Judge Tosses Racist Death Sentence

A North Carolina judge ruled Friday that a black man who killed a white teenager in 1991 was sent to death row in part because of racial discrimination. The judge ordered that Marcus Robinson be taken off death row and ordered that the man serve a life sentence without parole. Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks found that black jurors were excluded from Robinson’s trial. His case is the first of many that will likely be filed under the state’s new Racial Justice Act, which allows death-row inmates and capital-murder defendants to present evidence of racial bias in court.