About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

51 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 509 (1994)
Deliberate Indifference: Judicial Tolerance of Racial Bias in Criminal Justice

handle is hein.journals/waslee51 and id is 519 raw text is: Deliberate Indifference: Judicial Tolerance of Racial Bias in Criminal Justice Bryan A. Stevenson* Ruth E. Fnedman On April 22, 1987, a majority of the United States Supreme Court announced a startling and deeply disturbing opinion about race and the administration of criminal justice in the United States. Presented with overwhelming statistical evidence of racial bias in Georgia's use of the death penalty,I the Court ruled in McCleskey v Kemp2 that race-based sentencing disparities for similarly situated defendants are an inevitable part of our criminal justice system.3 After expressing fear that responding to racial bias in death penalty cases might necessarily require confronting racial bias in other criminal cases,4 the Court concluded that the Constitution does not * Director, Alabama Capital Representation Resource Center; J.D., Harvard Law School; M.P.P., John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; B.A., Eastern College. ** Staff Attorney, Alabama Capital Representation Resource Center and Southern Center for Human Rights; J.D., Yale Law School; A.B., Harvard University 1. The raw data from a study of murder cases in Georgia by Professor David Baldus of the University of Iowa constituted the statistical evidence in the case. See DAVID C. BALDUS ET AL., EQUAL JUSTICE AND THE DEATH PENALTY 306-93 (1990). The Baldus study revealed that an accused is 8.3 times more likely to receive the death penalty for crimes committed against whites than crimes committed against blacks. Id. at 314. If the accused is black, he or she is 21 times more likely to be sentenced to death if the victim is white, as opposed to black. See id. at 315 (Table 50). Even after controlling for the effects of other variables influencing sentencing decisions in Georgia, a person accused of murdering someone white is 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than someone accused of murdering a black person. Id. at 316. 2. 481 U.S. 279 (1987). 3. McCleskey v Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 312 (1987). 4. The majority reasoned that if we accepted McCleskey's claim that racial bias has impermissibly tainted the capital sentencing decision, we could soon be faced with similar claims as to other types of penalty Id. at 315-16. In his dissent, Justice Brennan observed

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most