READING ASSIGNMENT # 4–CHAPTER 7. RACE AND SENTENCING: IN SEARCH OF FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE & CHAPTER 8. THE COLOR OF DEATH: RACE AND THE DEATH PENALTY
Date Due: MARCH 26, 2023
Possible Points: 100
Project Duration: 6- 8 hours
Deliverable Length: 2-3 pages
Please respond to ONE of the questions from each chapter. Each response should be 300 words or more. Your responses should be in your own words submitted via Turnitin thru canvas. Any assignment that shows signs of plagiarism or any tool of cheating will receive a “Zero”.
1. Do you agree or disagree with the argument (see Box 7.2) that crime seriousness and prior criminal record are not necessarily legally relevant variables? Justify your answer.
2. Why is evidence of racial disparity in sentencing not necessarily evidence of racial discrimination in sentencing? What are the alternative explanations? Which of these explanations is most convincing? Why?
2. Those who champion the appointment/election of racial minorities to the bench argue that African American and Hispanic judges could make a difference. Why? Does research comparing the sentencing decisions of white judges to those of African American or Hispanic judges confirm or refute this assumption?
3. Spohn and Spears’s study of sentencing decisions in sexual assault cases revealed that judges imposed the harshest sentences on African Americans who sexually assaulted whites (strangers or non-strangers) and on African Americans who sexually assaulted African American strangers. They imposed much more lenient sentences on African Americans who sexually assaulted African American friends, relatives, and acquaintances and on whites who victimized other whites (strangers or non-strangers). How would you explain this pattern of results?
4. As discussed in Box 7.8, African Americans are more likely than whites to be willing to serve time in prison rather than be sentenced to some alternative to incarceration such as electronic monitoring or intensive supervision probation. What accounts for these racial differences in perceptions of the severity of sanctions?
CHAPTER 8
1. Consider the five remedies for racial discrimination in capital sentencing (Box 8.6). Which do you believe is the appropriate remedy? Why?
2. Explain why Michael Radelet believes that the handful of executions of whites for crimes against African Americans are not really “exceptions to the rule.”
3. Gregg v. Georgia, the Supreme Court assumed that racial discrimination would not be a problem under the guided-discretion statutes enacted in the wake of the Furman decision. Does the empirical evidence support or refute this assumption?
4. In 1994, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun stated that it was futile to continue to “tinker with the machinery of death.” Although those who advocate abolishing the death penalty agree with this assessment, advocates of reform contend that the death penalty can be “fixed.” Summarize their arguments.