Racial Justice in North Carolina

North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue (above) signed the nation's second racial justice act this morning. The law allows capital murder defendants and death row prisoners to challenge prosecutions based on statistical evidence of racial bias. Only Kentucky has a similar law.

It's huge for North Carolina and Kentucky to take a leadership role on the issue of racial disparities in the criminal justice system. North Carolina isn't our most racially enlightened state, but lately it has been making impressive strides toward racial tolerance - and other important reforms - in its criminal justice system.

Unsurprisingly, prosecutors and 'tough-on-crimers' are complaining - saying the new law harms victims and is a backhanded attempt to abolish the death penalty and that (cough) “the Constitution already guarantees racial justice.” Guaranteeing and delivering are different things, however.

More than 50 percent of prisoners on the state's death row are black, compared with just 21 percent of the state's population.Black defendants charged with killing a white victim in North Carolina are more likely to be faced with the death penalty than crimes where victim and defendant are the same race or the victim is black and defendant is white.

[Update: The chart that was here before has been removed because it wasn't entirely clear. Click here to review the data on race and chances of facing the death penalty in NC.]

North Carolina is making progress in other aspects of criminal justice reform as well. I wrote recently about the Winston-Salem Police Department's difficulty recruiting minority officers. Racial strife in the city's past make it critical that it address diversity in its police force and courts. The city is already ahead of many by even discussing the issue.

Thanks to advocacy from exoneree Ronald Cotton and crime victim Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, and many others, the state also passed reforms last year addressing eyewitness identification procedures - the leading cause of wrongful conviction.

The Racial Justice Act is the latest positive step in North Carolina's move toward a fair, efficient criminal justice system. I support the complete outright abolition of the death penalty, but I don't think this law is part of a secret plan to end capital punishment. It's a step toward honesty and racial equality in the courtroom, and that's movement in the right direction.