North Carolina’s Legislature is moving shamefully to gut the state’s 2009 Racial Justice Act. The statute is the first in the nation to allow death row inmates to have their sentence reduced to life without parole if they show that the sentence was tainted by racial bias.

Last year, the Legislature passed a bill to repeal the law, but Gov. Bev Perdue wisely vetoed it and the lawmakers failed to override the veto. She needs to show the same steadfastness and veto the new measure, which has already passed the State House and is expected to be approved by the Senate this week.

The bill would not repeal the Racial Justice Act, but would so severely limit the proof an inmate could use to show race bias as to render the law ineffective. It would disallow proof of discrimination based on the race of the victim, which is a major basis for finding racial bias in capital punishment in North Carolina and elsewhere. And an inmate would have to show race discrimination in the county or district where he was convicted, not in the entire state. The bill, which amends the death penalty process, would also give prosecutors more flexibility in seeking death, and would limit the governor’s authority to oversee executions. The House Republicans were so eager to turn back the racial justice law that they maneuvered around legislative rules to turn a 2011 bill about retreading tires on school buses into this bill.

This spring, in the first case challenging a death sentence under the act, Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks issued a 167-page opinion finding that Marcus Robinson, a death row inmate, was the victim of clear discrimination in jury selection. The judge found “highly reliable” statistical evidence from a study by the Michigan State University College of Law showing racial discrimination in the removal of blacks from juries in all but four of the state’s 100 counties.