It’s very good to see North Carolinians taking a good long look at their criminal justice system; when I lived there — from 1999 to 2004 — the problems were no less real but they didn’t seem to be on the radar of a great many people, especially those in charge of signing death warrants.

As Brian Evans notes, on Amnesty International USA’s blog:

Following the release of a devastatingly critical report on the shoddy work of North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) crime labs, Seth Edwards, the president of the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys today said he “supported a moratorium on the execution of any death-row inmates whose cases include evidence from the State Bureau of Investigations crime labs.”

The fallout from the audit of the SBI, combined with the fact that 152 death row inmates in NC are now challenging their death sentences under the new Racial Justice Act, paints a picture of criminal justice and capital punishment systems in chaos.  And that may be a good thing.  At least the Tar Heel state (unlike some states) has been somewhat willing to look critically at its systems of justice.

Let’s hope that North Carolinians follow the advice of their Conference of District Attorneys and call for a moratorium on executions. A moratorium from a state that loves its death penalty as much as North Carolina does would likely go a long way toward pushing other states to reconsider how well capital punishment is working for them.