The Center for Death Penalty Litigation

  • Home
  • What’s New
    • Announcements
    • Press Releases
    • Videos
    • Reports
    • Awards
  • About
    • Staff
    • Board
    • Our Commitment to Racial Equity
      • Removing Confederate Monuments
      • Racist Roots
    • 8th Amendment Project
  • Our Work
    • Racial Justice Act
    • Lethal Injection
    • Batson Resources
    • Public Education
      • Reports
        • Racist Roots: Origins of North Carolina’s Death Penalty
      • Videos
      • Stories from our Case Work
      • Press Releases
      • CDPL News
  • Awards
  • Work With Us
    • Jobs
    • Summer Internships
    • Volunteers
  • Links
  • Contact
  • Donate

CDPL seeks two new staff attorneys

August 1, 2022 By Kristin Collins

CDPL is a non-profit law firm and advocacy organization that works to provide the highest quality representation to people facing execution, and to end the death penalty in North Carolina. In addition to representing clients, CDPL spearheads litigation and public education campaigns that address systemic injustices. Our team of attorneys, mitigation investigators, paralegals, and public education specialists has been a key force in changing public opinion and stopping executions.

CDPL is committed to exposing and challenging the racism inherent in the death penalty and to building an organizational culture of racial equity. CDPL staff are encouraged to participate in cross-disciplinary projects that further our goals of ending the death penalty and promoting racial equity. CDPL is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes qualified applicants of all races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities. We seek attorneys with diverse experiences and backgrounds. Our racial equity statement can be found here.

CDPL strives to cultivate an open, collegial, and collaborative working environment with an emphasis on learning and mentoring. While we are passionate about our work, we also believe in work-life balance and offer a 37.5-hour work week and flexible schedules. We also offer generous paid holidays and sick time, among other benefits.

CDPL seeks two attorneys with at least two to five years of relevant experience to work on trial and post-conviction cases. Relevant experience may include clinics, internships and externships.

In addition to these qualifications, ideal candidates will have:

  • A commitment to ending the death penalty and addressing systemic unfairness
  • Strong oral and written communications skills
  • An understanding of issues common in capital cases, including mental illness, poverty, racism, and substance abuse
  • An interest in advocacy and public education, in addition to direct representation of clients.

Applicants should send a cover letter by September 9, 2022, detailing interest, as well as a resume, the contact information for two professional references, and a writing sample of approximately 10 pages to Ms. Barrie Wallace at barrie@cdpl.org. For additional information about this posting, please contact Barrie Wallace at barrie@cdpl.org.

Filed Under: CDPL News, Job Postings

Racist Roots: The Film

July 8, 2022 By Kristin Collins

After we released the Racist Roots website in the fall of 2020, we knew that wasn’t the end. We wanted our ambitious project exposing the death penalty’s deep entanglement with slavery, lynching, and white supremacy to thrive and grow. We wanted as many people as possible to understand the racist roots of North Carolina’s death penalty — and to join us in the movement to end it. That’s why, with the help of a talented video production team, we created the film version of Racist Roots. It’s a visually stunning 25-minute film that traces the history of the death penalty from its very beginnings and concludes with a strong call to action for today.

We plan to eventually release the full film publicly, but for now, it is only available for viewing at facilitated screenings. Visit the Racist Roots Film webpage to sign up for a screening, get a Racist Roots fact sheet, and more.

Filed Under: Videos

Remembering Marcus Robinson, who helped expose death penalty racism

July 1, 2022 By Kristin Collins

Marcus at his RJA hearing in 2012

Earlier this month, Marcus Robinson was found dead in his cell at Scotland Correctional Institution. The prison ruled it a suicide. He was 49 and had spent his entire adult life, as well as a good chunk of his childhood, in prison. His death didn’t make the news. But for those who worked on Marcus’ case for decades, it was a tragic reminder of our criminal punishment system’s failure to create even a semblance of justice.

Marcus grew up with many loving relatives and a strong, supportive mother, but an abusive father inflicted trauma from a young age. Yet, a racist system treated him like an incorrigible monster rather than a child in need of healing. He ended up in juvenile prison, a cruel system reserved almost exclusively for Black children, which makes people more likely to be incarcerated as adults. 

Marcus was barely 18 years old when he played a role in a robbery that left 17-year-old Erik Tornblom dead. At his 1994 trial for Tornblom’s murder, Marcus was portrayed as a cold-blooded Black man on the hunt for a white victim. Prosecutors intentionally removed Black jurors who might have been more likely to see Marcus as human. Marcus soon became the youngest person on death row, and a new cycle of trauma began.

In 2007, Marcus was 12 hours away from execution before litigation over the state’s lethal injection protocol led to a stay. He’d already had his veins examined in preparation for the fatal injection, and already said goodbye to his family in what he thought was their final visit.

A few years later, Marcus’ case became the first to be tried under the North Carolina Racial Justice Act. In 2012, Judge Gregory Weeks ruled that prosecutors intentionally and systematically removed Black citizens from Marcus’ jury. Judge Weeks said Marcus had also proven that such discrimination was happening in capital cases across North Carolina.

It was a historic victory that brought to light decades of racism in death penalty trials, and Marcus was resentenced to life without parole. But even that victory was snatched away when the N.C. Supreme Court overturned it on a technicality and sent Marcus back to death row. Marcus and his legal team had to fight until 2020 to finally get his life sentence restored.

Attorney David Weiss remembers going to the prison to tell Marcus the news that he would never be executed: “Marcus said he was excited, grateful, thankful, and elated. He rattled off this string of adjectives. In retrospect, I wonder how happy he really was to be serving a life without parole sentence, whether he was saying that more for our benefit. Life in prison was really hard for Marcus.”

At his funeral, his mother, the Rev. Shirley Burns, sang a beautiful hymn. She had also sung it at the funerals of her two other sons. One of them was murdered in 2006 and police never solved the crime. Friends and family talked about a side of Marcus that never made the headlines. He was one of several talented singers in his family. He was loyal and protective, mischievous and funny.

We’d like to imagine a different life for Marcus, one where he wasn’t born into a racist society that too often sees Black children’s lives as disposable. One where he was shown kindness and compassion as a child, rather than imprisoned.

“Marcus was smart, witty, and sarcastic,” Weiss remembers. “He liked to cross-examine me about his case, or about a current event. He’d ask me hard questions until he felt like he caught me in a contradiction or an awkward moment. Then he’d flash that wide smile and start laughing. Not at all in a mean-spirited way. I think he enjoyed debating and questioning. Maybe in another life he’d have been a lawyer.”

Read Marcus’ obituary here. Donate to help his family with funeral expenses here.

 

Filed Under: CDPL News, Recent Case Work

My client’s death penalty trial was tainted by racism. Twenty-five years later, we found healing.

May 31, 2022 By Kristin Collins

Reposted from NCCADP.org

Henry White, center, with his family and attorneys David Weiss and Elizabeth Hambourger, moments after his release from prison

By Elizabeth Hambourger

Yesterday, my client Henry White went home to his family after 25 years in prison. It was one of the most heartwarming moments I’ve experienced as a lawyer, with all sides — including the family of Carl Marshburn, the murder victim in the case — agreeing that Mr. White should be released.

In a quarter century of incarceration, his sole disciplinary infraction was for having an unauthorized slice of cake. Even the district attorney gave his blessing to overturn Mr. White’s original sentence of life without parole, which allowed him to plead guilty to second-degree murder and be released immediately because he had already served enough time.

This rare outcome was the result of decades of work to bring to light evidence of racism in selecting Mr. White’s jury. During Mr. White’s 1997 death penalty trial, the prosecutor excluded two Black women from the jury and then admitted in open court that he removed them because of their race and gender, among other reasons…

Under the law, jurors cannot be removed on the basis of race or gender. Still, our courts at the time refused to act. The trial court allowed the jurors’ removal, and the Court of Appeals said that even though race was the “predominant” motivation for the jurors’ exclusion, it had to uphold Mr. White’s conviction because race was not the “sole reason” for their removal.

Any level of race discrimination is unacceptable, especially given our state’s history of all-white juries and racist death sentences. Prosecutors should not be able to get away with it simply by offering some token non-racial justifications. Yet, for decades North Carolina’s courts have refused to enforce the law against jury discrimination. Only recently have they begun to take on the problem.

A few years ago, my office, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, decided to try again to convince a court to overturn Mr. White’s conviction based on the prosecutor’s admitted jury discrimination. Remarkably, the Attorney General’s office, which usually opposes these types of appeals, agreed that the claim should be heard.

When the Court of Appeals said it would take another look at the case, the Forsyth County District Attorney started to negotiate. Mr. White withdrew the jury discrimination claim, and in exchange the prosecution agreed to relief based on another problem with Mr. White’s trial: His defense attorney, who has since been disbarred, told the jury Mr. White was guilty without Mr. White’s consent. Mr. White has always maintained that he did not shoot Mr. Marshburn, but he admits he was involved in the crime.

Yesterday, as I watched the families of Mr. White and Mr. Marshburn embrace with relief, I was reminded that this case could have ended very differently. Back in 1997, prosecutors sought the death penalty for Mr. White. Thankfully, the jury chose life; otherwise he may not have lived to see this day.

Many other people were executed without ever getting a chance to prove that Black citizens were wrongfully excluded from their juries. It’s clear now that race discrimination on juries is a widespread problem, and many executions were based on unfair trials.

In those cases, the errors can never be corrected. And no one will ever get to experience the kind of redemption and healing I witnessed in a courtroom this week.

Filed Under: CDPL News, Recent Case Work

James Williams wins statewide award for his tireless racial equity work

May 27, 2022 By Kristin Collins

We are happy to announce that James Williams, CDPL’s Racial Equity Coordinator, is the winner of the N.C. Advocates for Justice 2022 Annie Brown Kennedy Award. This award honors a commitment to acquiring full freedom for all citizens of North Carolina and exceptional advocacy that protects individual liberties. Its first recipient, in 2021, was former Chief Justice Cheri Beasley. James could not be a more deserving successor.

James retired in 2017 from his longtime job as Chief Public Defender for Orange and Chatham counties, but he continues to work tirelessly to advance racial equity in the criminal punishment system and in society at large. As chair of the N.C. Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Criminal Justice System, he spearheaded an ongoing campaign to rid North Carolina’s courthouses of Confederate monuments. He was also part of a successful push to remove the portrait of a notorious slave owner from a place of honor in the N.C. Supreme Court. In his role as chair of the Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition, he organizes regular events to educate the community about its legacy of racial terror and the ways that racist violence continues to be perpetuated. This summer, he is planning a large public screening of CDPL’s new film, Racist Roots.

This is just a small sampling of James’ ongoing work. Read his full bio here.

Filed Under: Awards, CDPL News

CDPL wins national equity award for work to expose death penalty racism

May 6, 2022 By Kristin Collins

RJA hearings

CDPL attorneys were part of a team that argued Racial Justice Act cases in the NC Supreme Court in 2019

CDPL is proud to announce that we have been awarded this year’s Equity Award from the National Consortium on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts. The award honors individuals and organizations that work to eliminate bias and promote equal access to the courts. It was awarded to CDPL in recognition of decades of work to expose and remedy racism in the North Carolina death penalty, as well as the court system as a whole.

CDPL has undertaken two major areas of litigation focused on rooting out racism. First, we worked alongside partners to pass the 2009 Racial Justice Act, which allowed people on death row to unearth sweeping evidence that Black citizens were systematically denied the right to serve on capital juries. It also brought to light evidence that Black defendants were more likely to face the death penalty when the victim was white. Four people have been resentenced under the law and litigation continues. Also, since 2015, CDPL has expanded its work on racism in jury selection to include non-capital cases. We worked with many partner organizations to expose the North Carolina courts’ abysmal record of enforcing Batson v. Kentucky, the law preventing jury strikes based on race. Those efforts culminated this year when, for the first time in its history, the N.C. Supreme Court overturned a case because of racism in jury selection.

All these efforts have been accompanied by a comprehensive public education campaign intended to educate the public about the insidious role in the capital punishment system. In 2020, we released Racist Roots, an ambitious project that traces the racist origins of capital punishment from the past to the present. We are now working on a soon-to-be released film version of the project:

We are grateful for this recognition of our work and vow to continue our work to end the racist death penalty.

Read Henderson Hill’s letter nominating CDPL for the award.

Filed Under: CDPL News

CDPL’s 2022 Osborn Awards

April 25, 2022 By Kristin Collins

Thanks to all who attended our first in-person Osborn Awards celebration since 2019. It was wonderful to be together again. For those of you who couldn’t be there, you can watch the award presentations here.


Videography by Random Gott

Thanks also to our generous sponsors, who make CDPL’s work possible.

Champions ($1,000) — Donald Beskind and Wendy Robineau; Burton and Heather Craige; Jay and Kay Ferguson; Brandon Garrett; Jonathan and Rebecca Megerian; Ken Rose and Beth Silberman; Thomas and Elizabeth Sallenger; Faith Spencer and Mark Parts; Jane and Adam Stein; Mary Ann Tally

Defenders ($500) — Akin Adepoju; Jack and Jennifer Boger; Terrica Redfield Ganzy; Elizabeth Gibson and Robert Mosteller; Dionne Gonder-Stanley; Henderson and Renee Hill; Kate Joyce; Douglas Legg and Nina Goldman; Marcia Morey; Lao Rubert and Steve Schewel; Karen Stegman; Jake Sussman; Amos Tyndall

Advocates ($250) — Cindy Adcock and Pat McCoy; Jenny and Terry Alford; David Botchin; Marjorie and Kenneth Broun; Emily Coward and Raphael Ginsburg; Richard Dieter; Hon. James G. Exum, Jr.; Stephanie Fanjul; Cait Fenhagen and John Carlson; Steven Freedman; Elaine Gordon and Robert M. Hurley; Stephen Greenwald and Rebecca Sullivan; Sandra Hagood; Staples and Thomasin Hughes; Tye and Wanda Hunter; Cynthia Katkish; Jin Hee Lee; David Mills; Janet Moore and Neil Tollas; Christine Mumma; Lee M. Norris; NC Justice Center; Ann Peterson and James Glover; Kara Richards; Michelle Robertson; Cas Shearin and DeVon Tolson; Robert and Jessica Singagliese; Rebecca Slifken and Richard Rosen; Douglas Smith and Rachel Hughes; Helen and Fred Spielman; David Teddy; Robert Trenkle; Jenny Warburg

 

See Justin Eisner’s full gallery of photos from the evening here.

 

Filed Under: Awards, CDPL News

Coming soon: The Racist Roots film!

March 7, 2022 By Kristin Collins

In the fall of 2020, we released our project Racist Roots, a collection of essays, artwork, poetry and more that reveals the North Carolina death penalty’s deep entanglement with racism. This was CDPL’s most ambitious storytelling project ever, but we knew the website could not be the end. We want as many people as possible to understand the racist roots of North Carolina’s death penalty — and to join us in the movement to end it. That’s why, with the help of a talented video production team, we created the film version of Racist Roots. The full version will be released in late March, but this trailer will give you a taste.

Learn more and request a facilitated screening and discussion at Racist Roots: The Film.

Filed Under: CDPL News, Uncategorized

For first time in state history, NC’s high court strikes down a conviction because of discrimination against a Black juror

February 11, 2022 By Kristin Collins

For Immediate Release: February 11, 2022
For More Information Contact: Elizabeth Hambourger, CDPL Senior Attorney, 919-412-2542

Raleigh, NC — On Friday, the North Carolina Supreme Court made history by invalidating a criminal conviction because the Wake County prosecutor illegally excluded a qualified Black citizen from the jury. It marks the first time that North Carolina’s appellate courts have ever overturned a case because of discrimination against a juror of color.

Until today, North Carolina was the only southern state whose appellate courts had never enforced the law on behalf of a Black citizen who was denied the right to serve on a jury.

“Discrimination against Black jurors has been rampant in North Carolina, but until now, our courts have refused to deal with the problem,” said Elizabeth Hambourger, a senior attorney at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, who argued the case in the lower court and assisted with the appeal. “We are so relieved to see our state’s highest court finally acknowledge this important violation of civil rights.”

The court overturned the case of Christopher Clegg, who was convicted of armed robbery in Wake County in 2016, but the facts of the crime played no role in the ruling. Instead, the case hinged on the prosecutor’s decision to illegally remove a Black woman from the jury because of her race.

During the trial, when the prosecutor was questioned about his reasons for striking the woman, he told the judge that he did not like the juror’s “body language” and that she said she “supposed” she could be fair, indicating that she was unsure. The trial judge accepted the prosecutor’s reasons and allowed the prosecutor to dismiss the woman from the jury.

However, neither of the prosecutor’s reasons held up to scrutiny. There was no support for the vague claim about the juror’s body language or failure to make eye contact, which is a frequent excuse that prosecutors make for their removal of Black jurors. And he was simply incorrect about the juror being unsure about her own fairness. In truth, she said she “supposed” she could set aside her other responsibilities and serve on the jury. Meanwhile, a white juror who was questioned at the same time as the Black juror said that he would be distracted by his busy job, yet the prosecutor accepted him.

“Until today, it seems North Carolina’s courts have been waiting for a prosecutor to openly say: ‘I don’t want Black people on this jury,’ before enforcing the law,” said James Williams, a member of the National Consortium On Racial And Ethnic Fairness In The Courts and the retired public defender for Orange and Chatham Counties. “But that’s not how racism operates anymore. It’s rarely spoken aloud, yet it has devastating effects. It’s absolutely shameful how many Black people in North Carolina have been convicted by all-white juries.”

The opinion was authored by Justice Robin Hudson, who was joined by the Court’s three other Democratic justices. Justice Anita Earls wrote a concurring opinion, arguing the prosecutor discriminated against not just one, but two Black women jurors. Justice Phillip Berger, Jr., dissented, joined by the two other Republicans on the court. 

Mr.Clegg has already served his time and been released.  

Jury service is, along with voting, one of the few ways that citizens participate directly in democracy. It gives ordinary people a voice in the criminal punishment system and is an established civil right. Studies show that diverse juries deliberate more thoroughly and are less likely to convict innocent people.

Yet, courts across the country have been trying and failing to stamp out jury discrimination since 1965, when the Civil Rights Movement made it possible for Black people to finally begin serving on juries in the South. Even a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that explicitly outlawed the race-based exclusion of jurors has had little effect.

“North Carolina has a particularly atrocious record of enforcement, but discrimination against Black jurors is a problem nationwide, including in the most serious death penalty cases,” Hambourger said. “If we are ever to have a fair system, our courts must continue to say, over and over, that they will not allow convictions in cases where jurors of color have been excluded. I hope today’s decision is just the beginning for North Carolina.”

Filed Under: Press Releases

In the fight to end the NC death penalty, we’re no longer the underdogs

February 1, 2022 By Kristin Collins

Gretchen Engel, right, with Asheville advocate Jean Parks

There are so many reasons to end the death penalty. We could talk about it for days and never come to the end of its injustices. But in this interview, CDPL’s Executive Director Gretchen M. Engel condenses it to thirty minutes.

In that short time, she explains how most of the people on North Carolina’s death row were sentenced under outdated laws, the “barbaric” lack of protections for people with mental illness, the ways that exonerations have woken people up to the injustice of the death penalty, the nonsensical way we decide who to try capitally in North Carolina, the scourge of prosecutorial misconduct, and Wake County’s strange insistence on frequent capital trials, despite the fact that juries keep saying no to the racist, unjust death penalty. And that’s not even a complete list!

After thirty years as a capital defense lawyer, Gretchen has seen North Carolina transform from a state where prosecutors almost always won and people were regularly executed, to one where death sentences are rare and executions haven’t been carried out in fifteen years. She’s never wavered in her conviction that she’s fighting for the right side, but it used to feel like the losing side. Now, she says prosecutors are most often the losers as they fight for death sentences in a state that has outgrown executions. “I’d much rather be in my lane than that one.”

Listen to the full interview here.

Filed Under: CDPL News

Next Page »

Search

Contact Us

The Center for Death Penalty Litigation
123 West Main Street · Suite 700 · · ·
Durham, NC 27701
919-956-9545
cdpl@cdpl.org

Donate

Please make a tax-deductible contribution to ensure truth and fairness in North Carolina's death penalty system.

Copyright © 2022 The Center for Death Penalty Litigation, Inc. · Website by Tomatillo Design