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Full-Text Articles in Law and Race
An Empirical Evaluation Of The Connecticut Death Penalty System Since 1973: Are There Unlawful Racial, Gender, And Geographic Disparities?, John J. Donohue
An Empirical Evaluation Of The Connecticut Death Penalty System Since 1973: Are There Unlawful Racial, Gender, And Geographic Disparities?, John J. Donohue
John Donohue
This article analyzes the 205 death-eligible murders leading to homicide convictions in Connecticut from 1973–2007 to determine if discriminatory and arbitrary factors influenced capital outcomes. A regression analysis controlling for an array of legitimate factors relevant to the crime, defendant, and victim provides overwhelming evidence that minority defendants who kill white victims are capitally charged at substantially higher rates than minority defendants who kill minorities, that geography influences both capital charging and sentencing decisions (with the location of a crime in Waterbury being the single most potent influence on which death-eligible cases will lead to a sentence of death), and …
Murder, Minority Victims, And Mercy, Aya Gruber
Murder, Minority Victims, And Mercy, Aya Gruber
Publications
Should the jury have acquitted George Zimmerman of Trayvon Martin's murder? Should enraged husbands receive a pass for killing their cheating wives? Should the law treat a homosexual advance as adequate provocation for killing? Criminal law scholars generally answer these questions with a resounding "no." Theorists argue that criminal laws should not reflect bigoted perceptions of African Americans, women, and gays by permitting judges and jurors to treat those who kill racial and gender minorities with undue mercy. According to this view, murder defenses like provocation should be restricted to ensure that those who kill minority victims receive the harshest …