Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation (MVFR) announced today the group is “disturbed and saddened” by the anti-Racial Justice Act campaign flyer the state GOP mailed to residents throughout North Carolina.
MVFR.pdf
The flyer contained numerous blatant errors and scare tactics, falsely stating that prisoners released from death row under the RJA would be freed. “Meet Your New Neighbors,” the headline read on the flier. However, as the Indy‘s Bob Geary reported this week, the RJA does not permit convicted death-row inmates to be released from prison. It only allows them to serve a life sentence if they can demonstrate, using statistical evidence, that they were sentenced to death based on their race.
So far, state GOP Chairman Tom Fetzer has refused to retract the flyer or correct the record. Residents in Wake County and other areas report the materials are still being distributed there.
MVFR opposes the death penalty and strongly supports the Racial Justice Act. “We believe the death penalty adds to the trauma of murder victim family members and actually interferes with their healing,” the group said in a press release. “We believe that capital punishment is one of many examples of how our legal system fails victims and their families.
