Stephens v. Kemp, Superintendent, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center

Justice Brennan, with whom Justice Marshall joins,

dissenting.

The petitioner Alpha Otis O’Daniel Stephens has been condemned to death by electrocution. In this second petition for federal habeas relief, Stephens contends, inter alia, that he received the death penalty pursuant to a pattern and practice of racial discrimination in the administration of Georgia’s capital sentencing system, in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Specifically, he points to recently available statistical studies allegedly demonstrating a persistent and pronounced disparity in capital sentencing in…