Wednesday, November 08, 2023

McCleskey v Kemp: SCOTUS ERROR & LEGAL DECEPTION

McCleskey v Kemp: SCOTUS ERROR & LEGAL DECEPTION

From:  Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom  

Preface

McCleskey v Kemp (Georgia) is the infamous race based death penalty case decided by the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in 1987.

Nearly, every academic and/or anti-death penalty group either lies about this case or is, willfully, ignorant, just as those in the media world,  . . . since 1984/1987. 

All who fact check and vet would have known reality in 1984, with Federal District Court Judge Owen Forrester's opinion (1,2) and 2012, at the latest, with Scheidegger's excellent article (2).

I became aware of this systemic fraud, ignorance and/or deception, around 1998..

Can one fail to fact check and vet, accidently? Of course not.

The Baldus' Georgia Study (BS)

The BS, allegedly, proved racism within the death penalty system in Georgia. Not close.

" ... Baldus et al. failed to prove (and the State’s experts succeeded in rebutting) the basic claims made in the Baldus study. They did not just fail; they failed dismally. The Baldus study lay in shreds when Judge Forrester got through with it." (1)

The database, which, allegedly supported McCleskey's charge of racism, did no such thing and was, completely, unreliable (1,2).

"The best models which (David) Baldus was able to devise (within McCleskey v Georgia (Kemp)) which account to any significant degree for the major non-racial variables, including strength of the evidence, produce no statistically significant evidence that race plays a part in either [the prosecutor’s or the jury’s] decisions in the State of Georgia." (1)

"After a thorough review, Judge Forrester concluded that “the (Baldus) data base has substantial flaws and . . . petitioner has failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that it is essentially trustworthy." (1,2)

"The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, sitting en banc, commended the district court “for its outstanding endeavor” in analyzing the validity of the Baldus study, and there is little doubt that a review of the factual finding that the study was invalid would have been affirmed under the applicable “clearly erroneous” standard." (1)

Read Federal District Court Judge Forrester's full rejection of Baldus' database for McCleskey (2).

The more thorough review is provided by Joseph Katz, who did the methodological review of the Baldus database, which was rife with errors and problems and is what destroyed the Baldus study and was used by the state.

I have it if you cannot locate it.

Baldus' Philadelphia Study (BS-2)

pending and mentioned within (4), with Baldus, again, leaving out explaining the, now, standard, confusions and not correcting them again (6), 11 years after McCleskey.

Baldus' New Jersey Study (BS-3)

pending and mentioned within (1), with Judge Baime hired as a special master, after the BS-3 problems, with Baimes results reversing Baldus' findings (1). Looking for Princeton methodologist, John Tukey (3), a teacher of Katz, for his review of Baldus, which resulted in the hiring of the special master.

The US Supreme Court misunderstood the math involved. 

SCOTUS, ignorantly, wrote: "defendants charged with killing white victims were 4.3 times as likely to receive a death sentence as defendants charged with killing blacks."

Totally inaccurate,

It was by odds of 4.3 times, or an odds multiplier of 4.3, which can mean a difference as low as 2-4%, as opposed to the 330% difference represented by 4.3 times (4,5).

SCOTUS blew it big time on this. See the two articles (4,5), at bottom, for a complete review by math experts.

These two articles, below (4,5), give a good explanation of some core problem with David Baldus, in the McCleskey case and another of his reviews.

In closing

I am unaware of Baldus making any efforts to correct these many misconceptions, in McCleskey, in New Jersey or in Philadelphia (4) over the many years that he should have. Despicable. 

I debated Baldus on some of these issues.

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(1)  Rebutting the Myths About Race and the Death Penalty, Kent Scheidegger, 10 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 147 (2012)
sign in to SSRN and you can access it, here (it's free):

(2)  McCleskey v. Zant, 580 F. Supp. 338 (N.D. Ga. 1984) District Court, N.D. Georgia 

(3) Tukey had such an incredible life. I include his bio
I spoke with Tukey regarding his work on the Baldus study, in New Jersey

(4) "The Math Behind Race, Crime and Sentencing Statistics" 
By John Allen Paulos, Los Angeles Times, July 12, 1998 
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jul/12/opinion/op-2965

(5) See “The Odds of Execution” within “How numbers are tricking you”, by Arnold Barnett, MIT Technology Review October, 1994
https://geocities.restorativland.org/CapitolHill/4834/barnett.htm 
and

(6) Study Finds Death Penalty Unevenly Applied BY MAURA DOLAN, Los Angeles Times, JUNE 4, 1998,

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600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
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 Research, w/sources, w/fact checking/vetting & critical thinking, as required of anyone within a public policy debate and which rebut all anti-death penalty claims.
 
Most will realize that the media has been using only anti-death penalty claims and , then, failed to fact check, vet, not use critical thinking, with that research, while avoiding all pro-death penalty research and experts, for decades. How do I know most will realize this? Because they wouldn't have seen any of this, prior:
 
The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
(7 pro-death penalty experts listed)
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Partial CV