Four Black Men Were Freed From Death Row. Republicans Put Them Back. | The New York Times

One prosecutor called the defendant in a murder case a “big black bull” in front of an all-white jury. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″]

Another prosecutor, taking notes on prospective jurors, described a black juror who drank as a “blk wino,” while describing a white juror who drank as “drinks — country boy — O.K.”

In a third case, a prospective black juror was struck from the jury of a black murder defendant after reporting that he heard two white jurors say that the defendant, who had been captured by police in the woods, “should have never made it out of the woods.”

These cases have two things in common. They happened in North Carolina, which has long had one of the most racially biased criminal-justice systems in the country. And they involve people who are now back on death row after their death sentences were thrown out and replaced with life in prison sentences because of racial discrimination by their prosecutors during their trials.