RALEIGH - Sen. Thom Goolsby (R-New Hanover) filed legislation Wednesday to restart the death penalty in North Carolina. The state has not conducted an execution since 2006 due to a slew of legal challenges that have resulted in a de-facto moratorium on the death penalty.

"We have a moral obligation to ensure death-row criminals convicted of the most heinous crimes imaginable finally face justice," said Goolsby. "Victims' families have suffered for far too long. It's time to stop the legal wrangling and bring them the peace and closure they deserve."

Senate Bill 306:

• Allows doctors, nurses and pharmacists to participate in executions without fear of punishment from state licensing boards. The North Carolina Medical Board issued a statement in 2007 that would have prohibited doctors from participating in executions, even though state law requires a doctor to be present. The North Carolina Supreme Court later ruled that the board could not punish doctors who participate in executions, and Senate Bill 306 codifies this ruling.

• Brings certainty to the timeline of when the Attorney General starts the legal process toward execution and when the Secretary of Public Safety schedules an execution.

• Requires the Attorney General to update the General Assembly each year on the status of pending post-conviction death penalty cases.

• Gives the Secretary of Public Safety flexibility to develop the most humane and constitutionally-sound method possible to conduct execution by lethal injection.

• Directs the Department of Public Safety to update the General Assembly periodically on its ongoing training of personnel who participate in the execution process.

• Repeals a law allowing judges to use arbitrary statistics and random data to decide whether a death row inmate was sentenced because of his or her race. The law has allowed nearly every criminal on death row, regardless of race, to file an appeal.  The bill reaffirms the various avenues of appeal available to ensure a fair hearing of race discrimination claims in capital cases.