In a landmark ruling in McCleskey v. Kemp in 1987, a bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 – 4 vote that statistical evidence of racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty was insufficient to overturn an individual death sentence. A new book, Race and the Death Penalty: The Legacy of McCleskey v. Kemp, edited by David P. Keys, associate professor of criminal justice at New Mexico State University and R.J. Maratea of the Youth Research and Resource Center, Inc. explores the lasting effects of the McCleskey ruling. Race and the Death Penalty contains 12 chapters by death penalty experts, each discussing a different aspect of race in the post-McCleskey death penalty system, including research on the racial disparities in capital sentencing that persist today. In a review, Scott William Bowman, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Texas State University, said the book “does a marvelous job of balancing the historical and contemporary narratives of how race and racism interact with the ongoing application of the death penalty.… Keys and Maratea have rejuvenated the dialogue.”
