An effort to use charging disparity to fend off death penalty in North Carolina

This story from North Carolina reports on a notable effort by capital defense attorneys to attack the way in which local prosecutors use their charging discretion in capital cases.  Here are excerpts from the article:

A couple of defense lawyers are using a local death penalty study that mirrors the racial disparities highlighted in national analyses to try and keep their client from being prosecuted capitally.

An analysis of 177 murder cases over five years shows that prosecutors are six times more likely in Durham, one of the most diverse counties in the state, to seek capital punishment when a black suspect has been accused of killing a white person compared with when the victim is black.

Jay Ferguson and Lisa Williams, two Durham lawyers, plan to use the analysis in their defense of Keith Kidwell, a 24-year-old black man who has spent the past four years in jail awaiting trial on charges that he murdered Crayton Nelms, a white Kangaroo convenience store clerk found beaten to death at work in February 2005.

Ferguson and Williams will argue in court this week that the death penalty should be taken off the table because of the racial disparity issue…

The Durham analysis was conducted by Isaac Unah, a political scientist at UNC-Chapel Hill. The researcher looked at all murder cases indicted by the Durham grand jury and followed them from start to finish.

Of the 177 murder suspects indicted by a Durham County grand jury between 2003 and 2007, 50 could not be prosecuted as death penalty cases because the defendants were too young.  Of the 127 other cases, only 20 were ever capital cases.  None of those went to jury as a death penalty case because prosecutors often use the threat of capital punishment in bargaining for pleas….

The researchers considered more than race. They also analyzed the cases by the number of victims and the number of charges the suspects faced. “Of all the factors analyzed,” Unah concluded in the affidavit attached to his study, “the race of the victim had the greatest effect on the decision to seek the death penalty.”

Of the 107 cases where the suspect was black and the victim was black, prosecutors sought the death penalty nearly 10 percent of the time.  Of the 20 cases where the suspects were black and the victims white, prosecutors sought the death penalty 35 percent of the time….

Kidwell, according to his attorneys, has been offered one plea deal that, had he accepted, would have put him behind bars for the rest of his life. “I believe they’re using the death penalty to extract plea bargains,” Ferguson said.

Disappointingly, this press account does not provide a link to the report with the basic data and analysis.  I will post the report if I can find it.

UPDATE:  A very helpful commentor from DeathWatch North Carolina provides this link to the defense motion discussed in this press report on this litigation.  It is an interesting read.