Primary Annotated Bibliography McCleskey v Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987) McCleskey v Kemp is a Supreme Court case that highlighted racism in the death penalty process. The petitioner in the case provided a controversial statistical study that correlated racism in death penalty sentencings. The Supreme Court Justices were asked to answer the question of whether or not the statistical study provided could substantiate that the sentence in the case violated the petitioner’s eighth and fourteenth amendment rights. This case will be the main focus of my research paper. This case will provide me the facts and the circumstances surrounding the case. The case will also provide me the Supreme Court Justice’s opinions and the petitioner’s and respondent’s briefs. I will then use the opinions and the briefs to conduct my analysis. Furman v Georgia, 480 U.S. 238 (1972) Furman v Georgia is the first Supreme …show more content…
279 (1987) (Blackmun, J., Dissenting Opinion) This primary source is another dissenting opinion. This dissenting opinion was written by Justice Blackmun. This source includes Justice Blackmun’s analysis of the case and his vote. The analysis of the justice concluded that the petitioner’s rights were violated. He concluded that the petitioner proved his equal protection rights were violated after the presentation of the study and its findings. This opposing opinion will give me another point of view to take into account when I writing my own analysis. McCleskey v Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987) (Stevens, J., Dissenting Opinion) This is another dissenting opinion that was written by Justice Stevens. This primary source includes Justice Stevens’ analysis and vote. Justice Stevens also concluded that the petitioner’s rights were violated. In his analysis he concluded that racial prejudice was very probable in the petitioner’s sentencing process. This is another opposing view that I have to take into account. This source will provide me even more
Was this an issue over Dr Glucksberg bringing suit in federal district court seeking a declaration that the Washington state law violated a liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The case was heard by the United States Supreme Court. 5. Ruling and Reasoning Chief Justice Rehnquist was the judge who wrote the majority opinion for the court. He reversed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that a ban on physician-assisted suicide symbolized
The United States Supreme Court played significant role in deciding cases regarding property rights. Originally there were many misunderstandings between companies and individuals, corporate and private interests, Native Americans and U.S. laws. These misunderstandings created tensions between different parties and had to be resolved by the Supreme Court. There are many cases that deal with contracts, due process clause, or takings clause and different interests that were at stake; the four cases to review in detail are Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), University of North Carolina v. Foy (1805), Taylor v porter and Ford (1843), and Proprietors of the Charles River Bridge v. Proprietors of the Warren Bridge (1837). Johnson v. McIntosh (21 U.S. 543
With a lot of things going on in the land and not very many laws being enforced , it was good to see that this one was applied correctly to the case. I agree with Justice Alito when he writes that there are other means that the government could guarantee that women will have admission to the four contraceptives which were a problem in the case in court. In fact, Justice Alito transcribes, the system the government arranged to permit workers of religious nonprofit administrations to get some access to these contraceptives would serve the world of for-profit companies also. Going forward it also sends a message to other corporations that might be going through a similar
More specifically whether the exclusion of black jurors violated to the defendant’s right to an impartial jury. The question was if retroactive Supreme Court decisions be implicated to selective cases. After reviewing the case, the Supreme Court held that once a new rule has been ruled upon in a case, “the integrity of judicial review requires that we apply that rule to all similar cases pending on direct review.” (Griffith v. Kentucky, n.d.). The Court ruled that applying rules to cases selectively, and not by similarity is
The judgement of this case was
The case of Skinner v. Oklahoma was argued on May 6th, 1942 and decided on June 1st, 1942. The Oklahoma Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act provided sterilization for a man or woman crimes involving “moral turpitude.” Oklahoma defined a "habitual offender" as someone who had been convicted two or more times which amounted to felonies involving moral turpitude and in result was sentenced to imprisonment. In this case, Jack T. Skinner had been convicted of three crimes, one for stealing a chicken and the other two for armed robbery.
In McClesky v. Kemp the Supreme Court held that a study showing the death penalty in Georgia was imposed on black defendants disproportionately to white defendants failed to establish that any of the decision makers involved in the process acted with a discriminatory purpose. McClesky is a notable case in several respects. First, it highlighted the integrated nature of the criminal justice system and how each component functions to reach a certain result. Second, it emphasized the debate on which actors in the justice system have the most power and what role that power plays in reaching the result. Third, the case also underscored the importance on prosecutors keeping records of their decisions at varying stages of the criminal justice process.
They could not agree on many aspects of the case, as two majority opinions and four minority opinions were filed. They explained that they made their decision based on the fact that the state of Florida violated the 14th Amendment by enacting a recount, the Equal Protection Clause specifically. This clause requires the federal government to respect, maintain, and uphold the legal rights of American citizens. Government cannot infringe on the civil rights of the people.
Dissenting opinions by Justice Thomas and Justice O’Connor use Justice Scalia’s version of textualism to come to a conclusion. Justice Steven’s majority opinion was wrong to decide this case in the way it did for various reasons. He selectively ignores precedents that are damaging to the argument he is trying to build and misinterprets some of the precedents he does choose to use. Second both Justice Stevens and Justice Kennedy erroneously refused to recognize the fundamental
Opinion of the Court Chief Justice Warren delivered the
The citizens committee found this as a test on the constitutionality of the separate car laws. The reasoning for this was stated that each state could have individual laws for the specific state. These laws were not limited to just the cars, but to schools, hotels, and even restaurants. Only one man had open opinions about the verdict, his name was Justice John Marshall Harlan. He informed others that the constitution was being violated and risked the possibility of legalizing race discrimination although the constitution saw no color.
In 2005, however, Supreme Court, granted to review the Ninth Circuit ruling and as a result overturned the Ninth Circuit ruling and ruled that California’s policy of assigning inmates to racially segregated cells constitutionally suspect and the Court dismissed the “separate but equal” policy (Grumberger, 274). Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote, “We rejected the notion that separate can ever be equal.. 50 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education, and we refuse to resurrect it today,” As a result the court ruled that policies that create race-based classifications are subject to strict scrutiny (Noll, 849). Strict scrutiny is the level of review used when a fundamental constitutional right is infringed, or when the government action involves
He believed that it was unconstitutional to get an increased sentence based on the evidence that was given. His argument was that according to the due process clause it must be proven beyond reasonable doubt to a jury. He claimed it wasn’t constitutional for a judge to make that ruling just based on the evidence presented to him. The main question of this case was whether the fourth amendment requires that an improved maximum prison term for an offense of ten to twenty years be proven with facts beyond the reasonable
Another issue that was discussed is the inequality of death penalty in practice. There have been serious issues with racial discrimination. For reference in cases with white victims and black defendants convictions occurred twenty two percent of the time while with black victims and white defendants with percentage dropped to a measly three
However, each section also has established case precedence that assists in determining constitutionality. Cases that can be associated with the law are: Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), Brandenburg v. Ohio (1968), Cohen v. California (1971), and Virginia v. Black (2003). Further, specifically regarding section (a), Cohen v. California (1971) is extremely important. Analysis of Enacted