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Full-Text Articles in Law and Race
Mandatory Sentencing And Racial Disparity, Assessing The Role Of Prosecutors And The Effects Of Booker, Sonja B. Starr, M. Marit Rehavi
Mandatory Sentencing And Racial Disparity, Assessing The Role Of Prosecutors And The Effects Of Booker, Sonja B. Starr, M. Marit Rehavi
Articles
This Article presents new empirical evidence concerning the effects of United States v. Booker, which loosened the formerly mandatory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, on racial disparities in federal criminal cases. Two serious limitations pervade existing empirical literature on sentencing disparities. First, studies focus on sentencing in isolation, controlling for the “presumptive sentence” or similar measures that themselves result from discretionary charging, plea-bargaining, and fact-finding processes. Any disparities in these earlier processes are excluded from the resulting sentence-disparity estimates. Our research has shown that this exclusion matters: pre-sentencing decision-making can have substantial sentence-disparity consequences. Second, existing studies have used loose causal inference …
Why Counting Votes Doesn't Add Up: A Response To Cox And Miles' Judging The Voting Rights Act, Ellen D. Katz, Anna Baldwin
Why Counting Votes Doesn't Add Up: A Response To Cox And Miles' Judging The Voting Rights Act, Ellen D. Katz, Anna Baldwin
Articles
In Judging the Voting Rights Act, Professors Adam B. Cox and Thomas J. Miles report that judges are more likely to find liability under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) when they are African American, appointed by a Democratic president, or sit on an appellate panel with a judge who is African American or a Democratic appointee. Cox and Miles posit that their findings “contrast” and “cast doubt” on much of the “conventional wisdom” about the Voting Rights Act, by which they mean the core findings we reported in Documenting Discrimination in Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 …
A Principled Approach To The Quest For Racial Diversity On The Judiciary, Kevin R. Johnson, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer
A Principled Approach To The Quest For Racial Diversity On The Judiciary, Kevin R. Johnson, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Part I of this Article considers the different voices and perspectives added to the judiciary by the appointment of minorities. Part II analyzes the many impacts of diversity on the bench, including greater judicial impartiality. Part III sets forth the arguments supporting a diverse jury pool and discusses how they inform the analysis of the quest for racial diversity among judges. Part IV outlines a principled approach to the pursuit of judicial diversity.
Toward An Understanding Of Judicial Diversity In American Courts, Barbara L. Graham
Toward An Understanding Of Judicial Diversity In American Courts, Barbara L. Graham
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Part I of this Article explores the utility of descriptive representation as an important concept in understanding why judicial diversity matters from a political perspective. Part II begins an empirical examination of judicial diversity at the federal level while Part III presents an analysis of state court diversity. The data presented in Parts II and III indicate that judges of color are underrepresented at all levels of the federal and state court systems and that particular racial and ethnic groups are virtually excluded from federal and state benches. The conclusion argues that the data presented in this Article support a …
Obligations Impaired: Justice Jonathan Jasper Wright And The Failure Of Reconstruction In South Carolina, Caleb A. Jaffe
Obligations Impaired: Justice Jonathan Jasper Wright And The Failure Of Reconstruction In South Carolina, Caleb A. Jaffe
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Part I of this article, on the historiography of South Carolina Reconstruction, explains the difficulty scholars have had in uncovering the documentary history of Reconstruction, and outlines the development of historical interpretations of Reconstruction from the Nineteenth century Redeemer-era accounts to the revisionists of the 1970's. Part II provides brief biographies of both Justice Wright and William James Whipper. Parts III and IV track the different approaches of Whipper and Wright on two vital issues of their day: (1) whether to repudiate all private debts relating to slavery; and (2) how to construct a homestead law to protect cash-poor landowners. …
Dream Makers: Black Judges On Justice, Julian Abele Cook Jr.
Dream Makers: Black Judges On Justice, Julian Abele Cook Jr.
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Linn Washington, Black Judges on Justice
Race And Sentencing Equality In Kentucky, Robert L. Hurley
Race And Sentencing Equality In Kentucky, Robert L. Hurley
Masters Theses & Specialist Projects
Disparity in sentencing felons based on racial considerations has long has been considered a problem for civil libertarians and scholars alike. Examining data gathered in Kentucky, this thesis addresses this issue through the application of recently developed methodological techniques. Utilizing an index of sentencing equality, this study shows that while differences do exist in black and white offender offense characteristics, these differences do not account for the variations in sentences rendered in cases of white as opposed to black felons. This exploratory research reviews and critiques previous research and provides evidence which should prove useful in resolving the problem of …
Racial Preferences In Higher Education: Political Responsibility And The Judicial Role, Terrance Sandalow
Racial Preferences In Higher Education: Political Responsibility And The Judicial Role, Terrance Sandalow
Articles
Controversy continues unabated over the question left unresolved by DeFunis v. Odegaard: whether in its admissions process a state law school may accord preferential treatment to certain racial and ethnic minorities. In the pages of two journals published by the University of Chicago, Professors John Hart Ely and Richard Posner have established diametrically opposed positions in the debate. Their contributions are of special interest because each undertakes to answer the question within the framework of a theory concerning the proper distribution of authority between the judiciary and the other institutions of government. Neither position, in my judgment, adequately confronts the …