A special session of the N.C. General Assembly convened briefly Sunday night, with prayers, recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance and just a few announcements in each chamber.

The real action starts tomorrow, when lawmakers take on a bill that would repeal the Racial Justice Act. The bill is up for discussion and public comment before the Judiciary I committee, which meets at 2:30 p.m. in room 643 of the office building behind the legislature. Members of the public must sign up in advance to comment.

A Democrat-led legislature passed the Racial Justice Act in 2009, a law that has gained national attention, as it allows death-row inmates to challenge their sentences if they can prove that racial bias played a role in their trial, sentence or conviction. The law does not free inmate; it spares their lives if they can prove racial bias was a factor in their case. Instead of being put to death, inmates who proved racial bias influenced their cases would be allowed to spend their lives in prison without the chance for parole.

Nearly all of the 157 inmates on death row have filed appeals under the 2009 law. Those appeals are making their way through the courts.

Prosecutors across the state have railed against the law, and have pushed through the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys to repeal it. The organization renewed its efforts with conservative legislators two weeks ago to repeal the law.

• photo by Adam David Kissick
• Elaine Riddick, a victim of forced sterilization, speaks before a state task force that could recommend compensation for the nearly 3,000 living victims sterilized through the N.C. Eugenics Board.

There are nearly 3,000 living victims of North Carolina's eugenics program; a small group of them appeared before a state task force Wednesday, describing the personal humiliation, stilted relationships, shattered marriages and even drug addictions resulting from choices the government made to take away their ability to have children. It was the first time some of the survivors had spoken publicly.

"My problem was environmental," said Elaine Riddick. "I am not feebleminded. I couldn’t get along with others because I was hungry. I was cold. I was dirty. I was unkempt. I was a victim of rape. A victim of child abuse, neglect. My problem was environmental because everyone wanted to bully me."

"They said I was feebleminded. I was a little teeny kid. I seen my mother get cut ear to ear. I seen someone throw acid in my mother’s face. And you say feebleminded? They put my mother in jail instead of putting her in a hospital for treatment. You tell me what type of person should I be? I never got out of 8th grade. Yet still I acquired a college degree. Yet, still, I’m labeled feebleminded."

The N.C. Eugenics Board was established in 1933, almost eight decades ago, with a revision of a 1929 eugenics law. Composed of five representatives from different state agencies, the board oversaw the sterilizations of anyone deemed “mentally diseased, feebleminded, or epileptic.”

An estimated 7,600 people were sterilized throughout the program, which was dismantled in 1974. Three months ago, Gov. Bev Perdue established a task force to investigate the N.C. Eugenics Board and to recommend whether and how victims should be compensated.

The five-member task force must draft a preliminary report by August 1, and a final report on Feb. 1, 2012. With the deadlines approaching, the panel has met once a month to study the history of the program and examine the documents produced by the N.C. Eugenics Board. But this, according to task force Chairwoman Dr. Laura Gerald, was the first chance to hear the stories of victims directly.

Like Riddick, more than 71 percent of the victims were branded as "feebleminded"—a vague descriptor now acknowledged by researchers as a placeholder for other, less genteel labels: “promiscuous,” “truant,” or “lazy.”

• photo by D.L. Anderson
• Sen. Floyd McKissick (leaning) consults with Rep. Larry Womble. Rep. Earline Parmon (at table) watches a district attorney speak against the Racial Justice Act, which could be repealed this year.

In just the past week, Raleigh’s conservative lawmakers have pushed forward on three of perhaps their most tendentious priorities, working to add restrictions to abortion, and rallying just yesterday to gain support to amend the state’s constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage. On Wednesday, House Majority Leader Paul “Skip” Stam and Republican colleagues honed in on another intense and emotive issue, one with life or death consequences: allegations of racism in the courtroom.

A bloc of conservative lawmakers are vying to erase the 2009 Racial Justice Act, a law that allows death row inmates to potentially avoid execution if a judge finds their cases were influenced by racial bias. The law has been heralded as one of the country’s most progressive criminal justice reforms in decades. But since its passage, many of the state’s conservative politicians have vowed to dismantle it.

Stam filed a bill in February to obliterate the law, and on Wednesday he himself presided over the discussion on it. He stood at the front of a crowded room, before rows of television cameras, recorders and microphones. The nearly 90 minutes of public comments were tense and sometimes awkward, one district attorney even being interrupted by an awkward outburst of sarcastic laughter. The divisions haven’t moved since the law was passed two years ago. Death penalty opponents, clergy and members of the N.C. Legislative Black Caucus urged the state to redress potential racial bias could have determined whether a convict is put to death.

“We know that if you’re African American in this state, and the victim is white, you’re two and a half times as likely to get the death penalty,” said Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, who was a primary sponsor of the Racial Justice Act in 2009. He cited a study by Michigan State University researchers who reviewed the 173 death penalty cases in North Carolina from 1990 to 2010. “We know that if you’re African American or a person of color and you’re being considered to be a part of a jury that it’s three times as likely that you’re going to be eliminated as a juror. Unfortunately, in this society, we’ve not reached the point where we are color-blind. … Until we get there, we don’t need to be considering repealing the Racial Justice Act.”