Penny White, a law professor and former justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court, discusses how political pressure and racial bias can shape judicial decision-making. This segment from Stephen Bright's Yale course on capital punishment traces White's own removal from the bench in a 1996 retention election, driven by a campaign against her after the court reversed a death sentence. The lecture pairs her account with an analysis of court rulings and clips of televised judicial campaign advertisements that attacked judges for being soft on crime. The discussion asks what happens to judicial independence when judges must run for reelection on rulings in capital cases, and how that dynamic can push courts toward harsher outcomes regardless of the law. White speaks from direct experience of losing her seat over a single controversial decision, giving the segment a firsthand account of the stakes behind abstract debates over judicial selection.