
“I will use all available means of researching the background and qualifications of this nominee. There must be a thorough vetting prior to Senate consideration.”
Without that as his legal pedigree, Spearman says it’s no wonder both North Carolina U.S. senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis recommended Myers to Pres. Trump.
“With this man in a lifetime spot in the Eastern District, we can be assured that there will be no judicial independence coming from that bench,” Spearman said in a statement. “He will be a thoroughly good gopher for injustice and a tremendously bad champion for justice.”
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NC SUPREME COURT TO HEAR
RACIAL JUSTICE ACT CASES
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
In 2013, the NC General Assembly repealed the NC Racial Justice Act (RJA) - a law signed by then Gov. Beverly Perdue in 2009 that converted death sentences for convicted murderers, to life in prison without parole if they could present evidence proving that their sentencing was the result of racial discrimination in jury selection.
The RJA was initially enacted because of mounting evidence prosecutors across North Carolina were finding ways to block qualified African Americans f2.5 times more than whites from juries in capital cases, even though doing so violated federal law.
The result was that black defendants were being convicted by all-white juries on the basis race, regardless of what the evidence in the case showed. But the Republican-led NC General Assembly, along with then GOP Gov. Pat McCrory, repealed the RJA in 2013, rejecting solid evidence that racism was prevalent in capital punishment cases.
On August 26th and 27th of next week, the NC Supreme Court will hear arguments in six death penalty cases where the death sentences were converted by the RJA to life sentences, only to be converted back to death once the law was repealed.
In 2012, the first four death penalty cases considered under the RJA were converted to life in prison. Three of the cases involved all-white juries. But because of procedural errors, new hearings were supposed to take place. However, once the RJA was repealed, there were no new hearings, and the death sentences were reinstated.
Next week, the state’s High Court will consider whether to reinstate the life sentences, or grant the new hearings that never took place place.
The remaining two cases will argue that because those death row defendants did file claims under the RJA before it was repealed, they are also entitled to present evidence of racial discrimination in their jury selections, and thus, should have their death sentences commuted to life-without-parole.
“The court must answer a key question for North Carolina,” said David Weiss, a staff attorney with Durham’s Center for Death Penalty Litigation, one of several law firms that represents the RJA defendants. “Will our state abide by its constitution and confront the evidence that race has played an unacceptable role in death penalty trials? Or will we throw the evidence away without a hearing and send the message that pervasive racial bias doesn’t matter, even in life-and-death trials?”
“Jury discrimination is one of the key civil rights issues of our time,” said Jin Hee Lee, Senior Deputy Director of Litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which filed a brief in support of the RJA cases. Founded by Thurgood Marshall, LDF becomes involved in cases when they present a chance to advance racial justice. Lee continued, “It threatens the integrity of our justice system and our democracy when we allow black citizens to be illegally barred from jury service. We hope North Carolina will give the evidence in these capital cases the serious consideration it deserves, and take needed steps to end race discrimination in North Carolina’s death penalty.”
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