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Full-Text Articles in Law and Race
Mandatory Minimum Prison Sentencing And Systemic Racism, Faizal R. Mirza
Mandatory Minimum Prison Sentencing And Systemic Racism, Faizal R. Mirza
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article discusses the relationship between racist policing, the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, and the disproportionate imposition of mandatory prison sentences on Black-Canadians It argues that the retention and expansion of mandatory prison sentences for serious offences will serve as a powerful means to perpetuate systemic racism in the criminal justice system. Reporting and applying surveys on systemic racism in the criminal justice system, the article sets out to demonstrate that mandatory prison sentences enhance the quasi-judicial role of prosecutors, providing Crown attorneys with greater leverage to convict a disproportionate number of Black persons. In addition, it argues that if …
Race, Peremptories, And Capital Jury Deliberations, Samuel R. Gross
Race, Peremptories, And Capital Jury Deliberations, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
In Lonnie Weeks's capital murder trial in Virginia in 1993, the jury was instructed: If you find from the evidence that the Commonwealth has proved beyond a reasonable doubt, either of the two alternative aggravating factors], and as to that alternative you are unanimous, then you may fix the punishment of the defendant at death or if you believe from all the evidence that the death penalty is not justified, then you shall fix the punishment of the defendant at life imprisonment ... This instruction is plainly ambiguous, at least to a lay audience. Does it mean that if the …