Your final assignment involves United States v. Bass, No. 01-1471, a real-life case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reversed a Sixth Circuit opinion upholding a federal court's decision to grant defendant John Bass's discovery motion based on selective prosecution.
Bass, the defendant, alleged that the government was seeking the death penalty against him because of his race and was granted a motion for discovery regarding the government's capital charging practices. The Sixth Circuit found that Bass made a threshold showing based on national statistics that "the United States charged Blacks with a death-eligible offense more than twice as often as it charges Whites.".
The Supreme Court, however, found that Bass didn't make a threshold showing for a selective prosecution case, which requires evidence of a discriminatory effect and discriminatory intent. The Supreme Court reversed the Sixth Circuit, holding that a discriminatory effect couldn't be found because "raw statistics regarding overall charges say nothing about charges brought against similarly situated defendants.