Journalnow.com: Lawyer Says Using Bias Law to Spare Ex-Morris Twp. Woman's Killer 'Obscene'

A North Carolina prosecutor arguing against the Racial Justice Act said Monday it would be "obscene" for the law to spare the man who killed longtime Morris Township resident , Journalnow.com reports.

Timothy Hartford Jr. was  late last year for killing Magness, who moved to North Carolina in recent years. Hartford also killed Magness' Meals on Wheels client, Bob Denning, for which he recieved a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Journalnow.com reports Assistant District Attorney David Hall—arguing in Forsyth Superior Court that the Racial Justice Act is unconstitutionally broad—pointed to Hartford's case. The law allows those facing the death penality to argue racial biases played a part in their sentences (or prosecutors' decisions to pursue the death penality), and allows lifelong inprisonment to be substituted for the death penality.

"It is an insult that Timothy Hartford and white defendants who have been convicted of killing white victims can seek relief under this statute," Hall said, according to the report. "It is, frankly, obscene to use it in this fashion."

Magness' daughter told Patch last year family .

Full story at Journalnow.com: Arguments heard in Racial Justice Act cases; judge to rule later