Epstein and Kobylka’s analysis of the Supreme Court decisions are based on three factors. They look at the court itself, the political environment of the country and the role that interest groups play in Supreme Court decisions. The authors pay attention to the role of the NAACP legal defense fund and the ACLU as interest groups advocating for the abolition of the death penalty. In the years leading up to Furman the NAACP LDF took several approaches to fighting the death penalty. First they attempted to prove racial discrimination in the use of the death penalty. The Wolfgang report showed that black defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death than white defenda