The ACT Test Cost

The cost for the ACT test without writing is $33. When combined with the optional ACT Writing Test, the total cost is $48. Last fall, our own Nathan Koppel wrote this piece about a 2009 North Carolina law that allowed death-row inmates to challenge their convictions by showing that the convictions were racially biased.

Well, the law — called the Racial Justice Act — has survived its first serious challenge. On Thursday, a judge in Forsyth County rejected arguments by prosecutors that the law was too sweeping and failed to comply with the North Carolina Constitution. Click here for the story from the News & Observer.

Two North Carolina death-row inmates, Errol Duke Moses and Carl Stephen Moseley, are using statistics and findings from a Michigan State University study to claim racial imbalance and bias played a role in their trials and sentencing.

According to the News & Observer story, prosecutors in the case earlier this week attacked the law, saying it was too sweeping to apply fairly across the state.

For instance, an assistant district attorney, argued that the law does not specify exactly how race is to be considered in evaluating the bias claims. He objected to the fact that one of the two defendants, Moseley, a white inmate convicted of killing white victims, was alleging racial bias played a part in his sentencing.

Defense attorneys argued that that a broad law was exactly what the legislature intended. “In North Carolina, we have a societal interest in addressing a history that has been marred by racial discrimination,” said Paul Green, one of Moseley’s attorneys.

Republicans who gained control of the state Senate and House in January have talked about either severely narrowing the reach of the act or repealing it all together.