In the case of the Martinsville Seven, a series of state and federal court rulings rejected the defendants’ allegations regarding racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty; Judge Doubles, for instance, ruled that there was no evidence of racial discrimination in the actions of the six juries that sentenced the seven men to death. In McCleskey v. Kemp, the U.S. Supreme Court similarly ruled that there was insufficient evidence “to support an inference that any of the decision-makers in McCleskey’s case acted with discriminatory purpose.” Assume that you are the lawyer representing an African-American offender who has been sentenced to death.
a) What types of evidence would you need to convince the appellate courts that decision makers in your client’s case had “acted with discriminatory purpose”?
b) Is it realistic to assume that any offender can meet this burden of proof?
