Race, Crime, and the Law

Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Grand Prize

In this groundbreaking, powerfully reasoned, lucid work, Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy uncovers the long-standing failure of the justice system to protect blacks from criminals; engages the debate over the wisdom and legality of using racial criteria in jury selection; analyzes the responses of the legal system to accusations that appeals to racial prejudice have rendered trials unfair; examines the idea that, under certain circumstances, members of one race are statistically more likely to be involved in crime than members of another; and probes allegations that blacks are victimized on a widespread basis by racially discriminatory prosecutions and punishments.

"Rarely if ever has anyone systematically and cogently addressed as many of the vexing issues persisting in American society... It is hard to imagine any politician or scholar or, for that matter, any Supreme Court Justice staking out a credible position on the matters it discusses without taking Kennedy's position into account."
--The New York Times

"A must-read, an analytical tour de force that challenges readers to go beyond ideology to resolve the most vexing questions of race and justice."
--Stuart Taylor, Jr., American Lawyer

"An original, wise and courageous work that moves beyond sterile arguments and lifts the discussion of race and justice to a new and more hopeful level."
--Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

"An admirable, courageous, and meticulously fair and honest book."
--The New York Times Book Review

"This book should be a standard for all law students."
--The Boston Globe

"An ambitious and fair-minded analysis."
--Alan Mass, New York Law Journal

CONTENTS

Foreword

1. The Race Question in Criminal Law: Changing the Politics of the Conflict

2. History: Unequal Protection

3. History: Unequal Enforcement

4. Race, Law, and Suspicion: Using Color as a Proxy for Dangerousness

5. Race and the Composition of Juries: Setting the Ground Rules

6. Race and the Composition of Juries: The Peremptory Challenge

7. Race and the Composition of Juries: From Antidiscrimination to Imposing Diversity

8. Playing the Race Card in a Criminal Trial

9. Race, Law, and Punishment: The Death Penalty

10. Race, Law, and Punishment: The War on Drugs

Afterword