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"The Racial Geography of the Federal Death Penalty"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this notable new piece about the federal death penalty now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract: Scholars have devoted substantial attention to both the over-representation of African-Americans on federal death row and the disproportionate number of federal defendants charged capitally for the murder of white victims.  This attention has not provided an adequate explanation for (much less resolution of) these disquieting racial disparities.  Little research has addressed the unusual geography of the federal death penalty, in which a small number of jurisdictions are responsible for the vast majority of federal death sentences.  By addressing the unique geography, we identify a possible explanation for the racial distortions in the federal death penalty: that federal death sentences occur disproportionately where the expansion of the venire from the county to the district level has a dramatic demographic impact on the racial make-up of the jury...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on February 04, 2010 (boomark / email).