By Joseph Neff and Beth Schwartzapfel, The Marshall Project, June 11, 2020
When Andrew Ramseur walked into the Iredell County, North Carolina, courtroom for his murder trial in 2010, the rows behind the defense table were cordoned off with police tape. His family, who are black, were “forced to sit in the proverbial ‘back of the bus,’” according to court papers, while the victims’ white family was seated in front, directly behind the prosecution table. During jury selection, prosecutors removed every black potential juror. In a county that is 12 percent African American, the 21-year-old was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury.
The North Carolina Supreme Court last week found that Ramseur and more than 100 others were entitled to a hearing to examine whether racism played a role in them being sentenced to death. His case centers around the Racial Justice Act, a 2009 state law that mandated changing a death sentence to life without parole if a person could prove that race was a “significant factor” in their case. The law—the first of its kind anywhere in the country—specifically said that defendants like Ramseur can use statistics from the state or local level to help make their case.
“This could and should be a national model,” said Gretchen Engel, director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham, North Carolina.
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