NCJ Number
111120
Journal
University of California Davis Law Review Volume: 18 Issue: 4 Dated: (Summer 1985) Pages: 1275-1325
Date Published
1985
Length
51 pages
Annotation
Since the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia, at least 10 studies have investigated racial discrimination in the administration of the death penalty.
Abstract
All have found substantial discrimination by race of victim. Since Furman, capital defendants could attack racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty as a violation of the equal protection clause and the cruel and unusual punishment provision. In proving racial discrimination, defendants have relied on the results of statistical research. The courts have rejected such appeals on the grounds that the methodological weaknesses of such studies precluded a finding of racial discrimination. In McClesky v. Kemp, evidence of racial discrimination came from exhaustive studies by Baldus et al that examined the contributions of numerous race-neutral variables and found that the death penalty was applied significantly more often in cases involving white than black victims. In this case, the Eleventh Circuit Court did not raise questions about the existence of discrimination but held that the demonstrated effects were too small in magnitude to be regarded as systematic and pervasive. In this finding, the Court erred. The Baldus studies found that killing a white increased the odds of the death penalty by a factor of four -- a racial effect that is large by any meaningful standard. 241 footnotes.