Elliot,
the Baldus study *might* be a poor enough effort
that we shouldn't bother trying to figure what it said,
and whether one court or another made good use of it --
On Fri, 16 Mar 2001 16:31:15 -0500, Elliot Cramer
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Mar 2001, Rich Ulrich wrote:
>
> > Elliot,
> >
> > It appears to me that Arnold Barnett is guilty
> > of a serious misuse of statistical argument.
[ snip, various, mine and his. Elliot had posted an article from
Barnett, concerning statistics offered for a court case.]
EC >
> The point of the article is that the Supreme Court apparently understood
> the odd ratio to be a probability ratio. The US district court did not
> make this mistake and issued a devastating critique of the Baldus Study
> which used linear regression instead of logistic regression, amongh other
> things. It was VERY inadequate in dealing with nature of the crime which
> is the most important consideration in the death penalty.
[ ... ]
When I searched on "Baldus study", Google included this page by the
Federation of American Scientists, with testimony to Congress in 1989.
The FAS is a lobbying organization whose testimony and data collection
have always been highly credible (and I have contributed money to FAS,
for years).
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1989_cr/s891018-drugs.htm
Statement of Edward S.G. Dennis, Jr., Assistant Attorney
General, Criminal Division
[ ... ]
"There appears to be a misconception that McCleskey involved
a judicial finding of systemic discrimination in the
imposition of the death penalty, and the upholding of
capital punishment despite such a finding. Any such reading
of the Court's opinion is contrary to fact. As I will
discuss in greater detail below, the district court in
McCleskey found that the empirical study on which the
systemic discrimination claim was based was seriously
flawed. The Supreme Court, in reviewing the case, did not
question the accuracy of the district court's findings. "
"In McCleskey, the defendant submitted a statistical study,
the Baldus study, that purported to show that a disparity in
the imposition of the death penalty in Georgia was
attributable to the race of the murder victim and, to a
lesser extent, the race of the defendant. Id. at 286. The
defendant argued that the Baldus study demonstrated that his
rights had been violated under the Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendments. "
[ ... ]
"Second, as noted above, the Supreme Court simply assumed
that the Baldus study was statistically accurate in order to
reach the defendant's constitutional arguments. The record
is clear, however, that the Baldus study was significantly
flawed. As the Supreme Court noted, the district court in
the McCleskey care had examined the Baldus study `with
case,' following `an extensive evidentiary hearing.' 481
U.S. at 287. In the course of a thoughtful and exhaustive
opinion, the district court found that the Baldus study was
unpersuasive. Among many other things, the district court
found that the data compiled as the basis for the study was
incomplete and contained `substantial flaws' and that the
defendant had not established by a preponderance of the
evidence that the data was `essentially trustworthy.'
McCleskey v. Zant, 580 F. Supp. 338, 360 (N.D. Ga. 1984). 1
"1 See also the Supreme Court's summary of the flaws in the
Baldus study found by the district court. 481 U.S. at 288
n.6. "
=================== end of cite
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
=================================================================
Instructions for joining and leaving this list and remarks about
the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES are available at
http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/
=================================================================
