"UI law prof Baldus passes away at 75," is the Daily Iowan obituary written by Brittany Trevick.
David Baldus wasn’t afraid to break the rules.
On a hiking trip to Canada with his wife, the two of them entered a trail not recommended for groups of fewer than six because of bears.
Instead of turning back, they continued on and shouted to scare off the bears.
“He was walking in front and shouting parts of Shakespeare,” said his wife, Joyce Carman. “The little parts that he loved so much.”
Baldus, a Joseph B. Tye Professor in the University of Iowa College of Law, died Monday morning after a 15-monthlong battle with cancer. He was 75.
He was a nationally renown scholar and lawyer, whose empirical work analyzed race discrimination in the United States, especially with concerns to the death penalty.
“His empirical work related to race and the death penalty was of really singular importance,” said UI law Professor Gerald Wetlaufer. “We’ll miss him a lot.”
Baldus was born in Wheeling, W.V. in 1935. He received a B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1957. He loved traveling, sailing, and opera music, Carman said.
Baldus leaves behind two daughters, four stepchildren and eight grandchildren.
And:
A funeral will be held at Lensing Funeral Home in Iowa City in July.
"UI law professor David Baldus dies at 75," in the Iowa City Press-Citizen. It's by Amy Schettler.
The University of Iowa College of Law has suffered a great loss with the death of renowned professor David Baldus, his colleagues said Monday.
Baldus, who has taught at UI since 1969, died Monday after a battle with colon cancer. He was 75.
"He had a life of accomplishment and achievement. It's a terrible loss for his colleagues and friends, not only here but throughout the state and throughout the country," said Josephine Gittler, a UI law professor who also attended graduate school with Baldus at Yale Law School.
Baldus was a nationally recognized authority on the death penalty and worked to illustrate inequalities and discrimination throughout the country on its administration, said Bill Hines, law professor and dean emeritus of the College of Law.
Hines said that work reflected Baldus' passion for seeking out equality.
"He was always so concerned about people being treated fairly and with dignity," Hines said. "As much as anything, his life's dedication to researching the death penalty and trying to rein in its administration was very inspiring."
Baldus' work will be recognized at a UI symposium Oct. 20-21.
The event will focus on the 25th anniversary of the Supreme Court case Batson v. Kentucky, which ruled that jurors could not be excluded from a jury based solely on their race.
Organizers already had planned to recognize Baldus' work, but now it will carry special meaning, Hines said.
"Long time UI law professor dies Monday after battle with colon cancer," by Trish Mehaffey in the Cedar Rapids Gazette.
University of Iowa Law Professor Josephine Gittler said she lost a friend she had known for 40 years and the law school lost one of it’s most dedicated teachers Monday.
“He was a wonderful friend and colleague, one that the law school community had great respect and affection for him,” Gittler said. “I was grateful for the opportunity to see him and say goodbye.”
Law Professor David Baldus, 75, of Iowa City, died early Monday from colon cancer. He had been at the university since 1969 and continued to work on research projects up until a few weeks ago, his colleagues said. He wasn’t teaching full-time but was co-teaching with another professor for the last year or so.
Baldus over the years taught criminal law, anti-discrimination law, capital punishment and federal criminal law, and he was nationally recognized for his research on the death penalty.
He wrote many papers, book chapters and studies “debunking the myths of the death penalty,” Bill Hines, law professor and former law school dean for 28 years, said Monday.
“It was all about the fairness of how it (death penalty) was administered and he found it’s virtually impossible to do it fairly,” Hines said. “His best known work was regarding race and how it affected who received capital punishment.”
Baldus conducted many studies regarding how capital punishment was administered. One well know study he conducted in 1983, along with other two professors, involved examining the presence of racial discrimination in death penalty sentencing, according to his bio information and various newspaper articles.
The study analyzed more than 2,000 murder cases in Georgia in the 1970s and Baldus examined the cases that occurred between two United States Supreme Court cases in 1972 and 1987. The study looked at the race of the victim in each murder case to evaluate the presence of racial discrimination.
Baldus’ work found defendants accused of killing white victims were 4.3 times more likely to receive the death penalty than ones accused of killing black victims. The study also showed that black defendants were 1.7 times more likely than white defendants to receive the death penalty.
Hines said Baldus received national recognition for his results that were used by the defense in one case, McCleskey v. Kemp. Warren McClesky, a black man, was convicted in 1978 in Georgia for armed robbery and murder. He robbed a furniture store and killed a white police officer.
News of Baldus' passing is at the link.
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