Hey everyone! Here are some links that have helpful information about the death penalty and the Racial Justice Act. http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/nclr88&div=62&g_sent=1&collection=journals#2130 The North Carolina Law Review was one of the first books to help me understand the racial bias and the disparity of races on death row. It explains the Racial Justice Act, what the act […]

Here are some links to blogs I follow to keep up with death penalty issues: National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Meet Vernon The Lonely Abolitionist Pro-Death Penalty

NC Health Care by Unusualpurplewool explains how Obamacare is affecting North Carolina residents. Some key points that the NC Health Care blog talks about is the online marketplace, the pros and cons of the Affordable Care Act, and how new restriction can pose a burden on North Carolinians. Unusualpurplewool’s blog was very informative, easy to […]

At the beginning of this blog, I believed that the death penalty was a fair and just punishment of people convicted of murder in the first degree. I believed that capital punishment served as a deterrent for crime and that it was a means for families of victims to get the closure that would help […]

If nothing is done to correct the racial disparities on death row in North Carolina, I believe that prejudice in the courtroom will slowly decline but never be completely eliminated. As a society, we have been moving towards a more accepting and educated culture where differences are embraced. Research has shown that young adults today […]

The Racial Justice Act attempted to close the gap between the numbers of minority inmates versus the number of white inmates on death row. In theory, the Racial Justice Act hoped to eliminate prejudice in the courtroom, but due to the act’s lack of specificity, it was unsuccessful. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the […]

Hey everyone! Well today I was going to talk about some of the amendments made to the Racial Justice Act in North Carolina and why they were made before the act was repealed, but the website is no longer active due to the government shutdown! I was going to show that the act was too […]

In August of 2009, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the Racial Justice Act in order that “no person shall be subject to or given a sentence of death or shall be executed pursuant to any judgment that was sought or obtained on the basis of race.”(1) This bill was intended to counteract the large […]

The appeal system, especially for a death sentence, can be a complicated and time-consuming process. The United States criminal justice system’s appellate process is inherently slow and cases can take many years to resolve. But how can a prisoner on death row appeal his/her case? Is it possible for a prisoner to appeal his/her case […]

Hey everyone! Last week I gave you the statistics of the percentage of white vs. minority inmates on death row in 2010. But I was still curious to see for myself if the current death row inmates were mostly minorities and for what reason they were sentenced to death row. As of April 1, 2013 […]