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Killing with Prejudice
Killing with Prejudice
Institutionalized Racism in American Capital Punishment (2019)
Institutionalized Racism in American Capital Punishment (2019)
A history of the McCleskey v. Kemp Supreme Court ruling that effectively condoned racism in capital cases.
In 1978 Warren McCleskey, a black man, killed a white police officer in Georgia. He was convicted by a jury of 11 whites and 1 African American, and was sentenced to death. Although McCleskey’s lawyers were able to prove that Georgia courts applied the death penalty to blacks who killed whites four times as often as when the victim was black, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence in McCleskey v.Kemp, thus institutionalizing the idea that racial bias was acceptable in the capital punishment system. After a thirteen-year legal journey, McClesky was executed in 1991.
In Killing with Prejudice, R.J. Maratea chronicles the entire litigation process which culminated in what has been called “the Dred Scott decision of our time.” Ultimately, the Supreme Court chose to overlook compelling empirical evidence that revealed the discriminatory manner in which the assailants of African Americans are systematically undercharged and the aggressors of white victims are far more likely to receive a death sentence. He draws a clear line from the lynchings of the Jim Crow era to the contemporary acceptance of the death penalty and the problem of mass incarceration today.
The McCleskey decision underscores the racial, socioeconomic, and gender disparities in modern American capital punishment, and the case is fundamental to understanding how the death penalty functions for the defendant, victims, and within the American justice system as a whole.
Reviews
R.J. Maratea's erudite history of arguably the most toxic Supreme Court case of the post-civil rights era is a stunning achievement. It is a rare book that highlights how structural racism - borne of a deeply cynical and callous jurisprudence and criminal justice policy - legitimizes taken for granted logics that continue to deny full citizenship to people of color in the U.S. today. -- Benjamin Fleury-Steiner, Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware
Maratea's coverage of the McCleskey case and related ones is exquisite because it moves beyond "the facts" to show the thinking of the Justices. An illuminating, detailed examination. -- Shaun L. Gabbidon, Distinguished Professor of Criminal Justice, Penn State Harrisburg
The book paints a picture of how capital punishment and the criminal justice system itself are institutionally biased against nonwhite people, and African Americans in particular. To make this case, Maratea moves across centuries, starting from slavery (and the Constitution's accommodations for it) to lynchings in the Jim Crow era to the recent deaths of Eric Garner and Philando Castile...Maratea's conclusion, rigorously supported and unflinching, is that prosecutors, jurors, and society generally need to overcome the unconscious biases they hold that end up disadvantaging people of color. The analysis in Killing with Prejudice may leave readers unconvinced that there are any easy fixes to this problem, but that is arguably Maratea's point. -- Harvard Law Review (Full Review)
In this thoughtful and disturbing account, the author traces the story of [the Supreme Court decision in McCleskey v. Kemp]...Provocative reading for anyone concerned about the intersection of race and capital punishment. -- Kirkus Reviews (Full Review)
This is an important work for those teaching and studying at the intersection of race, crime, and justice...Maratea has written a clear-eyed, passionate scholarly interrogation of the role of race and the death penalty in southern justice. This is a laudable work of history, sociology, and criminal justice, which in Maratea's estimation, depicts a criminal justice system built on racism under a "thin camouflage." -- David Niven, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Cincinnati in Journal of Criminal Justice Education (Full Review)
Maratea's analysis of McCleskey makes it clear that McCleskey was merely a cog in what Justice Brennan called the "machinery of death." The book is not merely about whether McCleskey was guilty but instead asks tougher questions about whether America can fairly sentence Black defendants like McCleskey to death, given its history of racism. In this way, the book seeks to unpack why American courts have disproportionately condemned Black defendants to die and what that says about us as a society. -- Nick Petersen and Ahzin Bahraini, University of Miami, Coral Gables in Criminal Justice Review (Full Review)
A well organized and very well written book that underscores the centrality of McCleskey v. Kemp in modern understandings of the death penalty. -- Isaac Unah, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Maratea'a book arrives at a highly relevant time, as hate crimes are rising, open expressions of racial prejudice are once again common, and the Supreme Court has recently shown a renewed appetite for executions. In his analysis of the racial dynamics of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and modern structural racism, the author offers compelling evidence of what Justice William Brennan, in his dissent to McCleskey v. Kemp, called "the grip of a historical legacy spanning centuries...the subtle and persistent influence of the past." The Court's retreat both from substantive justice and from procedural fairness in the two McCleskey decisions not only revealed the malign influence of the past, but also extend it into the future. -- Margaret Vandiver, Professor Emerita of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Memphis (Full Review)
Maratea places the McCleskey case and his personal circumstances within the context of the history of racism in the criminal justice system. He documents the fact that the imposition of the death penalty was and continues to be racially biased – an atavistic link to Jim Crow laws, an embarrassment to due process, and an affront to the Constitution. -- Gennaro F. Vito, Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Louisville
Social Problems in Popular Culture (2016)
Social Problems in Popular Culture (2016)
Popular culture is more than just a broad term for entertainment and frivolous diversions; it is also highly relevant to our understanding of society. This exciting book is the first to offer insights into the important, but often overlooked, relationship between popular culture and social problems. Drawing on historical and topical examples, the authors apply an innovative theoretical framework to examine how facets of popular culture—from movies and music to toys, games, billboards, bumper stickers, and bracelets—shape how we think about, and respond to, social issues, such as problems of gender, sexuality, and race.
Reviews
The best book for social problems if you want to connect with students who are immersed in popular culture. --- David Altheide, Emeritus Regents' Professor, Arizona State University
An original method of classifying the various ways social problems and popular culture intersect. Anyone who reads this book is likely to come away a more thoughtful consumer of all sorts of news and entertainment media. -- Joel Best, University of Delaware
Offering up-to-the-minute illustrations of cultural trends and accessible explanations of enduring sociological concepts, Maratea and Monahan deftly explore how corporations, politicians, advocates and activists use popular culture to shape the public’s response to social problems. -- Jared Del Rosso, University of Denver
A fresh perspective on the construction of social problems, not found in traditional textbooks. Students from any major will find new and applicable ways of thinking about social problems in our culture and media. -- Amie Levesque, University of Denver
Race and the Death Penalty
Race and the Death Penalty
The Legacy of McCleskey v. Kemp (2016)
The Legacy of McCleskey v. Kemp (2016)
In what has been called the Dred Scott decision of our times, the US Supreme Court found in McCleskey v. Kemp that evidence of overwhelming racial disparities in the capital punishment process could not be admitted in individual capital cases―in effect institutionalizing a racially unequal system of criminal justice. Exploring the enduring legacy of this radical decision nearly three decades later, the authors of Race and the Death Penalty examine the persistence of racial discrimination in the practice of capital punishment, the dynamics that drive it, and the human consequences of both.
Reviews
Does a marvelous job of balancing the historical and contemporary narratives of how race and racism interact with the ongoing application of the death penalty.... Keys and Maratea have rejuvenated the dialogue. -- Scott Wm. Bowman, Texas State University
A book as well-indexed as it is well-cited, allowing the reader to easily drill-down into areas of interest. -- Tim Lyman, Northeastern University (Read Full Review)
The Politics of the Internet
The Politics of the Internet
Political Claimsmaking in Cyberspace and Its Effect on Modern Political Activism (2014)
Political Claimsmaking in Cyberspace and Its Effect on Modern Political Activism (2014)
Winner of the Society for the Study of Social Problems 2014 Social Problems Theory Outstanding Book Award
In The Politics of the Internet: Political Claims-making in Cyberspace and Its Effect on Modern Political Activism, R.J. Maratea examines the Internet’s effect on political claims-making and protest action to show how online technology is helping to shape popular opinion about political issues. The Internet hosts a vast collection of interconnected public cyber-arenas where political claims are continuously disseminated to audiences and social reality is in a perpetual state of negotiation. Unlike more static forms of print and television communication, cyber-arenas can be expanded to carry a nearly infinite amount of claims in a variety of multimedia formats, which can be rapidly disseminated to global audiences for relatively little cost. The corresponding rise of citizen journalism and emergent forms of cyber-activism seemingly reflect how the Internet is revolutionizing the ways claimants attract audiences, acquire resources, and mobilize support, as well as the ways that mainstream journalists report on matters of political importance.
Reviews
R. J. Maratea’s book answers many significant questions about the nature, impact, and future of political claims-making in our mediated era of digital communication. This is the next step in understanding contested—and constructed—cyberspace from the vantage of citizen journalism to WikiLeaks to hybrid social movements (e.g., the Tea Party), and illuminates how political institutional players, such as the National Rifle Association, fire up their constituents. -- David L. Altheide, Emeritus Regents' Professor, Arizona State University
How does the Internet affect the ways social problems emerge and evolve? Cyber-optimists insist we're living in a completely new world, where all claims have a chance to be heard. But The Politics of the Internet takes a hard look at the evidence and finds that old media and established advocates remain key actors in determining which issues command public attention. -- Joel Best, University of Delaware
This thoughtful, accessible and engaging book examines the complex intersections of media technology, politics, power, and social action. Maratea’s innovative conceptualization of the Internet as a cyber-arena provides important insights into how new media technologies may be changing the landscape of political activism by fundamentally restructuring how we create, receive, and act upon political communications in the digital age. -- Brian Monahan, Baldwin Wallace University
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