STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 06-11-20
FORMER NCCU CHANCELLOR ALBERT WHITING DIES AT 102
[DURHAM] Dr. Albert Whiting, former chancellor of North Carolina Central University, died June 4th in Maryland at age 102. Whiting was the fourth president of North Carolina College in Durham when he came to the school in 1966, and become it’s first chancellor thereafter when the college changed it’s name to North Carolina Central University. He served the school for 15 years, retiring in 1983. He is credited with overseeing tremendous growth of NCCU during that time.
RALEIGH POLICE BAN STRANGLEHOLDS AND CHOKEHOLDS
[RALEIGH] Raleigh Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown announced this week that officers would no longer be allowed to use strangleholds or chokeholds to subdue suspects. Previously, regulations recommended avoiding those techniques, but now, because they’re widely seen as use of deadly force, they are outright banned. Chief Deck-Brown also called for an outside panel of experts to evaluate her department’s conduct during the recent demonstrations.
MAIN GOP CONVENTION EVENTS MOVED FROM NORTH CAROLINA TO FLORIDA
[CHARLOTTE] True to their word, the Republican National Committee, told by Gov. Roy Cooper that as long as COVID-19 is a problem in North Carolina, they will not be holding their national convention in Charlotte this August, have now moved the main activities to Jacksonville, Fla. Convention business meetings will still be conducted in the Queen City, officials say. The GOP originally wanted a full 50,000 person convention, then reduced it to 19,000 with no masks or social distancing, before the governor told them to try someplace else.
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STATE HIGH COURT APPROVES
RACIAL BIAS CHALLENGE IN
JURY SELECTION
by Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The Republican-led NC General Assembly denied death row inmates their rights under the NC Racial Justice Act by repealing it in 2013.
Last Friday in two majority rulings, the State Supreme Court returned those rights to those convicted inmates who sought a hearing about racial bias in the prosecution of their cases, but could not get one because of the repeal.
“The basic conclusion was that the General Assembly violated the NC Constitution when it sought to prevent [death row inmates who petitioned for hearings under [the RJA] from seeking a reduction in [their] sentences based on the racially-tinged exclusion of African Americans from the jury which convicted and sentenced [them] to death,” stated Atty Irving Joyner, law professor at North Carolina Central University in Durham.
The Racial Justice Act allowed those on death row to present evidence that race played a significant role in their convictions. Several studies have shown prosecutors in numerous counties across the state who use illegal methods to keep black jurors away from deciding murder cases when a black defendant is involved, and the victim is white, so that the prosecutor can introduce racially-biased evidence to an all-white jury for a sure conviction.
The state’s High Court decided the cases of Rayford Burke and Andrew Ramseur, two death row prisoners who filed claims that prosecutors excluded blacks from their respective juries, and as a result, their capital case convictions were racially-tinged for all-white juries.
If a court, under RJA, found evidence that racial bias led to a conviction, that meant the the trail wasn’t fair, and the death sentence was converted to life in prison.
But many of the claims filed were never heard, as prescribed by the RJA because the legislature repealed the law passed in 2009 by it’s Democrat-led predecessor.
“The rulings also mean that death row prisoners across North Carolina who filed claims under the N.C. Racial Justice Act before its repeal in 2013 are [still] entitled to present their evidence in court,” said The Center for Death Penalty Litigation. “The justices decided the case under the state constitution, so it cannot be appealed.”
“This is a momentous decision that sends a clear message: Our state’s highest court will not allow North Carolina to ignore evidence that racism has infected the death penalty,” said CDPL Executive Director Gretchen M. Engel. “This was also an urgently needed decision as our state and our nation confront a long history of racism. The death penalty is the apex of a criminal legal system that has failed people of color.”
Those unheard claims can mow proceed to lower courts.
“This was a well reasoned decision that Justice [Anita] Earls wrote and was agreed to by every justice other than Justice [Paul] Newby,” said Prof. Joyner. “The systematic exclusion of African Americans from NC juries in capital cases is a reality that we have known about and had to accept since 1900 and now, some “death row” inmates will have a chance to obtain relief from their capital pronouncements.”
Right before the rulings, NC Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley publicly acknowledged that, regretfully, there was racism in North Carolina’s criminal justice system.
“In our courts, African-Americans are more harshly treated, more severely punished and more likely to be presumed guilty,” she said.
Republicans, like for NCGOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse, begged to differ about the High Court’s ruling. He tweeted that the RJA “…was a way for Democrats to end executing vicious cold-blooded child killers, cop killer and the worst [murderers] known to man.”
“This had little to do with race and nothing bout justice,” Woodhouse opined. “ Dems won. Killers won. Victims lost.”
In another, unrelated court victory, Superior Court Judge Vince Rozier, Jr. indicated that he will issue a preliminary injunction against the Cooper Administration, ordering it to whatever is necessary to cut the prison population through early release or transfer in order to prevent the further spread of COVID-19 among the inmate population.
The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by the NCNAACP.
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[SEE EMAIL FOR CUTLINES]
IS NC, AMERICA MOVING
TOWARDS TRUE RACIAL
JUSTICE?
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
It has been a stunning, shocking, and poignant three weeks since the killing of George Floyd. During that time there have been numerous public demonstrations of grief, anger and social justice resolve - not just in all fifty states, but internationally - along with various declarations of unity around the mantra “Black Lives Matter,” and now a raging public, partisan debate about the cry to “Defund the Police.”
And in the midst of it all, the family of George Floyd memorialized him, in Minneapolis, Mn. - where he had moved to years ago to start a new life, only to be killed on May 25th when a police officer put his knee on the black man’s neck for almost nine minutes, seen on video by millions; Houston, Texas - where Floyd, 46 grew up after his mother moved there from North Carolina; and in Hoke County - close to where George Perry Floyd, Jr. was born in nearby Fayetteville in 1974.
Last Saturday, hundreds of people from across North Carolina went to Raeford’s R. L. Douglas Cape Fear Conference Center to pay their last respects to Floyd, whose body was brought there in a gold casket for a memorial viewing, and later to a local church for a private service where speaker after speaker asked, “Will America pay heed to the lessons learned from this case of injustice, or will the country ignore them as historically usual?”
Hoke County Sheriff Hubert Peterkin stood in the pulpit and declared that he was a black man “first,” then a law enforcement officer.
Then he also challenged his colleagues to admit that they were “part of the problem” when it came to strained relations with the black community.
Congressman G. K. Butterfield (D-NC-1) called Floyd’s death “murder by any definition, and Rev. Christopher Stackhouse preached in his eulogy that he saw “the God’s hand” in the massive, diverse peaceful worldwide demonstrations in response to Floyd’s death.
Floyd was buried next to his mother in Houston on Tuesday after the last of the three memorials.
Meanwhile, led by the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, D.C., Democrats in both houses of Congress Monday introduced The Justice in Policing Act of 2020. NC representatives Alma Adams (D-NC-12) and G. K. Butterfield (D-NC-1) are among the over 100 members of Congress to cosponsor what they call “…the first-ever bold, comprehensive approach to hold police accountable, change the culture of law enforcement and build trust between law enforcement and our communities.”
“Congress must take urgent action to address the epidemic of police brutality against Americans. This bill does that, and acknowledges that Black lives can’t wait until the next election,” said Congresswoman Adams. “By passing the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, we can begin the process of rebuilding the fragile trust in our justice system. Urgency and progress are the antidote to injustice.”
In remarks delivered at George Floyd’s memorial in Raeford Saturday, Rep. Butterfield said, “Over the past ten days, the Congressional Black Caucus has engaged in extensive meetings with the Democratic leadership on the importance of decisive and swift legislative action to end the pervasiveness of police misconduct. Speaker Pelosi authorized the Congressional Black Caucus to develop the first draft of a legislative response to this “police” murder and other “police” murders that we all know so painfully well.”
On Monday, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Adams, Butterfield, and other Democratic cosponsors of the bill, went to Emancipation Hall in the U.S. Capital, and took an eight minute and forty-second silent knee in honor of George Floyd.
Eight minutes and forty-six seconds is the amount of time Officer Derek Chauvin had his knee on a dying Floyd in the street as he cried out, “I can’t breathe,” and “Momma.”
I cannot imagine George Floyd’s agony,” said Rep. Adams.”
Last Friday, NC House Democrats held a press conference where they called for their Republican colleagues to drop partisanship, come together, and address systematic racism in the areas of criminal justice, health care, education and economic opportunities.
Seemingly in answer to that plea, the NC Senate Monday night unanimously passed $15 million in addition funding for NC Promise, “…to guarantee $500 in-state tuition at three North Carolina colleges - Elizabeth City State University, UNC Pembroke, and Western Carolina University.
Since the policy was enacted a few years ago by the Republican-led Senate, it has reportedly been very successful in increasing enrollment at the three schools.
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