In the case McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987), the defendant introduced a study by University of Iowa Professor David Baldus proving African-American

Question

defendants who killed white victims were significantly more likely to receive death sentences than any other racial combination of defendant and victim, such as white/white victim/defendant, black/black victim/defendant, white defendant/black victim. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to cite the Baldus study as fact, but the study has been cited many times in defendants' challenges to the imposition of the death penalty. Based on your experiences and your study of criminal justice issues to date, do you agree with defendant McCleskey that the Court should have recognized the "fact" of racial discrimination in death-penalty sentencing, or do you agree with the Court that race discrimination, while it sometimes matters in the criminal justice context, is not enough to overturn a lawfully imposed death sentence? Explain your reasoning.
What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER: Answers may vary: Students may reflect on the role of social science in criminal justice litigation and whether or not courts must "accept as fact" the conclusions researchers draw as a result of their studies. Many students believe that African-American defendants are overrepresented on death row as a result of "inherent criminality" or an innate propensity to commit murder, rather than other discriminatory factors within the criminal justice system. This question is designed to raise those issues.