text: A condemned killer's trial was so tainted by the racially influenced decisions of prosecutors that he should be removed from death row and serve a life sentence, a judge ruled Friday in a precedent-setting North Carolina decision. 
   
   Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks' decision in the case of Marcus Robinson comes in the first test of a 2009 state law that allows death row prisoners and capital murder defendants to challenge their sentences or prosecutors' decisions with statistics and other evidence beyond documents or witness testimony. 
   
   Only Kentucky has a law like North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, which says the prisoner's sentence is reduced to life in prison without parole if the claim is successful. 
   
   "The Racial Justice Act represents a landmark reform in capital sentencing in our state," Weeks said in Fayetteville on Friday. "There are those who disagree with this, but it is the law." 
   
   Race played a "persistent, pervasive and distorting role" in jury selection and couldn't be explained other than that "prosecutors have intentionally discriminated" against Robinson and other capital defendants statewide, Weeks said. Prosecutors eliminated black jurors more than twice as often as white jurors, according to a study by two Michigan State University law professors Weeks said he found highly reliable. 
   
   Robinson's case is the first of more than 150 pending cases to get an evidentiary hearing before a judge. Prosecutors said they planned to challenge Weeks' decision, and District Attorney Billy West declined further comment. 
   
   Weeks ruled race was a factor in prosecution decisions to reject potential black jurors before the murder trial of Robinson, a black man convicted of killing a white teenager in 1991. The jury that convicted Robinson had nine whites, two blacks and one American Indian. 
   
   Robinson and co-defendant Roderick Williams Jr. were convicted of murdering 17-year-old Erik Tornblom after the teen gave his killers a ride from a Fayetteville convenience store. Tornblom was forced to drive to a field, where he was shot with a sawed-off shotgun. 
   
   Robinson came close to death in January 2007, but a judge blocked his scheduled execution. Williams is serving a life sentence. 
   
   Nearly a dozen members of Tornblom's family left the courtroom without commenting. Robinson's mother, Shirley Burns, said she would advocate for the law, which a new Republican majority in the state's General Assembly is trying to eliminate. 
   
   "Everybody is not guilty, everybody is not innocent, but at least be fair," Burns said after the ruling. "It wasn't all about Marcus. It's about anyone who suffers discrimination." 
   
   Central to Robinson's case was the Michigan State University study. It reported that, of almost 160 people on North Carolina's death row, 31 had all-white juries, and 38 had only one person of color. 
   
   Study co-author and Michigan State professor Barbara O'Brien told a North Carolina legislative panel last month the review of more than 7,400 potential capital jurors couldn't find anything other than race to explain why potential black jurors were rejected by prosecutors more than twice as often as whites. 
   
   Robinson defense attorney James Ferguson of Charlotte told Weeks, who decided the case without a jury, that the study showed race was a significant factor in almost every one of North Carolina's prosecutorial districts as prosecutors decided to challenge and eliminate black jurors. 
   
   "This case is important because it provides an opportunity for all of us to recognize that race far too often has been a significant factor in jury selection in capital cases," Ferguson said when the hearing opened in January. 
   
   Union County prosecutor Jonathan Perry, who helped the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office argue the case against Robinson, said the study was untrustworthy because it was based on a too-limited sample of death penalty cases to provide meaningful results. The study also failed to detect numerous nonracial reasons that a person might be struck from a jury, Perry said. 
   
   The Republican-led Legislature tried to repeal the Racial Justice Act earlier this year, but lawmakers failed to override a veto by Gov. Beverly Perdue, a Democrat. 
   
   In 1998, Kentucky was the first state to enact a similar law. But the American Bar Association said in a report it was unclear exactly how often it has been used except for during the 2003 trial of an African-American man accused of kidnapping and killing his ex-girlfriend, who was white. In that case, the defendant's lawyers used the Kentucky Racial Justice Act during jury selection to include questions that would address the issue of racial discrimination. The defendant, Nathaniel Wood, was convicted of wanton murder and other crimes and sentenced to life in prison without parole. 
   
   ___ 
   
   Associated Press writer Janet Cappiello contributed to this report from Louisville, Ky. ||||| Prosecutors called other prosecutors, judges and a political scientist to bolster their claims that race is not among their considerations when weighing whether to strike a potential juror. 
   
   That study found that qualified black jurors  those not released for cause, such as opposition to the death penalty  were struck by prosecutors at nearly twice the rate as qualified white jurors. In Cumberland County, they were struck at 2.6 times the rate, according to the researchers. 
   
   Defense attorneys used a sweeping study of capital cases in North Carolina done by Michigan State University law school researchers to bolster their claims. 
   
   In selecting that panel, Robinsons defense team claimed, prosecutors struck half the blacks eligible for the jury and only 15 percent of those who were not black. 
   
   Defense attorneys for Robinson argued earlier this year that prosecutors struck blacks from the jury pool at a much higher rate than whites. The jury that sent Robinson to death row included nine white jurors, one American Indian and two blacks, according to court filings. 
   
   Cases he has presided over: In the mid-1990s, he presided over the court proceedings in Robeson County against the two men accused of killing James Jordan, father of basketball star Michael Jordan. 
   
   Other legal jobs: Weeks worked several years in private practice and was an assistant Cumberland County public defender for 10 years. 
   
   On the bench: 23 years. Recently announced plans to retire at the end of this year. 
   
   — Marcus Reymond Robinson will soon gather his few belongings from the cell on North Carolina’s death row where he has spent the past 18 years and make a historic move to a maximum-security prison cell. 
   
   The 39-year-old convicted murderer is the first North Carolina death row inmate to have his sentence converted to life without possibility of parole using the state’s fledgling and unique Racial Justice Act. 
   
   Under the 2-1/2-year-old law, Judge Gregory Weeks was able to weigh statistics while considering Robinson’s claims that racial bias played a role in his trial and sentence. 
   
   Prosecutors announced plans to appeal the Robinson decision, a challenge that could slow rulings in similar claims from 154 other death row inmates. 
   
   Weeks, Cumberland County’s chief resident Superior Court judge, read a summary of his findings Friday in a courtroom full of people keenly aware that they were witnessing a landmark ruling. 
   
   Robinson, wearing a white shirt and light-colored pants, sat at a table with his lawyers. The family of Erik Tornblom, the man Robinson killed in 1994, watched silently, though the disappointment showing on their faces spoke volumes. The family left the courthouse without commenting. 
   
   Weeks said that “race was a materially, practically and statistically significant factor” in the selection of a jury for Robinson’s trial. 
   
   Prosecutors, according to a Michigan State University Law School study, used peremptory challenges to remove blacks from juries more than twice as often throughout North Carolina as they used them for whites. 
   
   In Cumberland County, it was almost three times as often. 
   
   “When the government’s choice of jurors is tainted with racial bias, that overt wall casts down over the parties, the jury and the court to adhere to the law throughout the trial,” Weeks said. “The very integrity of the court is jeopardized when a prosecutor’s discrimination invites cynicism respecting the jury’s neutrality and undermines public confidence.” 
   
   Effect on other cases 
   
   Weeks’ findings that potential black jurors systematically had been left out of the process of capital cases in North Carolina and Cumberland County at the time of Robinson’s trial could play significantly in the cases of other death row inmates. Weeks said such decisions by prosecutors to strike African-Americans from potential jury pools undermined the courts and had a sweeping impact on the integrity and trust the community could place in the process. 
   
   Only a few inmates on North Carolina’s death row did not file Racial Justice Act claims. 
   
   The ruling, the first of its kind in this country, came two days before the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that opened the door for states to adopt such laws as the Racial Justice Act. 
   
   North Carolina and Kentucky are the only two states that have done so, though. 
   
   The Racial Justice Act, which was narrowly adopted in 2009 along party lines, has been praised by supporters as a way to address blatant and subtle racism undermining the integrity of the state’s courts. 
   
   Weeks had harsh words for prosecutors, saying the evidence presented earlier this year by Robinson’s attorneys was enough “to support an inference of intentional discrimination.” 
   
   The judge and many of the defense lawyers and death penalty critics said they hoped the ruling Friday would mark the beginning of a new chapter in North Carolina justice. 
   
   “We had hoped for this decision, we had worked for this decision. We thought the judge’s decision was powerful,” said James Ferguson, a Charlotte civil rights attorney who represented Robinson. “We know our work is not over, but we think this is a beginning.” 
   
   District attorneys issued a statement strongly disputing that race is a significant factor in capital murder cases. 
   
   Legal scholars and death row critics from across the nation have watched with interest as the Robinson case went through the courts. 
   
   “The North Carolina legislation is a commendable attempt to do what the Supreme Court attempted to brush under the tablecloth,” said James Acker, a criminal justice professor at the State University of New York-Albany who is putting on a symposium this weekend about the death penalty and race. He was referring to the 1987 Supreme Court decision that opened the door for states to adopt laws that give judges the authority to consider statistics in racial bias challenges. 
   
   Robinson, who has been incarcerated at Central Prison only with death row inmates since his conviction, will move to a general prison population. For the first time in years, he will be among those who are not awaiting execution. 
   
   Shirley Burns, Robinson’s mother, described the moment as bittersweet. Her thoughts were with the Tornbloms, but she said the justice system should treat people fairly. 
   
   “There’s justice at last,” Shirley Burns said. “You’ve got to treat people right. You’ve got to treat people fair. That’s what we depend on when we go through the system.” 
   
   Blythe: 919-836-4948
target: – A black inmate in North Carolina came off death row today thanks to a controversial new law in the state. A judge reduced the sentence of Marcus Reymond Robinson to life without parole after ruling that prosecutors purposely sought to keep blacks off his jury, reports the News & Observer of Raleigh. The landmark ruling is the first under the state's Racial Justice Act, and about 150 other death row inmates in the state have cases pending, notes AP. Among other things, the law allows the judge to take statistical patterns on race into account. In this case, Robinson's legal team showed that prosecutors rejected about 50% of potential black jurors and only 15% of non-black jurors. The jury ended up with only two black people. That disparity is enough "to support an inference of intentional discrimination," wrote the judge, according to the New York Times. Robinson was convicted of murdering a white teenager in 1994.