In North Carolina, the crimes of murder, arson, burglary and rape are punishable by death. Fourteen-year-old Negro Ernest Brooks committed two of them. One night a year ago he broke into a Wilmington home, raped a woman who was eight months pregnant. Caught the next day, Negro Brooks confessed, was sentenced to death.
Last week North Carolina's Governor R. Gregg Cherry commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Said he, in a statement rare for a Southern governor: "The crimes are revolting, but a part of the blame . . . arises from...
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