{"id":5584,"date":"2019-10-24T16:14:02","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T23:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/humanrights\/?p=5584"},"modified":"2019-11-19T11:37:11","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T19:37:11","slug":"chr-justice-award-beckett-evans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/humanrights\/2019\/10\/24\/chr-justice-award-beckett-evans\/","title":{"rendered":"CHR Justice Award Recognizes Faculty Research Which Helped Abolish the Death Penalty in Washington State"},"content":{"rendered":"

At our 10-year anniversary celebration in May 2019, the UW Center for Human Rights proudly named Professors Katherine Beckett and Heather Evans as joint recipients of our second Justice Award, in recognition of their uniquely impactful research. On more than one occasion, their research has contributed directly to advances in human rights, most recently when the Washington State Supreme Court relied on their findings to strike down the state\u2019s death penalty statute,<\/strong> based on racial disparities and arbitrariness in the application of capital punishment. The Center\u2019s inaugural Justice Award was presented to state Attorney General Bob Ferguson<\/a> in 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beckett and Evans\u2019 research on the death penalty began in 2012, when they were contacted by attorneys Lila Silverstein and Neil Fox. \u201cThey had a case involving an African-American defendant and they were looking for a researcher to assess whether there were unwarranted racial disparities in the imposition of the death penalty in Washington state,\u201d says Beckett, a Professor in the Departments of Sociology and Law, Societies & Justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was the beginning of six years of painstaking research, which included coding hundreds of cases of capital crimes, and eventually sparring with a state-appointed expert. \u201cWe pretty much handed over everything and said, here\u2019s what we were working with to come up with these results. And the state\u2019s expert said, \u2018I can\u2019t replicate their results given these data\u2019, which was a little stunning for us\u201d recalls Evans, a lecturer for the Departments of Sociology and Law, Societies & Justice as well as the Disability Studies Program.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Beckett and Evans\u2019 results were solid: Black defendants in Washington state were more than four times as likely to be sentenced to death<\/strong><\/a> than defendants of any other race after taking legally relevant case characteristics into account. The challenge by the state\u2019s expert \u201cwas a way of testing every possible scenario,\u201d says Evans. Evans was even able to reproduce an error by the state\u2019s expert which led to the failure to replicate their findings. \u201cThere was no room left to argue that what we found wasn\u2019t valid,\u201d she says. \u201cSo then it was just a matter of, is this enough to persuade the Supreme Court?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Supreme Court\u2019s decision came in October 2018, with the majority citing Beckett and Evans\u2019 research as evidence of racial disproportionality constituting cruel punishment. The outcome was the effective end of capital punishment in Washington, with the sentences of 8 men on death row converted to life without the possibility of parole.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt had become clear that the state\u2019s serial murderers, who are white, were not getting the death penalty, and it\u2019s pretty hard to argue that they\u2019re not the worst of the worst,\u201d says Beckett. \u201cSo I think it was intuitive to them already that there was arbitrariness in the system. I think their finding of racial bias was probably more linked to our research.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While their research had undeniable impact, it was not without risks. \u201cWe weren\u2019t able to find a top-tier sociology journal that would publish this,\u201d Evans recalls. Beckett continues, \u201cBecause from their perspective, yeah, of course race matters, what\u2019s new here?!?\u201d Evans, who began this research as a graduate student, points out that these risks are especially acute for junior colleagues entering the job market: \u201cThere is a balance to be struck in terms of doing work that is meaningful but that still will allow you to have an academic career.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems clear that Beckett and Evans are successfully striking that balance. \u201cKatherine\u2019s career reflects many projects that have had a direct impact,\u201d<\/strong> Evans says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve been fortunate in terms of the partnerships that I\u2019ve been able to form\u2014in many cases with Heather\u2014we\u2019ve been connected to the right people at the right time to make a change. Sometimes that\u2019s been through a legislative process and sometimes it\u2019s through the courts. And sometimes it\u2019s just because you wear people down!\u201d Beckett laughs, explaining, \u201cI worked on racial inequality in drug law enforcement for many years with the Racial Disparity Project, and they never won a case, but they definitely wore people down. And the result of that was the creation of a pre-booking diversion program in King County that\u2019s now being adopted all over the country. That was the result of just annoying people for a very long period of time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut it was annoying them with solid, rigorous, data!\u201d Evans quips.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more about Katherine Beckett and Heather Evans\u2019 research in Columns, the UW alumni magazine.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At our 10-year anniversary celebration in May 2019, the UW Center for Human Rights proudly named Professors Katherine Beckett and Heather Evans as joint recipients of our second Justice Award, in recognition of their uniquely impactful research. Their research has contributed directly to advances in human rights, most recently when the Washington State Supreme Court relied on their findings to strike down the state\u2019s death penalty statute.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":492,"featured_media":5589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[253,15,19],"tags":[256,81,142,318,161],"class_list":["post-5584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2018-2019","category-news","category-rethinking-punishment","tag-death-penalty","tag-faculty-research","tag-rethinking-punishment","tag-uwchr-justice-award","tag-washington-state"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCHR Justice Award Recognizes Faculty Research Which Helped Abolish the Death Penalty in Washington State - Center for Human Rights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/humanrights\/2019\/10\/24\/chr-justice-award-beckett-evans\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CHR Justice Award Recognizes Faculty Research Which Helped Abolish the Death Penalty in Washington State - Center for Human Rights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At our 10-year anniversary celebration in May 2019, the UW Center for Human Rights proudly named Professors Katherine Beckett and Heather Evans as joint recipients of our second Justice Award, in recognition of their uniquely impactful research. 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