A Michigan State University study on North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act has been completed but its affects on four death penalty cases in Halifax County won’t be immediately known.

Halifax County District Attorney Melissa Pelfrey said prosecutors from across the state are trying to get a group together to interpret the findings of the study.

“I don’t know what affect this will have, if any,” she told rrspin.com today.

Pelfrey said more than 200 motions have been filed by defense attorneys across the state requesting further motions in death penalty cases be delayed until the study is completed.

Ward

Of the four cases, one person, Michael Ward, has already been sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of Patricia Smith King. The state Supreme Court, however, ordered a re-sentencing in 2001.

The other death penalty cases, which have not gone to trial are:

Hawkins

• Gene Arnold “Root Root” Hawkins, charged in the 2006 death of Shelby Salmon.

Rouse

• Joshua Rouse, charged in the 2009 murder of Sandy Denise Reidel.

Gorham

• Tony Maurice Gorham, charged in 2010 murders of Nancy Burgess and Maxine McCrary.

According to an affidavit of one of the study’s authors — Catherine M. Grosso, an assistant professor of law at the university — she and Barbara O’Brien, also a Michigan State assistant law professor, began a statewide study in North Carolina to determine whether race has played a significant role in seeking or imposing the death penalty.

The study, which began August 11, 2009, examined race and the death penalty from 1990.

Their $500,000 study looked at many nonracial factors that prosecutors used to determine whether to pursue the death penalty.