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Full-Text Articles in Law and Race

Confronting The Invisible Witness: The Use Of Narrative To Neutralize Capital Jurors' Implicit Racial Biases, Pamela A. Wilkins Sep 2012

Confronting The Invisible Witness: The Use Of Narrative To Neutralize Capital Jurors' Implicit Racial Biases, Pamela A. Wilkins

West Virginia Law Review

How can capital defense lawyers craft narratives that neutralize jurors' unconscious racial and ethnic biases? A well-developed body of research in cognitive psychology indicates that despite even the best of intentions and the absence of conscious prejudice, most Americans harbor unconscious biases against African Americans. These biases influence what we actually perceive, how we interpret what we perceive, and how we act. For reasons related to the content and structure of capital sentencing trials, these unconscious biases are particularly likely to influence capital jurors. In effect, unconscious racial bias acts as an invisible witness against the African American defendant, buttressing …


Race And Constitutional Law Casebooks: Recognizing The Proslavery Constitution, Juan F. Perea Apr 2012

Race And Constitutional Law Casebooks: Recognizing The Proslavery Constitution, Juan F. Perea

Michigan Law Review

Federalist No. 54 shows that part of Madison's public defense of the Constitution included the defense of some of its proslavery provisions. Madison and his reading public were well aware that aspects of the Constitution protected slavery. These aspects of the Constitution were publicly debated in the press and in state ratification conventions. Just as the Constitution's protections for slavery were debated at the time of its framing and ratification, the relationship between slavery and the Constitution remains a subject of debate. Historians continue to debate the centrality of slavery to the Constitution. The majority position among historians today appears …


Every High Has A Low: A Pragmatic Approach To The War On Drugs, Mark Garibyan Jan 2012

Every High Has A Low: A Pragmatic Approach To The War On Drugs, Mark Garibyan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

One of the lasting vestiges of Richard Nixon’s presidency is the infamous “War on Drugs,” a forty-year-old effort aimed at curtailing “illicit drug consumption and transactions in America.” Although the goal behind the policy—a reduction in the rate of substance abuse—may be altruistic, the War on Drugs has dismally failed to achieve its goals and has exacerbated existing problems. Specifically, laws dealing with crack cocaine result in a “heavily disproportionate impact on black defendants;” in 2008 “blacks comprised 79.8 percent of those convicted for crack cocaine-related offenses,” whereas “whites comprised only 10.4 percent.” More generally, these laws illustrate a fundamental …


Why We Need A Progressive Account Of Violence, Aya Gruber Jan 2012

Why We Need A Progressive Account Of Violence, Aya Gruber

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