Question 1: Assume that racial minorities are more likely than whites to be detained prior to trial. Why is this a matter of concern? What are the consequences of pretrial detention? How could the bail system be reformed to reduce this disparity?
Question 2: Racial minorities comprise a very small proportion of the lawyers and judges in the United States. What accounts for this? What difference, if any, would it make if more of the lawyers representing criminal defendants were racial minorities?
Question 3: Do you agree or disagree with the Supreme Court's decision (Grutter v. Bollinger) in the case in which the University of Michigan Law School's admission procedures were challenged? What is the basis for your agreement or disagreement?
Question 4: What conclusions can you draw about the fairness of the plea-bargaining process from the recent research conducted by Kutateladze and his colleagues in New York City?
Question 5: Why do you think the U.S. Supreme Court decided to intervene in the Ed Johnson case (see "Focus on an Issue: The Lynching of an Innocent Man")?
Question 6: Evidence suggesting the prosecutors use their peremptory challenges to preserve all-white juries in cases involving African American or Hispanic defendants has led some commentators to call for the elimination of the peremptory challenge. What do you think is the strongest argument in favor of eliminating the peremptory challenge? In favor of retaining it?
Question 7: Why does Paul Butler advocate "racially based jury nullification"? Why does Randall Kennedy disagree with him?
Question 8: In this chapter, we present a number of examples of lawyers who "played the race card" in a criminal trial. Almost all of them involved prosecutors who appealed to the potential racist sentiments of white jurors. Does this represent misconduct? Why or why not? How should the judge respond?