# McCleskey v. Kemp *McCleskey v. Kemp* (1987) is the Supreme Court decision holding that statistical evidence of racial disparity in death sentencing does not establish an equal-protection violation. [[Lewis Powell]] wrote the majority; Brennan and Stevens dissented. The evidence was the **Baldus study**, which found that defendants accused of killing white victims were **4.3 times more likely** to be sentenced to death than those accused of killing Black victims, controlling for hundreds of variables — a disparity closer to elevenfold in the unadjusted data. Powell accepted the finding and ruled it insufficient anyway, reasoning that sentencing disparities are *"an inevitable part of our criminal justice system."* That move — conceding the pattern while denying it has constitutional significance without proof of intent in the individual case — is why the decision matters far beyond capital punishment. It set the evidentiary bar that systemic-discrimination claims have had to clear ever since. In **1991**, retired, Powell told his biographer he regretted his vote and had come to believe capital punishment should be abolished. > [!note] Stub — fill out > To expand: Warren McCleskey's case, the Baldus methodology and its reception, Brennan's dissent on "a fear of too much justice," the decision's downstream effect on disparate-impact litigation, and the EJI/LDF campaign against it. ## See Also - [[Lewis Powell]] — author of the majority, who later recanted - [[Regents of the University of California v. Bakke]] — his other landmark race opinion - [[Systemic Racism]] — the category of claim the ruling made near-unprovable