Catherine M. Grosso
Professor of Law | Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI, UNITED STATES
Professor Grosso examines the role of race and other extralegal factors in criminal investigations and trials.
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Biography
Professor Grosso’s interdisciplinary scholarship examines the role of race and other extralegal factors in criminal investigations, trials, and the administration of capital punishment.
Her recent work examines the persistent role of race in jury selection and in charging and sentencing decisions relating to capital punishment.
Her National Science Foundation-sponsored project with Prof. Barbara O’Brien analyzed the ways stereotypes influence voir dire in capital cases. A third line of work empirically evaluates the success of death penalty statutes in fulfilling the Eighth Amendment narrowing requirements.
Professor Grosso is also the consulting editor of the National Registry of Exonerations, a virtual home for exoneration stories and also an accessible, searchable statistical database about the cases; and was co-president of Society of American Law Teachers from 2020-2022.
Professor Grosso was elected to the American Law Institute in 2022. She also has taught at Birzeit University in Palestine; and the University of Illinois College of Law. She studied at Earlham College and the University of Iowa College of Law.
Areas of Expertise (2)
Capital Punishment
Jury Selection and Race
Accomplishments (3)
MSU Distinguished Partnership Award for Community-Engaged Service (professional)
2021
MSU College of Law Class of 2020 Faculty Award (professional)
2020
MSU College of Law Donald F. Campbell Outstanding Teaching Award (professional)
2019
Education (2)
University of Iowa College of Law: J.D. 2001
Earlham College: B.A., International Studies (Middle East Concentration) 1990
Affiliations (2)
- American Law Institute
- Society of American Law Teachers
Links (1)
News (2)
New Study Finds Evidence of Racial Bias in California Death Sentences As Resentencings Begin in Cases Tainted by Discriminatory Jury Selection
Death Penalty Information Center online
2024-07-24
As Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price seeks to remedy her office’s history of discriminatory jury selection, an study published in the 2024 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies by Catherine M. Grosso, Jeffrey Fagan, and Michael Laurence finds empirical evidence that the race of the defendant and the race of the victim affect the likelihood of a death sentence being imposed in California.
Supreme Court to examine racial divide in jury selection
The Washington Post online
2015-10-25
“Among those who laud its mission, it seems that the only people not disappointed in Batson are those who never expected it to work in the first place,” wrote Michigan State University law professors Catherine M. Grosso and Barbara O’Brien in a 2012 study of racial bias in jury selection in North Carolina.
Event Appearances (3)
Batson’s Midlife Crisis
June 2024 | Law and Society Association Annual Meeting Denver, CO
Documenting the Diversity Costs of Death Qualification
June 2023 | Session, Law and Society Association Annual Meeting San Juan, Puerto Rico
A Fresh Look at Voir Dire: A Tale of Two Jury Selections
May 2023 | Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Bar Foundation Conference Chicago, IL
Research Grants (3)
Cause Study
ACLU Capital Punishment Project $70,000
2020-present
Death Penalty Study
Office of the State Public Defender, State of California. $48,190
2020-present
Capital Jury Selection Research
Center for Death Penalty Litigation (via North Carolina Indigent Defense Services) $8,000-10,000
2015-present
Journal Articles (3)
The Influence of the Race of Defendant and the Race of Victim on Capital Charging and Sentencing in California
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies2023 The California Racial Justice Act of 2020 recognized racial and ethnic discrimination as a basis for relief in capital cases, expressly permitting several types of statistical evidence to be introduced. This statewide study of the influence of race and ethnicity on the application of capital punishment contributes to this evidence. We draw on data from over 27,000 murder and manslaughter convictions in California state courts between 1978 and 2002. Using multiple methods, we found significant racial and ethnic disparities in charging and sentencing decisions. Controlling for defendant culpability and specific statutory aggravators, we show that Black and Latinx defendants and all defendants convicted of killing at least one white victim are substantially more likely to be sentenced to death.
Judges, Lawyers, and Willing Jurors: A Tale of Two Jury Selections
Chicago-Kent Law Review2024
Local History, Practice, and Statistics: A Study on the Influence of Race on the Administration of Capital Punishment in Hamilton County, Ohio (January 1992-August 2017)
Columbia Human Rights Law Review2020 Anthony Amsterdam urged litigators and scholars to focus on individual prosecutors’ offices or counties and to identify “a set of local institutions, conventions, and practices which are manifestly the residues of classic Southern apartheid”; to “conduct analyses of the impact of race in the sentencing patterns . . . in those specific counties or venues”; and to “investigate, analyze, and prepare evidence of the legacy of apartheid embedded in the counties’ political, economic, and social life, particularly as it bears on law enforcement, prosecution, and courthouse customs.” The goal, Amsterdam says, is “to build a case not solely on statistical evidence of discrimination but to supplement it with evidence of anecdotes and local custom.”
