Race News and Developments: 2007

NEW RESOURCES: Connecticut Study Reveals Arbitrariness in Death Cases

Professor John Donohue of Yale University's School of Law recently conducted a study of death sentences in Connecticut and found that seeking the death penalty often correlated with the race of the victim and the defendant, and not necessarily with the severity of the crimes, as the law requires. "There was basically no rational system to explain who got the death penalty," Donohue said. "It really is about as random a process as you can possibly construct."

After reviewing 207 murder cases dating back to the early 1970s that were eligible for death penalty prosecution, the study found:

• Black defendants receive death sentences at three times the rate of white defendants in cases where the victims were white.
• Killers of white victims are treated more severely than people who kill minorities, when it comes time to decide the charges.
• Minorities who kill whites receive death sentences at higher rates than minorities who kill minorities.

The study is being used in a suit brought by death row inmates in the state challenging the constitutionality of the way the death penalty is being applied. The state has contested the findings of the study.
(DAVE COLLINS, "Yale study: racial bias, randomness mar Conn. death penalty cases," Associated Press, December 12, 2007). See Arbitrariness and Studies.

NEW RESOURCES: Native Americans and the Death Penalty

David Baker has written a thorough and insightful analysis of how the death penalty in the U.S. has been used against Native Americans. In "American Indian Executions in Historical Context," Baker places the execution of Native Americans within the history of colonialism, slavery and the conquering of indigenous tribes in early America. The article traces these developments to the current era, about which the author concludes:

The trend in American Indian executions during the present historical period of self determination shows a significant increase in Indian executions during the 1990s. The 15 American Indian executions since 1973, in many cases, accent the problems endemic to contemporary capital punishment schemes—increasing rates of voluntary executions, botched executions, racist prosecutorial discretion, and ineffective capital defense counsel. In these cases, all the victims were white and the American Indian defendants largely suffered from severe alcoholism, drug abuse, and mental illness. In most cases, defendants came from predictable backgrounds of abject poverty, alcoholic and abusive parents, and violent family histories.

David Baker is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Riverside Community College in California. He has also collected a comprehensive list of all executions of Native Americans in U.S. history.
(20 Criminal Justice Studies 315–373 (No. 4, December 2007)). Read the article. See Race.

U.S. Supreme Court to Address Discriminatory Jury Selection in Death Penalty Case

On Tuesday, Dec. 4, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Snyder v. Louisiana, a case involving a black defendant sentenced to death by an all-white jury after the prosecution used its peremptory strikes to exclude all of the qualified black jurors.  During Allen Snyder’s 1996 trial for the murder of a man his estranged wife was dating, prosecutor James Williams of Jefferson Parish urged the all-white jury to sentence the defendant to death so that Snyder would not "get away with it" like O.J. Simpson. Simpson was acquitted of a highly publicized double homicide less than a year before. The defense challenged the selection of the jury as a violation of equal protection, but Snyder's conviction was upheld by the Louisiana Supreme Court.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Texas death row inmate Thomas Miller-El because of the prosecution's racially discriminatory jury strikes. The Court not only looked at the credibility of the reasons the prosecutor gave for eliminating individual black jurors, but also drew inferences from the cumulative effect of the prosecutor's actions throughout the process.  When Snyder's case first came before the Supreme Court, it was remanded back to Louisiana in light of the Miller-El ruling.

Before the trial, the prosecutor had made public references comparing Snyder's case to O.J. Simpson's, but he promised the trial judge that he would not make such references before the jury. This same prosecutor reportedly displayed on his desk a toy electric chair with pictures of the faces of the five black men he had sent to death row pasted to it. Two of the people Williams sent to death row were exonerated after it was discovered that prosecutors had failed to disclose exculpatory evidence.  Jefferson Parish was known for having supported white supremacist David Duke in various elections.
(Posted November 30, 2007). Read the Petitioner's and State's briefs here. Amicus briefs have also been filed in support of Snyder by the Constitution Project and Religious Ministers of Jefferson Parish.  See also U.S. Supreme Court and Race.

American Bar Association Report Urges Death Penalty Reforms in Pennsylvania

According to a new report from a team of investigators sponsored by the American Bar Association (ABA), flaws in Pennsylvania's death penalty system are so pervasive that the state risks executing an innocent person. "The problems found in this assessment strike at the very heart of Pennsylvania's justice system," stated ABA president-elect H. Thomas Wells, Jr. The five-member Pennsylvania assessment team that conducted the review urged a series of important death penalty reforms designed to improve capital defense representation and reduce the likelihood of false confessions, crime-lab errors, witness misidentification and racial disparities. In addition to the reform recommendations, the ABA called on Governor Ed Rendell to order a more comprehensive study of Pennsylvania's death penalty.

Among the report's key recommendations are the following:

• Pennsylvania should ensure that it provides adequate opportunities for death row inmates to prove their innocence. The state should require the preservation of biological evidence for as long as the defendant remains incarcerated and should require crime labs and law enforcement agencies to be certified by nationally recognized certification organizations. It should also require audio or videotaping of all interrogations in potentially capital cases and implement lineup procedures that protect against incorrect eyewitness identifications.
• Pennsylvania should ensure that all capital defendants and death row inmates who are poor receive competent lawyers. The assessment team found that the state fails to guarantee the appointment of two attorneys at all stages of capital cases, and that attorneys often are provided insufficient access to experts and investigators or to information in discovery. The panel also noted that the Pennsylvania lacks a statewide independent appointing authority responsible for training, selecting, and monitoring capital defense attorneys.
  
• Pennsylvania should provide state funding for capital indigent defense services. The group found that the state currently has no funding for indigent defense services, but instead relies on county-funded systems. As a result, the quality of Pennsylvania's capital indigent defense system varies widely among counties and fails to afford uniform, quality representation to many capital defendants.
• Pennsylvania should eliminate racial and geographic bias from its death penalty system. The assessment team found that Pennsylvania is "second only to Louisiana in the percentage of African Americans on death row" and that African American defendants in Philadelphia County were sentenced at a "significant higher rate" than similarly situated non-African American defendants. The review concluded that one-third of African American death row inmates in Philadelphia County would have received sentences of life imprisonment if they had not been African American.
  
• Pennsylvania should collect and make available data on death-eligible cases. Without a statewide entity that collects data on all death-eligible cases in the state, Pennsylvania cannot ensure that its system ensures proportionality in charging or sentencing, or determine the extent of racial or geographic bias in its capital system.
• Pennsylvania should ensure that all death-row inmates receive meaningful review in state post-conviction proceedings. State law imposes several restrictions on state post-conviction proceedings that seriously impede the adequate development and judicial consideration of a death row inmate's claims, including a 60-day time limitation for filing a successive post-conviction petition.
• Pennsylvania should ensure that capital jurors understand their roles and responsibilities. The group revealed that the overwhelming majority of Pennsylvania capital jurors fail to understand their roles and responsibilities when deciding whether to impose a death sentence. More than 98% of these jurors failed to understand "at least some" portion of the jury instructions, and of those questioned, about 82% did not believe "that a life sentence really meant life in prison." The ABA urged the state to redraft its capital jury instructions with the objective of preventing common juror misconceptions and to provide a clearer understanding of the definition of life in prison without parole.

Pennsylvania has 228 people on death row and has carried out three executions since it reinstated the death penalty in 1978. Five people have been freed from death row on the basis of innocence.

The ABA is the nation's largest lawyers' association. It has released similar reviews in seven other states. Though the organization does not take an official position on the death penalty, in 1997 it called for a moratorium on executions until "fairness and accuracy - due process - are assured in death penalty cases."
(Philadelphia Inquirer, October 10, 2007, and the American Bar Association Pennsylvania Death Penalty Assessment Report, October 2007). Read more information about the report. See also Innocence, Representation, Race, Arbitrariness, and Studies.

EDITORIAL: Atlanta Journal Constitution Calls for Abolition of Georgia's Death Penalty

In an editorial that followed a four-part news series reviewing death penalty-eligible murder cases in Georgia between 1995 and 2004, the Atlanta Journal Constitution called on the state to abandon capital punishment because death sentences are often unfairly influenced by geography, a prosecutor's personal politics, or the victim's race. The paper also said that Georgia fails to meet minimum standards to ensure an accurate and fair capital punishment system, noting:

For criminal cases involving the most severe punishment that society can inflict, justice has never been blind. As we're learning, it probably never can be.
...

But if society chooses to inflict death, it has an obligation to do so fairly. A death sentence should not be arbitrary and capricious, imposed on some but not on others who are guilty of even more heinous crimes.

And because a death sentence is absolute, it should be imposed only in cases where the person's guilt is absolutely certain, and it should be imposed based on clear standards in the law, not on the human biases and prejudices that afflict all of us.

The death penalty as it is imposed here in Georgia does not meet those minimum standards.

For example:

• District attorneys in metro Atlanta counties such as DeKalb and Fulton routinely offer defendants in capital crimes the option of pleading guilty and facing life sentences without hope of parole.

But in similar cases elsewhere in the state, prosecutors seek and win death penalty sentences, making the punishment irrational.

"It would make as much sense just to execute every 10th or every 100th murderer [as] it would be to figure out the rhyme or reason for why we're picking the ones to get the death penalty," as Atlanta defense attorney Jack Martin noted.

• Race has played a role in the administration of justice in this country since its founding. That ugly and intractable dynamic is still evident today; according to a statistical analysis of more than a thousand cases, prosecutors in Georgia were twice as likely to seek the death penalty if the victim was white than if the victim was black. In the more specific category of murders carried out during an armed robbery, defendants were an astonishing six times as likely to face death sentences if the person they killed was white.

• The Georgia Supreme Court has the responsibility to scrutinize death sentences to ensure the penalty is being applied uniformly statewide, based on precedents set in earlier cases. But former and sitting justices openly admit that their "proportionality reviews" have often been woefully sloppy and inaccurate.

In the vast majority of 159 such reviews undertaken since 1982, the justices have cited cases as precedent that had actually been dismissed, overturned or reversed on appeal, including some that had been overturned by the justices themselves. Only 14 of those 159 proportionality reviews cited no cases that had been reversed.

In 1972, citing evidence that the death penalty in Georgia was being applied in a similarly arbitrary manner, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out death-penalty laws here and in 39 other states as well. Since then, laws have been rewritten and processes and safeguards allegedly tightened, but to little apparent effect.

The difficulties of fairly, accurately and efficiently carrying out the death penalty in Georgia are further illustrated by two prominent cases in the news. The first involves Brian Nichols, charged in a sensational 2005 killing spree that left four people dead, including a judge, his court reporter, a sheriff's deputy and a federal agent. The proceedings have been repeatedly delayed by controversy over the cost of Nichols' state-appointed legal defense, which has now reached more than $1.8 million.

The multiple crimes alleged to have been committed by Nichols are at least as heinous as those that have put other people on Death Row. But even if Nichols is found guilty, at this point the odds of a death sentence being imposed and carried out against him appear pretty slim. If that assessment proves valid, it would add to the already overwhelming evidence of the arbitrary nature of the death penalty in Georgia.

The second Georgia case involves the fate of Troy Anthony Davis, who was convicted in 1991 of killing a Savannah police officer and has been sitting on death row ever since. Davis was convicted based exclusively on eyewitness testimony, which in other cases has proved notoriously unreliable, especially when no supporting physical evidence existed. For example, in cases in which DNA evidence has exonerated felons of crimes they did not commit, faulty eyewitness reports often turns out to have played a central role in the original conviction.

In the Davis case, the uncertain nature of eyewitness testimony is compounded by the fact that most of the prosecution witnesses have since recanted or contradicted their testimony naming Davis as the killer. Yet Davis was one day from execution before state officials agreed to a temporary stay to examine his case more carefully.

Georgia's death penalty law can and should be updated to try to wring as much unfairness as possible from the system, but reform can never eradicate the possibility of error, and it can never remove human bias and prejudice from the process. Imposing the absolute penalty requires absolute justice, and in the absence of that, the death penalty ought to be abolished.

(Atlanta Journal Constitution, September 27, 2007). See Editorials, Innocence, and Race.

NEW RESOURCES: American Bar Association Sponsored Study Calls for Death Penalty Moratorium

According to a new study released by the American Bar Association, Ohio's capital punishment system is so flawed that it should be suspended while the state conducts a thorough review of its fairness and accuracy. The study, conducted by a 10-member panel of Ohio attorneys appointed by the ABA, found that the state's death penalty is prone to racial and geographic imbalances and that it meets only four of the 93 ABA recommendations to ensure a fair capital punishment system. "Regardless of one's views of the morality of the death penalty, it is beyond question that if Ohio is to have a death penalty it needs to be one that is fair, accurate and provides due process to all capital defendants and those on death row. Unfortunately, this is not the case," said Phyllis Crocker, a Cleveland State University law professor and member of the Ohio review team.

Among the panel's key recommendations were the following:

• Ohio should ensure that it provides adequate opportunities for death row inmates to prove their innocence. This includes improved preservation of biological evidence while inmates are incarcerated, creation of nationally-certified crime laboratories, videotaping of all interrogations in potentially capital cases, and implementation of lineup procedures that protect against incorrect eyewitness identification. In addition, the report recommends that Ohio Governor Ted Strickland supplement the state's current clemency process by appointing a commission to conduct investigations, hold hearings, and test evidence, to review cases of factual innocence in capital cases.
  
• Ohio should ensure that all capital defendants and death row inmates who are poor receive competent lawyers. The panel noted that Ohio does not have safeguards in place to ensure competent representation in all cases. It urged compliance with the ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases. It also urged lawmakers to better compensate defense attorneys to ensure high quality representation, and to provide defense teams with sufficient funds for access to experts and investigators.
  
• Ohio should exempt people with severe mental disabilities from the death penalty. The panel found that while Ohio does protect those with mental retardation from facing the death penalty, it does not extend this protection to those with other types of serious mental disorders.
• Ohio should eliminate racial and geographic bias from its death penalty system. As part of its assessment, the ABA conducted a racial and geographic disparity study which looked at death sentences in Ohio between 1981 and 2000. The review found that those who kill white victims are 3.8 times more likely to receive a death sentence than those who kill black victims. It also found that the chances of receiving a death sentence in Hamilton County are 2.7 times higher than in the rest of the state, 3.7 times higher than in Cuyahoga County, and 6.2 times higher than in Franklin County.
• Ohio should provide increased discovery in state post-conviction appeals. The panel noted that Ohio denies petitioners access to discovery procedures necessary to develop post-conviction claims. The ABA criticized an existing policy that allows reporters and other members of the public to use the public records law to obtain materials in support of post-conviction claims, but prohibits a petitioner from using this law to obtain these same documents.

A spokesperson for Gov. Strickland said that he is reviewing the report and its recommendations.
(Associated Press, September 25, 2007, and ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Report, September 2007). Read the report and supporting documents. See also Arbitrariness, Race, Representation, Mental Illness, Innocence, and Studies.

NEW RESOURCES: Study Finds Blacks Who Kill Whites More Likely to be Executed

A new Ohio State University study has found that blacks convicted of killing whites are not only more likely than non-whites to receive a death sentence, but also more likely to be executed. Blacks on death row for killing non-whites are less likely to be executed than others on death row. "Examining who survives on death row is important because less than 10% of those given the death sentence ever get executed," said David Jacobs (pictured), co-author of the study and professor of sociology at Ohio State University. "The disparity in execution rates based on the race of victims suggests our justice system places greater value on white lives, even after sentences are handed down." Jacobs notes that this is the first study to examine how the race of victims impacts the probability that an offender will be executed.

Jacobs conducted the study with Ohio State sociology professor Zhenchao Qian, Jason Carmichael of McGill University, and Stephanie Kent of Cleveland State University. The group examined the outcomes of 1,560 people sentenced to death in 16 states from 1973 to 2002. Their findings showed that there is more than a 2-fold greater risk that an African-American who killed a white person will be executed than there is for a white person who killed a non-white person. Jacobs observed, "Overall, we found that our justice system is not colorblind, even after offenders are put on death row. White lives are still valued more than black ones when it comes to deciding who gets executed and who does not." The study is published in the August 2007 edition of the American Sociological Review and the research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
(Research News, Ohio State University, July 21, 2007). Read the article about the study. See Race and Studies.

NEW RESOURCE: "Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration by Race and Ethnicity"

Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration by Race and Ethnicity is a new report by The Sentencing Project that examines the racial and ethnic dynamics of incarceration in the U.S. with tables by state and by race. The report notes that African Americans are incarcerated at nearly 6 times the rate of whites and Hispanics are incarcerated at nearly double the rate of whites. One in nine (11.7%) African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 is currently incarcerated in a prison or jail.

The report extends the findings of previous analyses by incorporating jail populations in the overall incarceration rate and by assessing the impact of incarceration on the Hispanic community, representing an increasing share of the prison population. The report notes: "In 2005, Hispanics comprised 20% of the state and federal prison population, a rise of 43% since 1990. As a result of these trends, one of every six Hispanic males and one of every 45 Hispanic females born today can expect to go to prison in his or her lifetime. These rates are more than double those for non-Hispanic whites."

"Racial disparities in incarceration reflect a failure of social and economic interventions to address crime effectively and also indicate racial bias in the justice system," stated Marc Mauer, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project. "The broad variation in the use of incarceration nationally suggests that policy decisions can play a key role in determining the size and composition of the prison population."

("Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration By Race and Ethnicity," The Sentencing Project, July 2007). Read the report. See Studies and Race.

ACLU Releases Report on Racial Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty

The federal death penalty impacts racial minorities differently than it does whites according to a recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union. The report, The Persistent Problem of Racial Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty, notes that defendants of color make up the majority of the federal death row. And the risk of a case being authorized for the death penalty is 84% higher in cases where the victim is white, regardless of the race of the defendant. The report pointed to earlier Justice Department statistics that showed that almost twice the percentage of white defendants had the possibility of a death sentence being removed through plea bargaining than the percentage of defendants of color.

In light of this evidence, the ACLU called for a moratorium on the federal death penalty and for Congress to conduct a study to examine the racial disparities. The group also recommended passage of a Racial Justice Act to allow capital defendants to use statistics as evidence of racial bias, as well as a law requiring the Department of Justice to report on its implementation of the federal death penalty.
(ACLU Report, "The Persistent Problem of Racial Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty," June 25, 2007). Read the Report. See Federal Death Penalty and Race.

Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Louisiana Case with All-White Jury and References to O.J. Simpson

On June 25, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review a capital case from Louisiana in which an all-white jury sentenced a defendant to death after the prosecutor urged a death sentence so that the defendant would not "get away with it" like O.J. Simpson.  All five qualified African-Americans had been struck from the jury pool by the prosecution using peremptory challenges.  The defense has challenged the selection of the jury as a violation of equal protection.

The defendant, Allen Snyder, is black and was convicted of killing his wife's male companion in a trial that occurred within a year of the O.J. Simpson acquittal.  Jelpi Picou, executive director of the the Capital Appeals Project of Louisiana which is representing Mr. Snyder, said that, “Both a majority of the Louisiana Supreme Court and the State have denied that these statements demonstrated racially discriminatory intent” noted Mr. Picou, “because the prosecutor did not state the self-evident: that Mr. Snyder and Mr. Simpson are black. Given that Mr. Snyder’s trial took place less than a year after O.J. Simpson’s acquittal, it is difficult to imagine that the members of Mr. Snyder’s jury would not have been aware of the racially divisive nature of that case.”  The case is Snyder v. Louisiana, No. 06-10119, and it will likely be heard by Court in the fall.
(Press Release, Capital Appeals Project, June 25, 2007). Read the Press Release.  See also Race.

BOOKS: "The Big Eddy Club" Explores Race and the Death Penalty

In his new book, "The Big Eddy Club: The Stocking Stranglings and Southern Justice," author David Rose examines issues of race and the death penalty. The book relates the story of Carlton Gary, who was convicted of capital murder in 1986 and remains on Georgia's death row for the rape and murder of several elderly women in Columbus, Georgia. Rose, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, links Gary's conviction to a history of bias in Columbus and the South.

"The Big Eddy Club" details the connections between past and present Southern justice and uses these links to further examine the broader issues of race, corruption, and the criminal justice system.  Rose maintains that racism in Columbus may have resulted in an unfair trial for Gary. His investigation of the case found that many of the community's prominent judges and attorneys, as well as most of the victims, were frequenters of the Big Eddy Club, an exclusive all-white club in Columbus. He also reveals a connection between the Gary case and a 1912 lynching of a black man who had been tried for murder and acquitted. Rose found that the trial judge first assigned to Gary's case in 1984 was the son of the mob leader who led the eventual lynching.
(The New Press, 2007; posted June 19, 2007). See Books and Race.

Jury Strikes and Racial Bias

Although the Supreme Court struck down race-based strikes of potential jurors more than two decades ago in Batson v. Kentucky, the decision has fallen short of its goal.  For example, in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, a recent study has revealed that potential black jurors are struck three times as often as white jurors in the parish.  This does not include the jurors struck for being unable to follow death penalty law by the judge. A Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center review of 390 felony jury trials in the parish from 1994 to 2002 found that none of the 20 murder trials in the area, which has a population that is 23% black, since the Batson decision has had a proportionately representative number of black jurors. A closer look at 18 Jefferson Parish murder trials for which the race of jurors is available found that 10 had no black members, seven had one black member, and one had two black jurors. "Not one gets to what should be the average," said Richard Bourke, the acting director of the Center, who notes that you might expect to see about 3 black jurors on each 12-member panel.

According to a New York Times column by Adam Liptak, this pattern of racial bias may have resulted in a death sentence for Allen Snyder, who was tried for murder by an all-white jury in Jefferson Parish. In Snyder's case, prosecutors were influential in having all nine potential black jurors removed, four with cause and five utilizing peremptory strikes. Snyder has now filed a second appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court raising questions about the constitutionality of his trial. In response to his first appeal, the Justices sent his case back to the Louisiana Supreme Court, ordering the judges to take a hard look at how jury selection had been conducted. After a second review of the case, the Louisiana Supreme Court again ruled against Snyder.

At the time of the Batson decision, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote that the ruling would not end the prevalence of race-based jury selection, while an end to peremptory strikes altogether could.
(New York Times, June 4, 2007). See Race.

North Carolina Could Become Second State to Pass Racial Justice Act

North Carolina's legislature recently took an important step toward becoming the nation's second state to pass a Racial Justice Act, legislation that gives defendants the opportunity to challenge the death penalty based on studies showing racial bias. The bill was quickly approved by members of the House Judiciary II Committee and will now go before the full House for consideration. The legislation is similar to legislation enacted in Kentucky in 1998 and, according to the NAACP, it targets the issue of the disproportionate number of minority inmates who face the death penalty prosecutions. "This is not about emotion. This is about empirical data. Empirical data tells us we have some serious issues," noted Rev. William Baber, the president of North Carolina's NAACP Chapter.

The proposed North Carolina Racial Justice Act would place the burden of proof on the defendant. The defendant could argue before trial that race was a significant factor in other prosecutorial decisions to seek the death penalty around the same time and in the same county or prosecutorial district. After defendants have been sentenced to death, they could present evidence that race influenced decisions to exercise peremptory challenges during jury selection. Such challenges allow defense attorneys and prosecutors to reject potential jurors who they deem biased. The legislation notes that defendants would have to "state with particularity" how race played a role in their case.

Of the 185 people currently on death row in North Carolina, 53% are black.  Census figures show that the state's population of 8.7 million in 2005 was about 74% white, 22% black, 6.5% Hispanic, and 1.3% American Indian.
(Associated Press, May 9, 2007). See Race and Recent Legislative Activity.

THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT

In 1984, Deborah Sykes, a young white newspaper reporter, was sexually assaulted and murdered just blocks from where she worked in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Though no physical evidence implicated him, Darryl Hunt, a 19-year-old black man, was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in prison. Such a crime is often punishable by death.

Ten years later, DNA testing proved that Hunt did not rape Sykes, and cast serious doubts on his involvement in her murder, but he spent another decade behind bars before being exonerated. The eye-opening HBO documentary THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT tells his riveting story - and the story of those who fought to clear his name.

More than a decade in the making, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg's THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT examines the roles of race and fear in a community and in the criminal justice system.

THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT will premiere on Thursday, April 26 at 8 pm on HBO.

View the trailer to the film., Find out more about the film. A special screening will be held in Washington, DC on April 24. See Innocence. 

NEW RESOURCE: Criminology Journal Examines Race and Policing

The most recent volume of Criminology & Public Policy examines the topic of race and policing. Contributors to this special volume offer timely insights in this controversial area, with most agreeing that more can be done to address the long-standing tension between street officers and communities of color.

The articles featured in the journal are "The Importance of Research on Race and Policing: Making Race Salient to Individuals and Institutions Within Criminal Justice" by David A. Harris, "Investigating Racial Profiling by the Miami-Dade Police Department: A Multimedia Approach" by Geoffrey P. Alpert, Roger G. Dunham, and Michael R. Smith, "'Police Don't Like Black People': African-American Young Men's Accumulated Police Experiences" by Rod K. Brunson, and "The Race/Ethnicity Disparity in Misdemeanor Marijuana Arrests in New York City" by Andrew Golub, Bruce D. Johnson, and Eloise Dunlap. The reaction essays include "Incorporating Latinos and Immigrants into Policing Research" by Ramiro Martinez, Jr., "Racial Profiling - Then and Now" by Jermone Skolnick, "Forever the Sympolic Assailant: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same" by Delores Jones-Brown, "Either They Don't Know or They Don't Care: Black Males and Negative Police Experiences" by Eric A. Stewart, and "Reefer Madness: Broken Windows Policing and Misdemeanor Marijuana Arrests in New York City, 1989-2000" by Bernard E. Harcourt and Jens Ludwig. The journal also includes an introduction by Katherine Russell-Brown of the University of Florida.

6 Criminology & Public Policy 1 (February 2007). See Race and Resources.


DOCUMENTARIES: "Race to Execution"

The documentary film Race To Execution by Rachel Lyon will air nationally on the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens on Tuesday, March 27, 2007 at 10 p.m. Race to Execution offers a compelling and original investigation of America's death penalty, probing how race discrimination infects the capital punishment system. The film reveals the potential biases in the racial portrayal of victims and perpetrators in the media, particularly where potential jurors internalize these stereotypes and bring them into the courtroom.

Race to Execution enlarges the conversation of capital punishment by focusing attention on race of jury as well as race of victim. Filmed on the heels of key 2005 Supreme Court decisions overturning death sentences in Texas and California due to racial discrimination in jury selection, the movie provides a timely analysis of the subtle, yet persistent ways our culture casually overlooks matters of race in criminal justice.

The documentary also traces the fates of two Death Row inmates - Robert Tarver in Russell County, Alabama, and Madison Hobley in Chicago, Illinois. Their compelling personal stories are enriched through accounts offered by the attorneys who defended them, and by prosecutors, criminal justice scholars, and experts in the fields of law and the media who followed their cases. The film includes major segments on the impact of media, along with how race bias in jury selection influences who lives and who dies at the hands of the state. (PBS, Independent Lens, March 8, 2007).
Find out more about the film. See also, Race.

BOOKS - Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South

In her book, "Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South," University of Memphis professor Margaret Vandiver explores the complex relationship between these two forms of punishment and challenges the assumption that executions consistently grew out of - and replaced - lynchings. Vandiver's book examines lynchings and legal executions in three culturally and geographically distinct southern regions. First she researched rural northwest Tennessee, where lynchings outnumbered executions by 11 to one and many African Americans were lynched for racial caste offenses rather than for actual crimes. Then she examined Shelby County, Tennessee, including the city of Memphis, where more men were legally executed than lynched. Last, she researched Marion County, Florida, where she discovered a firmly entrenched tradition of lynching for sexual assault that ended in the 1930s with three legal death sentences in quick succession. Based on her findings, Vandiver writes about the ways that legal and extralegal processes imitated, influenced, and differed from each other in these regions. Then, using a series of case studies, she identifies parallels between the mock trials that were held by lynch mobs and the legal trials that were rushed through the courts and followed by quick executions. Although the emphasis is on the historical use of these practices, the author argues that modern death sentences, like lynchings of the past, continue to be influenced by factors of race and place, and that death sentencing is comparably erratic. (Rutgers University Press, 2006). See Books.