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First Racial Justice Act Hearing

Marcus Reymond Robinson, N.C. Department of Correction

One-hundred and fifty-one of North Carolina’s death row inmates say they can prove their sentencing was racially motivated. Starting next month, they’ll get the chance to take their claims to court. Under the Racial Justice Act – a controversial, two-year old law – convicts are allowed to appeal their sentences as a means to counter racial bias in the justice system. The first Racial Justice Act hearing goes to court in September. The convicted is an African-American man from Fayetteville who murdered a white teenager in 1991. Host Frank Stasio talks to Observer staff writer Paul Woolverton about why Marcus Reymond Robinson believes his death sentence should be changed to life without parole and about other Fayetteville headlines.

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
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