Racial Discrimination in McCleskey's Sentence

The statistics also revealed that the death punishment was assessed in 22 part of cases involving pitch- unforgiving defendants and white victims, 8 percent of cases involving white defendants and white victims, 1 percent of cases involving black defendants and black victims, and 3 percent of cases involving white defendants and black victims (McCleskey, 1987, p. 287).

The meditate also concluded that prosecutors sought the death penalty in 70 percent of cases involving black defendants and white victims, 32 percent of cases involving white defendants and white victims, 15 percent of cases involving black defendants and black victims, and 19 percent of cases involving white defendants and black victims (McCleskey, 1987, p. 287). Finally, the contemplate set up that defendants aerated with killing white victims were 4.3 times as credibly to pick up a death sentence as defendants charged with killing blacks, and black defendants were 1.1 times as likely to receive a death sentence as different defendants (McCleskey, 1987, p. 287). Because the Baldus study examined the sentences of both black and white defendants, it appears to be an effective methodological analysis for examining the observable cores of race on sentencing in a concomitant jurisdiction. The methodology could likely be improved today by considering the sentences of other non-whites, given the increase in Hispanic and other immigrant populations.

In essence, the judicature held in McCleskey

The traditional purposes of punishment atomic number 18 incapacitation, deterrence and retribution. Race becomes a significant moral and policy issue in punishment when it disproportionately impacts one racial population more than other based on that racial population's socio-economic characteristics. For example, poverty, lack of education and fractured family structures are well-known crimogenic factors.

However, the crimogenic nature of these factors can be exacerbated by below the belt applied punishment schemes and these negative socio-economic elements can come to be seen as predictors of a criminal nature rather than the result of racially discriminatory punishments. The targeted race, t herefore, becomes labeled and, as demonstrated by the Baldus study, this label can lead to jury decisions that replicate the racially discriminatory punishments.

that the statistical study was inapplicable to his case for both reasons. First, the Court stated that, even if the study's conclusions were correct, McCleskey could not establish that the racial disparities it proved applied to his token case. Second, the Court held that McCleskey did not prove, as required by constitutional law, that Georgia used this particular sentencing scheme because of its racially disparate impact (McCleskey, 1987, pp. 298-299). The Court's decision here does seem inconsistent with its holding in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). In Furman, the Court issued a decision per curiam in which it overturned the death penalty convictions of three black de
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