McCleskey v. Kemp
Citation
481 U.S. 279 (1987). Supreme Court of the United States.
Facts
Warren McCleskey, a Black man, was convicted of murdering a white police officer in Georgia and sentenced to death. He presented the Baldus study — a sophisticated statistical analysis showing that defendants convicted of killing white victims were 4.3 times more likely to receive the death penalty in Georgia, and that race of the defendant also played a significant role.
Issue
Does statistical evidence of racial disparity in capital sentencing in a given state violate the Equal Protection Clause or the Eighth Amendment as applied to a specific defendant’s sentence?
Holding
The Court held that statistical evidence of systemic racial disparity is insufficient to establish an Equal Protection or Eighth Amendment violation in an individual case. To prevail, a defendant must show purposeful discrimination in his particular case.
Rule / Doctrine
Equal Protection requires proof of discriminatory intent in the specific decision challenged — not proof of systemic disparity in a broader system. Under Washington v. Davis and Arlington Heights, discriminatory purpose must be shown, not merely disparate impact. On the Eighth Amendment claim, the Court reasoned that discretion in capital sentencing is a feature, not a bug, and that some risk of racial bias is an “inevitable part of our criminal justice system.”
Significance
McCleskey remains one of the most contested capital punishment decisions. Dissent (Brennan) argued the majority ignored an unacceptable risk that race infected the defendant’s sentence. The decision effectively forecloses systemic racial challenges to capital punishment through constitutional litigation, channeling such challenges to legislative reform instead.