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The Supreme Court: Mccleskey V. Kemp

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The Supreme Court is a part of the judicial branch of the United States government. They decide criminal and civil appeal cases that involve federal law. They also make sure that a law that congress or the president proposed is constitutional. There are nine Supreme Court judges. They have made decisions on racial segregation issues all the way to woman’s rights, including voting laws. One case in particular, McCleskey v. Kemp, was decided in The Supreme Court. Mccleskey v. Kemp was wrongly decided by the Georgia courts and then also by The Supreme Court, in which they decided that it did not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. McCleskey v. Kemp was one of the few cases to reach the high level of impact that this …show more content…

Powell. The Supreme Court ended up deciding that since McCleskey could not prove that purposeful discrimination which had a discriminatory effect on him existed in this specific case, there was no violation of the Constitution. Justice Powell refused to apply the statistical study in this case because of the unique circumstances and nature of the decisions that faced all juries in capital cases. Powell argued that the study that McCleskey showed would have been best if it was presented to legislative bodies and not the courts (McCleskey v. Kemp, 2017). In my opinion, I believe that this was a wrongdoing by The Supreme Court. I believe that the death penalty does break the Eighth Amendment. The death penalty, in my eyes, is always a cruel and unusual penalty. With that, I believe that the Fourteenth Amendment was broken in this sentencing too. This is because, if the victim was an African-American, then the sentencing would have been different. Same as if the offender was white and the victim was black or white. During these times in America, people still did not like the presence of African-Americans in our country. So if they did something wrong, they would get a harsher penalty. I am not the only one who believes this …show more content…

McCleskey v. Kemp is referred to today in cases related to this one. It also helps in decision making when it comes to cases of this type. Mccleskey v. Kemp was about a black man from Georgia who was sentenced to death for killing a white cop in a furniture store robbery. The Supreme Court decided that the case did not violate the Constitution in a 5-4 ruling. I believe however, and many others, that they are wrong and the death penalty and the whole situation of a black killing a white is violation of the Eighth and the Fourteenth

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