The law means people convicted of capital murder may demonstrate that race played a significant role in their death sentences or in a prosecutor’s decision to seek the death penalty.
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Statistical evidence, such as the racial makeup of a jury, could be used in court to help prove bias. A judge could replace a death sentence with a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
The bill had support from churches, the NAACP and regional politicians. Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy pledged her support, and Sen. Martin Nesbitt, D-Asheville, was a co-sponsor.
“The governor did the right thing,” said Jeremy Collins, coordinator of the N.C. Coalition for a Moratorium, a group calling for death penalty reform. “As she said in her own words, what this means for North Carolina is that we have taken a bold step toward ensuring that if we are going to have a death penalty, it will be free of racial bias.”
Of the 163 inmates on the state’s death row, more than half are African-American. Only 20 percent of the state’s population is African-American.
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