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FAYETTEVILLE — Lawyers continued their opening skirmishes in Cumberland County Superior Court on Friday on whether convicted murderer Marcus Reymond Robinson of Fayetteville should be taken off death row because of racial bias in the court system.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers argued before Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks over whether current and former judges may take the stand to testify about allegations of racism in trials. They argued over whether a national expert on racism in the judicial process should be allowed to testify.

They also discussed how to handle errors in a study of race in the court system.

Robinson's claim is scheduled to be heard starting Jan. 30. If it goes forward, it will be the first in the state to be considered on its merits under the controversial Racial Justice Act.

This law, enacted in 2009, allows convicted killers on death row to use statistics to try to prove the criminal justice system is racially biased. The legislature tried last year to repeal the law, prompted by law enforcement complaints that it is clogging up the court system and is being used to try to end the death penalty in North Carolina.

If a killer were to win a Racial Justice Act claim, the law says his death sentence would be converted to life with no possibility of parole.

Regardless of specific language in the Racial Justice Act that specifies the killers can't get paroled, North Carolina prosecutors contend previous court rulings will give some of these killers a chance to be paroled or otherwise released. They say crimes committed before late 1994 are subject to older sentencing laws that offer prisoners with life sentences a chance for freedom. The prosecutors' theory has not yet been tested before a judge.

Robinson, whose crime was subject to the older laws, is on death row for killing 17-year-old Erik Tornblom during a 1991 robbery in Fayetteville. Robinson is black; his victim was white.

A recent study contends North Carolina's court system is more likely to sentence a defendant of any race to death if his victim is white than if his victim is of another race. Most of the state's 158 death row defendants, regardless of race, are pursuing Racial Justice Act claims.

The arguments

Prosecutors Cal Colyer and Rob Thompson said they have learned of several errors in the defense team's study that says race is a factor in death sentences. The defense team wants to submit the corrected data.

Weeks agreed to permit the original and corrected data to be presented.

In an interview later, defense lawyer Tye Hunter said that out of a review of 7,600 jurors and potential jurors, 11 mistakes have been found in the data of their race (some whites were listed as black, and vice versa, for example). That's too few to alter the overall results of the study, Hunter said.

Colyer and Thompson may ask six sitting or retired judges to testify on whether they observed racism in Cumberland County capital murder trials, according to court documents. Robinson's four defense lawyers said in court papers that under the law, the judges should not be allowed to testify.

Instead, the court can rely on transcripts of the trials, defense lawyer Hunter said.

Weeks said he could allow the judges' testimony and decide later whether it is appropriate for him to consider it when making a decision on Robinson's claim.

Colyer and Thompson wanted Weeks to keep a proposed defense witness, Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, from testifying. Stevenson has studied racism in the court system in other states, but not in North Carolina, they argued.

Defense lawyer Cassandra Stubbs argued that Stevenson has reviewed North Carolina cases and he would give his opinion about race in North Carolina and jury selection.