Racial bias is an issue in death penalty sentencing that cannot be ignored. In the words of Justice William Brennan (1987), "It is tempting to pretend that minorities on death row share a fate in no way connected to our own, that our treatment of them sounds no echoes beyond the chambers in which they die. Such an illusion is ultimately corrosive, for the reverberations of injustice are not so easily confined." |
||
|
ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF RACIAL BIAS IN THE DEATH PENALTY Ever since the times when blacks were considered property, their race has been a key part of injustice in the death penalty system - from slavery and Jim Crow laws, to lynchings, and now to our current Judicial System. One possible reason for this is that 98% of prosecutors are white, as shown below.
In Kentucky, in 1996, 100% of death row inmates were imprisoned for murdering a white victim - none were there for killing a nonwhite.
The imbalance of "details" about death penalty cases is exemplified in the actions of prosecutors in Georgia's Chattahoochee Judicial District; in most cases they failed to consult with the families of black murder victims to ascertain what sentence they preferred, and just as often these families were not notified when the case had been resolved. This secondhand treatment of racial minorities is shown in the cases as well as the sentences. In a Colorado case, a prosecutor referred to the Hispanic defendant as a "chili-eating bastard"; recent Assistant District Attorney of Philadelphia Jack McMahon released an instructional video for prosecutors on how to stack the jury unfavorably against the defendant. He included such phrases as "young black women are very bad" and "blacks from low-income areas are less likely to convict". The chart below compares the likelihood of a black defendant to receive a death sentence to the likelihood of any other race receiving a death sentence, taking into account culpability level. For example, in a level 5 crime, there is an 18% probability of any case receiving a death penalty. However, of that 18%, 25% of blacks are likely to receive it, while only .05% of defendants with any other racial background will. Columns E and F compare the rates shown in C and D.
The obvious problem of racial discrimination receives no relief from the Supreme Court, either. In the case McKleskey v. Kemp, it ruled that supplicants had to prove that they were personally, uniquely, and individually discriminated against - the fact that that the Georgian Judicial System was sweepingly biased against blacks apparently was not sufficient evidence. |
||
