Whether a defendant's rights to the effective assistance of counsel, a fair and impartial jury, to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, and to the guarantee of equal protection under the laws, protected by the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, protect against the introduction of evidence and argument that calls forth and projects to the jury the poisonous racial stereotype of an African American defendant as a 'black brute' who preys on vulnerable white women

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Racism is America’s original sin. It plagued this country’s founding, wrenched it apart in civil war, and despite some progress, continues to produce unequal results in all avenues of society, including the criminal justice system. Curtis Clinton’s death penalty case did not escape racism’s destructive reach. The trial court, the State, and Clinton’s counsel allowed a vicious racial stereotype to infect Clinton’s trial. The trial court permitted an unrelated rape case to be joined and tried with the murder case for which Clinton received a death sentence, and it allowed the State to introduce evidence of a prior involuntary manslaughter. These rulings allowed the State to promote the highly prejudicial racial stereotype of the “black brute” who preys on vulnerable white women. Clinton’s trial attorneys did nothing to stop this stereotype from taking root and infesting his trial. Clinton’s case thus raises a critical concern of national importance: whether and to what extent our system of justice tolerates the noxious use of deeply-rooted racial stereotypes. Accordingly, Clinton presents the following questions to this Court: 1. Whether a defendant’s rights to the effective assistance of counsel, a fair and impartial jury, to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, and to the guarantee of equal protection under the laws, protected by the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, protect against the introduction of evidence and argument that calls forth and projects to the jury the poisonous racial stereotype of an African American defendant as a “black brute” who preys on vulnerable white women. i 2. Whether lower courts need standards for detecting and remedying the more subtle but just as noxious forms of racism that plague the criminal justice system and violate a defendants’ Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. ii