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NC Racial Justice Act at a crossroads

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Please take a moment and help pass the NC Racial Justice Act, which promises to be a
model reform bill for the country.

Dear friends,

Please take a moment and help pass the NC Racial Justice Act, which promises to be a
model reform bill for the country.

Please make phone calls to Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight and Senate
Majority Leader Tony Rand. They need to hear from you.

It will just take a moment and all you need to say is, "I am calling to ask the
Senator to support the House version of the Racial Justice Act during the
concurrence vote in the Senate."

Sen. Marc Basnight: (919) 733-6854
Sen. Tony Rand: (919) 733-9892

The vote is expected to take place today during the NC Senate session today at 3 pm
EST.

Yesterday the NC Senate vote on the RJA was postponed moments before it was to
happen — not entirely a bad thing.

The fate of the bill has been in a whirlwind of ups and downs and changing positions.

We need you to keep the pressure on!

If you know people who live in North Carolina please forward this link to them:

http://www.facebook.com/l/;salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1576/t/6273/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27713

Comments

Real URL here

Sorry, that was a redirect. Here's the real URL:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1576/t/6273/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27713

Here's a model letter you can use:

Dear Senator,

I urge you to please vote your conscience for the House version of the NC Racial Justice Act.
The time has come for the passage of this fair sentencing reform. I ask that you vote to concur with the House version of the Racial Justice Act so that this significant reform can finally become law in NC.

Because the number of capital sentences vary so widely within counties and judicial divisions, it would be difficult to establish reliable findings in every county and every division without considering data from the entire state. Statewide statistics are one piece in a larger puzzle of understanding the nature of our system.

It is vital that the Senate pass the RJA with the inclusion of the use of statewide statistics. In the US Supreme Court decision on the death penalty McClesky v. Kemp, Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell invited legislatures to craft appropriate rules to ensure the death penalty is not exercised in biased ways. The House version of the RJA is a fair and balanced attempt to provide the courts with the tools to examine this issue in an impartial manner.

The RJA recognizes the need to look at all the data, and permits prosecutors a fair opportunity to rebut the defendant’s statistical showing by demonstrating in their county, district or division racial discrimination has not infected decisions about whether defendants should live or die. Limiting courts to considering only the data available from specific counties or judicial divisions unnecessarily restricts access to all the information needed to make these difficult decisions.

For all of the previously mentioned reasons I ask that you vote to concur with the NC Racial Justice Act without amendments or delays.

Sincerely,

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