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April 23, 2012

North Carolina's Racial Justice Act Leads to Death Penalty Commutation 
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A North Carolina judge has commuted the death sentence of an
African-American man convicted of the 1991 murder of a white teenager
after finding that state prosecutors had deliberately excluded blacks
from the jury. Marcus Robinson is among 150 death row prisoners in North
Carolina challenging their sentences under the state's Racial Justice
Act. The law allows death row inmates to have their sentences reduced to
life without parole if a judge determines that racial discrimination
played a significant role in their sentencing.

 

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