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Justices Stevens and Thomas on Race and the Death Penalty

By standdown

"Two Justices Clash Over Race and Death Penalty," is the Washington Post report by Jerry Markon. The sensitive issue of race and the death penalty triggered an unusual public debate yesterday between two Supreme Court justices. In respectful but pointed language, Justices John Paul Stevens and Clarence Thomas clashed over whether race could have influenced the imposition of the death sentence for Artemus Rick Walker, a black Georgia man convicted of killing a white bank vice president. The court rejects hundreds of cases each year, mostly without comment, and yesterday it declined to hear Walker's appeal. Stevens did not dissent from that decision. But he issued an eight-page statement saying he found the case "troubling" because it "involves a black defendant and a white victim...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on October 21, 2008 (boomark / email).