news-record.com

Readers in Greensboro got two front page (link) Sunday stories from me today, but non-print subscribers have to use the e-edition to read them (link).

Item one is a story on the Racial Justice Act, which could come up during the legislature's Sweet Potato Session after Thanksgiving. Remember, the House already passed what amounts to a repeal of the RJA this summer. They did it under "gut and amend" procedures, so the Senate could just vote without a committee hearing to seal the deal.

The Senate has been reluctant to take up the RJA or anything else of a substantial nature until they get back in May. But one argument -- which supporters of the RJA call "bogus" -- seems to be swaying the rank and file. From my story:

There are 157 death-row inmates in North Carolina and all but five have used the Racial Justice Act to challenge their sentences.

Roughly half of those inmates were convicted before North Carolina’s current sentencing guidelines, which include life without parole.

Inmates from earlier eras were sentenced when “life in prison” meant an inmate would be eligible for parole after 25 years.

Pointing to a 1997 state Supreme Court case, prosecutors say that those inmates from the earlier era would likely be eligible to apply for parole if they’re successful in their Racial Justice Act claims.

“There’s a real possibility these people could be released,” said Rockingham County District Attorney Phil Berger Jr., who is the son of Sen. Phil Berger, a Republican and the president pro tempore of the state Senate.

Backers of the law say that there's no chance that the people convicted of murder, rape and other death-penalty-worthy crimes could be let go and that the law is clear. Whether or not the argument is in fact "bogus," it is having an effect.

“That has made us all take a harder second look," said Senate Rules Chairman Tom Apodaca, a Hendersonville Republican.

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I also wrote a story for today's paper about a subject I visited online Monday and in the paper Tuesday: the potential for the Dorothea Dix and Central Regional  forensic mental health units to move to High Point (link). The thrust of today's story centered on the question of whether such a move would be a good idea for the state and its inmates. (Earlier in the week we were more focused on the land use tussle down in the High Point.) From today's story:

“We don’t think the state overall has a good track record of managing their contractors of mental health services,” said Vicki Smith, executive director of Disability Rights North Carolina, an advocacy group that works on behalf of those who need state-run mental care.

Smith said the question of whether the state could adequately oversee a privately run hospital is a “good one,” adding that the state’s lax oversight of some local mental health agencies has led to problems with much less dangerous patients.

She also raises fiscal concerns. Already, the state has spent money on improvements to Central Regional Hospital so it can house medium- and maximum-security patients.

Moving them to a private provider would mean the investment would go to waste, and more money would have to be spent to revamp the rooms for regular psychiatric patients.

Folks interested in this story may also be interested in a memo from Luckey Welsh (link -PDF), who oversees state run mental health facilities. In it, he writes that no decision has been made and that any transition would take at least two years.