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December 14, 2012

North Carolina Judge Voids 3 Death Sentences over Racial Bias 
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A North Carolina judge has voided the death sentences of three prisoners
after determining their ethnicity played a major role in their
sentencing. Tilmon Golphin and Quintel Augustine, who are both African
American, and Christina Walters, who is Native American, were each given
life sentences without parole on Thursday after Judge Gregory Weeks
ruled they were covered by the state's Racial Justice Act. Judge Weeks
wrote: "In the writing of prosecutors' long buried in case files and
brought to light for the first time in this hearing, the court finds
powerful evidence of race-consciousness and race-based decision making."

 

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