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On Lenity: What Justice Gorsuch Didn’T Say, Brandon Hasbrouck
On Lenity: What Justice Gorsuch Didn’T Say, Brandon Hasbrouck
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This Essay was first published online at 108 Va. L. Rev. Online 239 (2022).
Facially neutral doctrines create racially disparate outcomes. Increasingly, legal academia and mainstream commentators recognize that this is by design. The rise of this colorblind racism in Supreme Court jurisprudence parallels the rise of the War on Drugs as a political response to the Civil Rights Movement. But, to date, no member of the Supreme Court has acknowledged the reality of this majestic inequality of the law. Instead, the Court itself has been complicit in upholding facially neutral doctrines when confronted with the racial disparities they create. …