New empirical studies on racial discrimination and the influencing of juries related to capital sentencing will be presented at a symposium on the death penalty Saturday, March 28.

The symposium, "How the Death Penalty Works: Empirical Studies of the Modern Capital Sentencing System," sponsored by theCornell Law Review and the Cornell Death Penalty Project, will bring to campus more than a dozen leading legal scholars, some of whom have represented death-row inmates in postconviction appeals, to address and present new research on capital punishment issues.

All sessions will take place in the MacDonald Moot Court Room of Myron Taylor Hall. Panel discussion topics and presenters are:

• "Perspectives on the Modern Capital Sentencing System: Public Opinion and Judicial Assumptions," 10 to 11:30 a.m. Panelists include: Samuel R. Gross, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and a former cooperating attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Jury Project; and Jordan Steiker, the Cooper K. Ragan Regents Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law.
• "Influencing the Jury: Impartiality and Remorse in Jury Decision-Making," 1:30 to 3 p.m. Panelists include: William J. Bowers, College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University; Scott Sundby, Washington & Lee University School of Law; and Theodore Eisenberg and Stephen Garvey, Cornell Law School.
• "Unequal Justice: Racial Discrimination in Capital Sentencing," 3:30 to 5 p.m. Panelists include: David Baldus, University of Iowa; Jeffrey Pokorak, St. Mary's University of San Antonio School of Law; Sheri Lynn Johnson, Cornell Law School; John Blume, director of the Cornell Law School's Death Penalty Project; and Eisenberg.

The papers presented will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Cornell Law Review.

The symposium is sponsored by Russell K. Osgood, the Allan R. Tessler Dean of the Cornell Law School; LEXIS-NEXIS; the Office of the Cornell Vice President for Research and Advanced Studies; and BAR/BRI Bar Review.