justice

The various attacks on the proposed North Carolina Racial Justice Act, a bill that would allow capital defendants to present claims of racial bias to the court, are, at best, based on a lack of understanding, and at worst, emotional and misleading arguments used in an effort to obscure the issues.

Some critics claim that the use of statistics to show racial bias in death penalty cases is inappropriate, but these critics offer no alternatives. Statistical analysis provides the only way to understand the role of racial bias in a system.

Rigorous statistical analyses, grounded in actual information about the crimes and the charging and sentencing decisions relating to them, facilitate a nuanced understanding of the real role of race. The only alternative is willful blindness.

via RACE: Research Experts Say Racial Bias Still Exists in Death Penalty | Death Penalty Information Center.

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