http://theadvocate.posterous.com The online presence of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy journal posterous.com Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:52:00 -0700 ABA Journal - Race Matters in Sentencing, Study Suggests http://theadvocate.posterous.com/aba-journal-race-matters-in-sentencing-study http://theadvocate.posterous.com/aba-journal-race-matters-in-sentencing-study

Researchers say they their new study suggests a reason why African Americans are overrepresented in prison. Black defendants are more likely to be sentenced to prison than whites, on average, but the racial gap is even more pronounced among some judges, suggesting that race is influencing the decision, the study found.

The researchers studied judicial variations in sentencing in felony cases from Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago. “Race matters in the courtroom,” says the study posted as SSRN. Differences in sentencing by race across judges “suggests that courtroom outcomes may not be race blind. This may be one source of the substantial overrepresentation of African-Americans in the prison population.”

Complete article about study

Do Judges Vary in Their Treatment of Race, set for publication in The Journal of Legal Studies

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Tue, 26 Jun 2012 05:49:00 -0700 Vera Publishes Review of Research on the Relationship of Race and Ethnicity to Prosecutorial Decision Making http://theadvocate.posterous.com/vera-publishes-review-of-research-on-the-rela http://theadvocate.posterous.com/vera-publishes-review-of-research-on-the-rela

A new publication from the Prosecution and Racial Justice Program (PRJ) of the Vera Institute of Justice surveys the literature on the relationship of race and ethnicity to prosecutorial decision making.

Do Race and Ethnicity Matter in Prosecution?—a review of 34 empirical studies on the relationship of race and ethnicity to prosecutorial decision making published between 1990 and 2011 in peer-reviewed journals—analyzes research that previously has been accessible primarily to scholars. The PRJ review, written for a broad audience, is intended to encourage additional research on this critical subject.

“No other actor in the criminal justice system drives case outcomes as profoundly as the prosecutor,” PRJ director Whitney Tymas writes in her introductory note. “Nevertheless, empirical research analyzing racial impacts of prosecutors’ routine choices on the thousands of defendants and victims with whom they interact daily has been scarce.” 

Among the review’s key findings: 

  • Defendants’ and victims’ race appear to affect prosecutorial decisions. Most of the 34 studies reviewed found influences on case outcomes, even when other legal and extra-legal factors are taken into account.
  • The effect of race and ethnicity on prosecutorial decision making is inconsistent.
  • As compared to whites, it is not always blacks or Latinos and Latinas who receive more punitive treatment.

Read report

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Sat, 21 Apr 2012 04:08:00 -0700 North Carolina Racial Justice Act Decision http://theadvocate.posterous.com/north-carolina-racial-justice-act-decision http://theadvocate.posterous.com/north-carolina-racial-justice-act-decision

Yesterday, North Carolina Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks rendered a decision in the first case challenging a death sentence under the State’s Racial Justice Act. This comes twenty-five years after the United States Supreme Court decided in McCleskey v. Kemp that statistical proof alone is insufficient to state an equal protection violation when discriminatory impact in capital punishment is shown. In the North Carolina case Marcus Robinson was convicted and sentenced to death for the slaying of seventeen-year old Erik Tornblom. Evidence produced at the two-week hearing in the case showed that minorities, particularly African-Americans, were excluded from death-qualified juries at a much higher rate than white venire members. The study, conducted by two law professors at Michigan State University, showed that the statistical likelihood that the strikes were exercised for non-discriminatory purposes was less than one in ten trillion.

North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act, passed in 2009, is similar to Kentucky’s which was passed in 1998. North Carolina, however, permits post-conviction relief for prisoners while Kentucky defendants must raise the claim pre-trial in addition to a number of other structural differences. While Kentucky was the first and only state in the nation to have a Racial Justice Act until 2009 so far there have been no successful claims in the Commonwealth. This is despite statistical proof that African-Americans, particularly those accused of killing a white person, are more likely to face death in the Commonwealth.

Download Marcus Robinson RJA Order

Download Motion For Appropriate Relief Pursuant to the Racial Justice Act

Contributed by Greg Coulson

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Wed, 18 Apr 2012 05:13:00 -0700 McCleskey v. Kemp: 25 Years Later http://theadvocate.posterous.com/mccleskey-v-kemp-25-years-later http://theadvocate.posterous.com/mccleskey-v-kemp-25-years-later

A consortium of organizations has created the website, McCleskey v. Kemp: 25 Years Later.

Twenty-five years ago this April 22, the Supreme Court decision in McCleskey v. Kemp allowed our criminal justice system to relegate Blacks and Latinos to second-class citizen status simply because of their race or ethnicity.

In McCleskey, a majority of the court ruled that it was "inevitable" that Blacks would be treated worse by the criminal justice system and that the Constitution is only violated where it is proven that a specific person in a specific case intentionally discriminates against the defendant because of his or her race.

There exists today significant racial disparities at many critical stages of the criminal justice, resulting in Blacks and Latinos being treated differently than whites in comparable circumstances.

Listen to the oral argument and read the decision (via LDF, which argued the case before the Supreme Court.)

Join the #McCleskey conversation on Twitter (kicked off by the ACLU Capital Punishment Project)

Hear Michelle Alexander describing the "new Jim Crow"

Watch Bryan Stevenson share some hard truths about America's justice system

The Supreme Court has never reconsidered McCleskey despite the fact that this decision has yielded enormous negative consequences that extend far beyond the confines of courthouses and jail cells. By sanctioning racial disproportionality in the administration of criminal justice, McCleskey has caused significant racial disparities in access to meaningful employment, to public housing, to higher education, and to voting.

Justice Lewis Powell, the author of McCleskey, later admitted to a biographer that he was wrong in that decision and that he belatedly found capital punishment to be unworkable.

By condoning criminal justice laws and policies which disproportionately impact communities of color, the Supreme Court has endorsed a system of justice that fosters racism by ignoring it.

Hat tip to Standdown Texas Project

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