Argument Against Exception

The final argument that was presented was that the plaintiff has to prove that there was intent to discriminate in order to establish an equal protection violation. Under this argument the respondents claim that the courts have consistently ruled that intent must be established in order to back up any claims of violations. They claimed that previous courts have conceded that “the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal laws but not equal results” . They argued that the plaintiff has failed to meet the burden of proof because the statistical study provided is ultimately flawed.
On the counter side of the case, the petitioner’s main representative was John Charles Boger. He was the main attorney that represented the petitioner’s case in front …show more content…
The respondent claimed that the study was conducted based off of incomplete information. However; the petitioner claimed that Professor Baldus did extensive research trying to find other sources of information. For example the cases in the study he used the trial transcripts, files, and briefs to acquire the most complete and accurate information. They argued that the District Court, who found that the study was invalid, was wrong when they assumed that the study had to incorporate every aspect of every case. They contended that this assumption is a flawed standard of proof. The petitioner also countered the respondent’s argument of other studies not revealing racial discrimination in the sentencing process. The petitioner disputed this claim by providing other amicus briefs. These amicus briefs contained studies that showed a correlation between racial discrimination and the sentencing process. The petitioner stated that the real issue at hand is whether or not the plaintiff received his death sentence due in part because of his race and the race of his victim. If so it is the up to the justices to right the plaintiff’s infringed rights and not to disregard …show more content…
The main members of the public that voiced their views of the ruling were both the media and the scholarly community. A couple examples of the media’s take on the case are two newspaper articles. The first article was in the Washington Post and was written by Ruth Marcus. In the article she expressed her opinion that the Supreme Court ruling reflected the courts willingness to uphold the death penalty. After she reviewed public polls about the favorability of the death penalty, she concluded that the popular opinion of the death penalty has gone up since the Furman v Georgia case. She claims that there may be some kind of correlation between the increasing popular opinion and the Supreme Court’s ruling in the McCleskey case. She also claimed that the outcome may very well have changed if popular opinion shifted towards opposition of the death