Dear Supporter,
In 2009, North Carolina passed the Racial Justice Act (RJA), a landmark law that seeks to correct racial bias in North Carolina's death penalty by allowing death row inmates and capital defendants the ability to challenge their sentence if they can demonstrate that race was factor. If a defendant successfully makes this claim, he or she will be re-sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Now the Senate is considering effectively repealing the Act.
If you oppose racial discrimination in our criminal justice system, please take a moment to contact your state senator and urge him or her to vote against SB 9, the bill that would repeal the Racial Justice Act.
North Carolina's District Attorneys are urging legislators to repeal this important civil rights law before the first death penalty cases to be challenged under the Act are even heard. The timing of this call is suspect at best. After repeated requests to delay the first RJA hearing, scheduled to start this week but pushed back to late January, the District Attorneys tried to have the case's judge, one of only a handful of African American superior court judges in North Carolina, removed from the case for specious reasons. Please take a moment to contact your state senator and urge him or her to vote against SB 9, the bill that would repeal the Racial Justice Act. You can also contact Gov. Beverly Perdue and ask that she veto SB 9 if it comes across her desk. Thank you for your continued support of equal treatment for all North Carolinians! Sincerely, Sarah Preston
Policy Director
ACLU of North Carolina *** | 
