The Supreme Court has turned down an appeal asserting that the death penalty violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishments, Reuters reports. Only two of the court's eight justices — liberals Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — said they would have accepted the case.
The appeal was filed by Lamondre Tucker, who was sentenced to death for the 2008 murder of his 18-year-old girlfriend when she was five months pregnant. Tucker has argued that black males such as himself have an increased likelihood of being given the death penalty due to systemic issues of racism in Louisiana's Caddo Parish.
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