TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2000//
TI  - Race, Colonialism, and Criminal Law: Mexicans and the American Criminal Justice System in Territorial New Mexico
JO  - Law and society review
A1  - Gómez, Laura E.
SP  - 1129
EP  - 1202
VL  - 34
IS  - 4
N2  - A striking feature of the historical American criminal justice system has been the exclusion of racial minorities from decision-making positions, such as juror. In this study of criminal justice in a New Mexico county in the late 19th century, however, Mexicans are the vast majority of petit jurors, and frequently they decide the fates of European-American defendants. A regime of racial power-sharing between Mexicans and European-Americans characterized the administration of the criminal justice system. Racial power-sharing served the ends of American colonizers in legitimizing their governance after an initial violent occupation. Perhaps more surprisingly, it also served the ends of both elites and middle status Mexicans, at least some of the time. Criminal law-and, particularly, the jury as an institution-served both the colonizers and the colonized in this context.<p /> 
LA  - 
SN  - 0023-9216
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3115133
ID  - ref1
ER  -