Lawmakers Pass Bill To Resume Executions In North Carolina

It’s been nearly seven years since the last execution in North Carolina, but that could soon change after the state Senate passed a bill to resume executions in the Tar Heel State.

The halt in executions stemmed largely from challenges to the state’s lethal injection protocol and questions about whether medical professionals can participate in a state-sponsored killing. Additionally, the 2009 Racial Justice Act allowed death row inmates to appeal their conviction if racial bias may have played a role in his or her sentence. A judge would then decide whether to let the capital sentence stand or commute it to life without the possibility of parole.

However, that law’s days may be numbered after the state Senate voted 33-14 on Wednesday to repeal the Racial Justice Act, in addition to enacting other changes to smooth the path to future executions. The bill now moves to the state House, where Republicans enjoy a 77-43 advantage.

WRAL has more:

When it passed, the [Racial Justice Act] was the only one of its kind in the nation. Supporters said it would renew public confidence in the capital punishment system. Detractors said it would clog the courts with appeals.

The original law allowed the use of statistics to prove a pattern of racial bias in jury selection and sentencing. State lawmakers changed that with a major rewrite last year. Senate Bill 306 repeals the remainder of the law.

Whether North Carolina lawmakers recognize it or not, racial bias plays a major role in the criminal justice sentencing system, particularly in the doling out of death sentences. For example, in capital cases, those with at least one white victim were over three times more likely to result in a death sentence than those without a white victim. In addition, as court documents show, potential jurors who were minorities were struck by prosecutors at nearly twice the rate of potential jurors who were white, regardless of qualification. All- or mostly-white juries have been more likely to sentence a black defendant to death. The Racial Justice Act helped address these biases in the system.

North Carolina’s move bucks the national trend towards repealing the death penalty. Six states in as many years have eliminated capital punishment.

As of last year, more than 160 people were on death row in North Carolina.

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South Carolina Republican Suggests GOP Opposes Medicaid Expansion Because Obama Is Black

Confederate flag flying on grounds of South Carolina's state capitol

On Tuesday, the South Carolina House rejected extra Obamacare funding for the state’s Medicaid program. One Republican legislator offered a novel reason for the Republican majority’s decision: the President’s race.

State Rep. Kris Crawford’s comments came during the early stages of the state Medicaid debate in late January. Crawford suggested that it was politically beneficial for Republicans (who run a Statehouse that flew the Confederate flag in front of it as recently as December 2011) to oppose any political initiatives spearheaded by a black man:

Rep. Kris Crawford, a Republican from Florence and also an emergency room doctor, supports the expansion but expects the Republican caucus to vote as a block against the Medicaid expansion.

“The politics are going to overwhelm the policy. It is good politics to oppose the black guy in the White House right now, especially for the Republican Party,” Crawford said.

South Carolina’s voter ID law was blocked last year by the Department of Justice on grounds that it violated the Voting Rights Act. The author of the law admitted to receiving, and responding positively to, racist emails in support of the law.

Governor Nikki Haley’s (R) steadfast opposition to the Medicaid expansion is becoming increasingly lonely; a wave of Republican governors have recently accepted federal assistance in providing health care for their poor citizens. South Carolina hospitals, who strongly support the expansion, have gone so far as to ask that their taxes be raised to pay for it.

(HT: David Graham.)

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North Carolina Governor Signs ‘Unprecedented’ Gutting Of Unemployment Insurance

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) today signed a law that imposes severe cuts to his state’s unemployment insurance program, a change that will also cost jobless workers in the state access to the federal unemployment compensation program.

McCrory’s signature earned him a rebuke from the National Employment Law Project, which said in a release that the law will result in “the most severe cuts to both state and federal unemployment insurance of any state in the nation”:

These heartless cuts, in the state with the fifth-highest jobless rate in the nation, at 9.2 percent, show a shocking disregard for 400,000 unemployed North Carolinians and their families, many of whom will now go from struggling to barely make ends meet to outright struggling to survive. The immediate pain of these cuts will fall on North Carolinians unfortunate enough to lose work through no fault of their own in a weak economy where jobs are scarce. But the entire state will take a hit from the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in spending at local businesses that would’ve boosted the local and state economies.

The law reduces the maximum benefit allowed from $535 a week to $350 while cutting the number of weeks an unemployed worker is eligible for the program from 26 to 20. As a result, 170,000 jobless North Carolinians will also lose access to $780 million in federal unemployment funds. The average unemployed worker in the United States has been off the job for 35 weeks, meaning many jobless workers will now face the prospect of searching for a new job without access to a safety net program.

Republican state senators have touted the law as “re-employment” program, even though research suggests that workers who receive unemployment benefits search harder for jobs than those who don’t. McCrory, meanwhile, praised the fiscal responsibility of the law, which will allow North Carolina to pay back money owed to the federal government a measly three years earlier than it would have under the old program.

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North Carolina GOP Governor Distances Himself From His Party’s Super-Regressive Tax Plan

North Carolina Republican lawmakers, following on the heels of Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) and Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS), have proposed eliminating their state’s income tax and corporate tax, replacing them with an expanded sales tax. Such a move is highly regressive, pushing taxes onto those lower on the income scale who are likely to spend most or all of their income.

The state’s Republican governor though, seems to be wary of the plan, with his budget director admitting that it would “absolutely” be regressive:

Gov. Pat McCrory’s budget director distanced the Republican chief executive from a proposal to eliminate income taxes in North Carolina and expressed his own “great concerns” with the concept being floated by leading GOP lawmakers. [...]

In particular, Pope cited a concern that the higher sales tax is “absolutely, no doubt” regressive, meaning it would hurt low-income taxpayers the hardest. He said it amounts to a gross income tax “without any regard to whether you are making any money.” And he worried about upsetting the current three-tier system of income, sales and properties taxes, calling it “fairly balanced.”

The North Carolina Justice Center’s budget and tax project found that the plan proposed by the GOP would “provide a significant windfall to the wealthiest 20 percent of state taxpayers while requiring low- and middle-income households to pay more. A family earning $24,000 a year would see its taxes rise by $500, while one earning $1 million would get a $41,000 break.” This chart shows the change in taxes as a share of income for various income levels:

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Ten Pardoned In 40-Year-Old North Carolina Case ‘Tainted By Naked Racism’

Forty years after the wrongful convictions of the “Wilmington 10,” North Carolina outgoing Gov. Bev Perdue (D) pardoned the ten individuals falsely found guilty of having firebombed a grocery store in a racially charged case riddled with evidence of perjury by crucial witnesses, overt racism in jury selection, and withholding of exonerating information. The sentence of a total of 282 years in prison for the ten individuals, nine of whom were African American and most of whom were activists in their teens at the time, prompted international outcry. The activist who received the harshest sentence, Benjamin Chavis, later became the executive director of the NAACP. Although an appeals court overturned the convictions in 1980, civil rights groups and others have been vocal in calls for official state recognition of error in the case a recent New York Times editorial called “one of the more shameful episodes on North Carolina history.”  Reuters explains:

“These convictions were tainted by naked racism and represent an ugly stain on North Carolina’s criminal justice system that cannot be allowed to stand any longer,” Perdue said. “Justice demands that this stain finally be removed.”

Wilmington, an historic port city on North Carolina’s coast, was gripped by racial tension in the years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 assassination and the desegregation of schools.

Violence erupted on February 6, 1971, when demonstrators set off firebombs in the city’s downtown. Firefighters who responded to the blaze set at a grocery store were met with sniper fire.

Authorities blamed the Wilmington 10 for the grocery fire and for conspiring to attack the emergency workers. They were tried and convicted the following year. [...]

Last month, Perdue received the handwritten notes of the prosecutor who picked the group’s jury, and the records showed racism had played a dominant role in the process, she said on Monday.

“The notes reveal that certain white jurors believed to be Ku Klux Klan members were described by the prosecutor as ‘good’ and that at least one African-American juror was noted to be an ‘Uncle Tom type,’” Perdue said. “This conduct is disgraceful.”

Perdue issued the pardons Monday as she exits a term in office marked by dogged battles with the state’s conservative legislature on attempts to roll back environmental protection, workers’ rights, and reproductive rights. Even after the court reversal, some opponents reportedly lobbied against the issuance of pardons, arguing for a standard of justice by which defendants are guilty until proven innocent:

[A] group calling itself Citizens for Justice took out a quarter-page ad in the Wilmington Star News, asking Purdue not to grant pardons to the Wilmington Ten, essentially because, they say, it has never been proven that the nine black males and one white female civil rights activists didn’t conspire to firebomb a white-owned grocery store in February 1971, and fire weapons on responding fire and police personnel from a church steeple.

Retired white Wilmington police officers, and even former prosecutor Jay Stroud, have told Wilmington media that the Ten are guilty …

Both state governors and the president possess the power to mitigate harsh or unjust punishments by shortening sentences through a commutation, or invalidating convictions entirely through a pardon. Perdue’s pardons of the already-released individuals was a symbolic rejection of the state’s racially charged prosecution. But most pardons and commutations are sought in cases in which inmates continue to serve their time. In spite of evidence of individuals serving life sentences for their nominal and nonviolent role in drug deals, and the continued U.S. practice of mass incarceration, President Obama did not issue a single pardon or commutation in 2012.

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First Lady Michelle Obama Tells North Carolina A&T University Class of 2012 "We Need You"

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Colleen CurtisMay 14, 2012
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Interim Provost Winser Alexander presents First Lady Michele Obama with a hood signifying her honorary degree following her commencement address during the North Carolina Agriculture & Technology commencement ceremony in Greensboro, N.C., May 12, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

First Lady Michelle Obama invoked the example of the "Greensboro Four" in her commencement address to North Carolina A&T University's class of 2012. More than half a century ago, four A&T students started the movement that led to desegregation at lunch counters across the country, and Mrs Obama said this shows what can happen when someone decides to "wake up and change the situation." The First Lady challenged the students to follow their lead:

As graduates of this proud university, as young people like those who always stoked the fires of progress, our country is counting on all of you to step forward and help us with the work that remains.  We need you.

Mrs Obama also challeged each member of the graduating class to think about what’s important, and ask themselves three questions:

Who are you going to be?What’s going on in the world around me? andHow can I help?

The answers, she said, would help the graduated keep their bearings as they advanced in their careers and in their lives as citizens: 

You’ve got to figure out what matters to you and stay true to those values. You’ve got to keep your eyes open as you make your way in the world....

The fact is, we simply cannot move forward unless all of us are engaged. And being engaged means not simply recognizing what’s wrong, not simply complaining about and talking about our problems, but acting. It means waking up and changing the situation.  And that’s a lesson that so many of you have already begun to learn during your time here at A&T... 
 
And with that kind of action and that kind of commitment, all of you have begun to carry on that proud legacy of the Greensboro Four.

Students react as First Lady Michele Obama delivers the commencement address at the North Carolina Agriculture & Technology commencement ceremony in Greensboro, N.C., May 12, 2012 (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

This was Mrs. Obama's second commencement address of 2012. You can read her full remarks here
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Will the South Carolina Democrats Tolerate This Racism?

Phil Bailey sat next to South Carolina State Senator Jake Knotts when Knotts called Governor Nikki Haley, then a candidate for Governor, a “raghead.”

Phil Bailey did nothing.

Phil Bailey is the Executive Director of the South Carolina Senate Democratic Caucus. It seems he is now intent on one upping Jake Knotts.

Bailey, who had no problem with Knotts’ “raghead” comment when even the First Vice Chairman of the State GOP, Patrick Haddon, was calling for Knotts’s resignation, seems determined to one up Knotts with racism.

Bailey has been on twitter referring to Nikki Haley, a Methodist of Indian descent, as the “Sikh Jesus.” Governor Haley’s parents are sikh, but she and her husband attend a Methodist Church.

Not content to do it just once, Phil Bailey did it a second time, complete with a picture of a dog.

I know the South Carolina Democrats have low standards. But do they really want one of their employees to first be cool with the Governor of their state being called a “raghead” and then himself calling her a “sikh Jesus”?

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Remember to Vote Yes to Amendment 1 In North Carolina

Today voters in North Carolina will go to the polls to consider Amendment 1, a constitutional amendment to ensure liberal judges and gay rights activists are prohibited from changing the definition of marriage under North Carolina law. Polls suggest the measure will pass. But then polls suggested the Personhood Amendment in Mississippi would also pass and it did not.

The Republican Primary is largely over in North Carolina, except in some contested seats. Republicans may not want to turn out. I do hope they turn out to vote for Scott Keadle, however, in his race. And I hope they turn out and join Latino voters and black voters as they did in California to support traditional marriage.

In 31 states that have considered constitutional amendments to uphold traditional marriage, all 31 have passed those amendments. Republicans should go to the polls in North Carolina to make sure North Carolina becomes the 32nd state to uphold traditional marriage.

The last thing we need is for Anthony Kennedy to decide that one state out of 32 is an “emerging national consensus.”

In the past decade, spurred on by the siren song of happiness and fairness and claims for equality and progress when men and women in the country already have equal rights to marry, gay rights activists have systematically sought to redefine marriage as something other than what several thousand years of human history have come to define it. They have been helped by liberal activist judges and deteriorating cultural values. In a day when we should be doing all we can to save marriage, we’re on a course to have its meaning eroded.

Over several thousand years, whether by edict from on high or through trial and error, humans settled on the two parent, heterosexual nuclear household as the most stabilizing force in society. In the past few decades, many people have decided that several thousand years of human history can be ignored in favor of unproven claims of happiness, fairness, progress, and an expanded notion of equality. The standard argument is that with divorce already at 50% in heterosexual households, it is not like gay marriage can undermine what is already being weakened. If it’s already broke, why not break it further?

In fact, I take the reverse position — just because people have already devalued marriage does not mean it should be devalued further — particularly by changing long held definitions and claiming that the equal right we all have today to marry is somehow unequal. At no time in human history until the past few decades have people thought marriage should be anything other than between a man and woman. We should not be so quick to further erode the cornerstone of stability in society and slide further down the slippery slope.

Whether you believe it was a god or just nature, we should not think ourselves so unique as to be so brazen to upend the existing order of our nature when marriage, as it exists and has existed has been tried and tested by billions of people over thousands of years.

I hope North Carolina voters will reaffirm what marriage is within their constitutional framework as a sign that 32 states are not quite ready to give in to progressive norms. Oh, and Amendment 1 passing today would make the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC even more awkward than it already will be.

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