Russell Tucker was a Black man facing the death penalty in the South in the “tough-on-crime” 1990s. He deserved the chance to be tried by a jury of his peers — people who might have had similar life experiences and been able to see him as something other than a one-dimensional “monster.” However, a Forsyth County prosecutor stole that chance at justice, which is supposed to be guaranteed by law. 

The prosecutor came up with reason after reason why Black people could not remain on the jury. They were “monosyllabic.” They “didn’t make eye contact.” They “lacked a stake in the community.” One by one, the court allowed the prosecutor to send all the Black jurors home. Russell Tucker ended up with an all-white jury that did exactly as the prosecution asked: They deemed a young Black man unworthy of life.

Mr. Tucker, who has been on North Carolina’s death row since 1996, is represented by CDPL Senior Attorney Elizabeth Hambourger, along with co-counsel Tom Maher. On Feb. 8, Ms. Hambourger will argue before the North Carolina Supreme Court that racism illegally shaped Mr. Tucker’s jury. Details about how to attend or watch the arguments are here.

The issue before the court is not whether Mr. Tucker committed a terrible crime; he has admitted to killing a security guard outside a Kmart during a desperate and drug-fueled time in his life. Instead, the issue is whether our state will allow brazen racism in death penalty trials.

The racism we’re talking about doesn’t just affect people on trial for their lives, though all-white juries have been shown to convict more easily, even when defendants are innocent, and to sentence more people to death. Jury discrimination also deprives citizens of their Constitutional right to wield power in our democratic system.

In Mr. Tucker’s case, one working mother showed up for jury service only to be told in open court that she had no “stake in the community.” She’d lived her entire life in Forsyth County and was raising her children there, but the prosecutor pointed out that she rented her home, was not registered to vote, and her husband had been at his job “for only four months.” The judge allowed this strike, even though the prosecutor accepted a white juror who was also a renter, five white jurors who were not registered to vote, and two white jurors whose spouses were unemployed.

The state’s message was so clear they could’ve written it on a billboard: Black people don’t deserve a voice in our community.

The exclusion of Black jurors is not just a problem in Mr. Tucker’s case. It’s a statewide phenomenon in both capital and noncapital cases. It’s a particularly strong tradition in Forsyth County, where a recent Wake Forest University study found that prosecutors were three times more likely to strike African Americans than white jurors. Mr. Tucker is one of four people sent to death row by all-white Forsyth County juries.

The very same prosecutor who struck all the Black jurors in Mr. Tucker’s case also tried Henry White for his life. Mr. White was recently released from prison after his lawyers presented evidence that jurors were excluded because of their race.

This discrimination is not an accident. Prosecutors are trained for it.

Years after Mr. Tucker’s trial, his defense team found out the trial prosecutor had attended a training seminar where prosecutors were given a list of excuses they could draw from when they were asked to explain their exclusion of Black jurors. The list was full of dubious reasons including being disheveled, evasive, rebellious, or having an “air of defiance.” 

These reasons were not just vague, subjective, and designed to disguise the prosecutors’ true motives; they were also rooted in racism. Bryan Stevenson described them as “derogatory labels applied to African Americans who did not show adequate deference to the prevailing racial order.”

At Mr. Tucker’s trial, the prosecutor read verbatim from this list when striking Black jurors. He accused one man of having “absolutely horrible” body language. He accused another of being “confused” and “monosyllabic” because he answered a list of yes-no questions with yes-no answers. Imagine showing up to court to do your civic duty and being talked about this way in public.

On Feb. 8, our state’s highest court has a chance to stop the degradation of Black citizens, which continues in our courtrooms today. The court must send a strong message that all North Carolinians have an equal right to a voice in our courtrooms. 

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.

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.