Another Squishy Liberal Post

The N.C. Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would end the Racial Justice Act and restart executions in North Carolina. The bill passed 33-14, with the vote along party lines...
The Racial Justice Act allows death-row inmates and defendants facing the death penalty to use statewide statistics to show that racial bias played a significant role in their case. If successful, a judge would commute an in-mate’s death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the only remedy under the law.
Prosecutors around the state and Republican legislators strongly opposed the law. Last year, state legislators scaled back the Racial Justice Act to prohibit the use of statewide statistics. Then-Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed the legislation, but the General Assembly overrode her veto. (Emphasis by paleo - Republicans and those dratted facts...)

Texas' active use of the death penalty has led death penalty opponents to claim that Texas has executed persons who were, in fact, innocent. 

Cameron Todd Willingham 

One notable case involves Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed by lethal injection on February 17, 2004 for murdering his three daughters in 1991 by arson, but where a 2009 article in The New Yorker, and subsequent findings, have cast doubt on the evidence used in his conviction.
In 2009, a report conducted by Dr. Craig Beyler, hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission to review the case, found that "a finding of arson could not be sustained". Beyler said that key testimony from a fire marshal at Willingham's trial was "hardly consistent with a scientific mind-set and is more characteristic of mystics or psychics”.[46]
GovernorRick Perry expressed skepticism of Beyler's findings. He stated that court records showed evidence of Willingham’s guilt in charges that he intentionally killed his daughters in the fire. Perry is quoted in the report as stating of Willingham, "I’m familiar with the latter-day supposed experts on the arson side of it," and Perry said that court records provide "clear and compelling, overwhelming evidence that he was in fact the murderer of his children."[47] The Corsicana Fire Department also released a 19-page rebuttal of Beyler's report, stating that the report overlooked several key points that would show Willingham to be guilty.[48]
On July 23, 2010, the Texas Forensic Science Commission released a report saying that the conviction was based on "flawed science" and that there is no indication that the arson authorities were negligent or committed willful misconduct. Willingham remains the only person in the United States executed since 1976 for murder by arson. [49]