A landmark case exposes rampant racial bias in the death penalty. Several years ago, North Carolina briefly had the “Racial Justice Act” as part of its law. It would explicitly allow defendants to argue racial bias in their cases in ways that had not been allowed before — and were not allowed in other state. But after a short time, North Carolina’s Legislature repealed it. Now racial bias in jury selection and other aspects of the death penalty system is rampant again. See this article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/24/landmark-us-case-to-expose-rampant-racial-bias-behind-the-death-penalty
The ACLU provides this additional information about North Carolina’s experiment with a “Racial Justice Act” and that state’s cruel return to racial bias in death penalty cases: https://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/racial-disparities-and-death-penalty/will-north-carolinas-supreme-court
See this news about 6 death penalty cases for which North Carolina’s “Racial Justice Act” was relevant. These 6 cases were being appealed in North Carolina near the end of the summer of 2019: https://www.naacpldf.org/press-release/ldf-to-argue-death-penalty-cases-before-north-carolina-supreme-court?track=DE20H30&utm_source=1908supporterupdate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fy20supporterupdate
… And ALSO THIS 11-minute video of a NAACP legal defense attorney arguing one of the cases: https://www.naacpldf.org/press-release/ldf-to-argue-death-penalty-cases-before-north-carolina-supreme-court?track=DE20H40&utm_source=1908jinheelee&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fy20actionalerts
… And see more information at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s website, including this: https://www.naacpldf.org/press-release/ldf-to-argue-death-penalty-cases-before-north-carolina-supreme-court?track=DE20H40&utm_source=1908jinheelee&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fy20actionalerts
Long-term systemic racial bias is what finally caused Washington State’s Supreme Court to throw out Washington State’s death penalty just a few years ago. See information about that in several of my blog posts at the “Death Penalty” part of this blog, www.parallaxperspectives.org