@article{ref1,
title=""Hang Them if They Have to be Hung": Mitigation Discourse, Black Families, and Racial Stereotypes",
journal="New criminal law review",
year="2009",
author="Lane, Alycee",
volume="12",
number="2",
pages="171-204",
abstract="This article examines how mitigation discourse fails to address the racial implications of presenting to white jurors a narrative of a black capital defendant's dysfunctional family life. Given the plethora of racist configurations in the public sphere of &quot;the black family&quot;—signified most perniciously through the figure of the &quot;welfare queen&quot;—the telling of a black defendant's dysfunctional family life may in fact reinforce what white jurors &quot;already know&quot; about black families. Indeed, since &quot;the black family&quot; figures not as an object of sympathy but of contempt, presenting uncritically mitigating evidence of a black capital defendant's family story may, in the end, provide to a white-dominated capital jury an opportunity to punish not only the black defendant but also &quot;the black family&quot; writ large.<p />",
language="",
issn="1933-4192",
doi="10.1525/nclr.2009.12.2.171",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nclr.2009.12.2.171"
}