by: Christina Robinson This blog post attempts to shed light on a fatal inconsistency in criminal law. Under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, Americans have the right to be free from purposeful discrimination based on race. Yet it is easier for defendants to succeed in making an Equal Protection claim in the context of […]
BY: MARIA ORDONEZ Timothy Lee Hurst was charged and convicted with the gruesome May 2, 1998, killing of Cynthia Harrison during a robbery at the Popeye’s restaurant in Escambia County, Florida, where they were both employed. After he was granted a new sentencing trial because of counsel’s ineffective assistance[1], Hurst was again sentenced to death […]
BY: LAUREN MADDOX In 1986, the Supreme Court decided Batson v. Kentucky, holding that use of peremptory challenges to remove jurors from the jury pool based on race is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[1] The following year, Timothy Tyrone Foster, an 18-year-old black male, was convicted and sentenced to […]
