Further pretrial motions and arguments concerning the Racial Justice Act in the case of Gene Arnold “Root Root” Hawkins will not be made until a Michigan State University study on the death penalty is completed.

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, will examine race and the death penalty from 1990. “The study will review the cases of every defendant who has been sentenced to death since 1990, every defendant who received a sentence of life imprisonment following a capital trial since 1990 and a random sample of other cases since 1990 in which defendants were prosecuted for potentially capital offenses, but whose cases were resolved prior to the commencement of a capital trial or with a noncapital trial,” the October affidavit reads.

The Winston-Salem Journal reported in November people who are already on death row have until next August to file any appeals based on the Racial Justice Act.

The newspaper reported O'Brien and Grosso are examining about 1,500 murder cases from 1990 to the present, both capital and noncapital.

Their $500,000 study will look at the many nonracial factors that prosecutors used to determine whether to pursue the death penalty, O'Brien told the newspaper. Then, controlling for those factors, they will try to determine if race played a role in those decisions, she said.

While Lane and Sam Dixon, the other attorney representing Hawkins, had little comment following their presentation, Lane did say the study will potentially affect all death penalty cases in the state.

The study is expected to be completed this August.