FAYETTEVILLE, NC-- A statistics expert from Iowa is testifying in support of the findings of other researchers who say race appears to be a deciding factor in how North Carolina prosecutors exclude jurors from capital murder cases.
The Fayetteville Observer reported that retired professor George Woodworth of the University of Iowa testified Wednesday in the first evidentiary hearing over North Carolina's Racial Justice Act.
Michigan State University researchers did a study about how often North Carolina prosecutors use peremptory challenges to exclude blacks from juries hearing capital murder cases.
Marcus Robinson is a black man who is challenging his death sentence for the 1991 killing of a white teenager. If his claim is successful, the law says he'll be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
AP