NCJ Number
183715
Editor(s)
Calvin Kytle,
Daniel H. Pollitt
Date Published
1999
Length
133 pages
Annotation
This is the edited transcript of a symposium on the death penalty in North Carolina.
Abstract
The symposium was sponsored by North Carolinians Against the Death Penalty, an umbrella organization of 13 civic and religious groups opposed to capital punishment. The symposium, held April 17, 1998, was intended to advance the case for a moratorium on the death penalty as proposed by the American Bar Association (ABA) in February 1997. The Bar Association singled out four principal areas of concern: (1) Adequacy of Counsel; (2) Proper Process: The "grossly unqualified and undercompensated" lawyers appointed to represent capital clients fail to raise issues of constitutional significance; (3) Race Discrimination: Defendants are far more likely to receive the death penalty if the victims are white; and (4) Execution of the Mentally Retarded and Juveniles. The symposium discussed those four issues as well as the demographics of death row, what the Constitution says, and race and class. Participants in the symposium included legislators, lawyers, academics and psychologists. Notes, glossary, appendix, index