Race and the Death Penalty in America - Research Paper Example

Race and the Death Penalty in America Introduction The death penalty has several advantages in the United States; at the same times many people also believe that it has more disadvantages than advantages. The first disadvantage is connected to the abolitionists who would use the death penalty selectively guided by the victim’s race, religious conviction and/or financial class in society. This is connected to the argument that “most of the inmates on death row” and who have been charged with the death penalty are either of “African American or Hispanic origin” (Allen et al, 2008). Records have proven that racism is a factor when it comes to passing death penalty charges in America. This therefore means that African American populations have been and/or are common victims of death penalty sentences passed in America. As for the financial status of the inmates, it has been found that it is next to impossible to find inmates of high economic standards on death row because they have the capability to hire the best lawyers in the country for their defense. This is contrary to low income earning groups who cannot afford to hire good lawyers and therefore will opt for public defenders (Allen et al, 2008). Thesis: “Citizens of the African-America origin or descendants have been the most affected when it comes to passing of death penalty sentences in America”. According to the American civil liberties union, it is clear that even those who are for the death penalty, not at any point would they advocate for passing such judgments to people based on their skin color, where they reside or financial status. Despite this, it is evident from governmental statistics that there is some “regional and racial biasness” when such judgments are being made. This doesn’t mean that the death penalty is unjust but it does shed some light on the issue so that there may be some equality when it comes to decisions that concerns death penalty (Kennedy, 1997). When dealing with the death penalty, considerable care needs to be taken into consideration to avoid sentencing innocent people. This should be done through DNA tests, to confirm for instance if a person was involved in the death of another. This should go hand in hand with forensic specialists working to aid in proving the suspect innocent or guilty of the said offense of murder. The penalty comes with a death row sentence which is a longer process and might result in the death of innocent inmates (Parks, Jones and Cardi, 2008). There are several arguments against the death penalty, the other is that it defies Christianity; according to the bible which is the Christian’s holy book, no one deserves to be sentenced to death, no matter what sin they may have committed. The bible goes further to state that it is not any one man’s obligation to decide on who lives or who dies; such decisions are left only to God. However, some argue that the government should not be mixed with religious statements, and that the same needs to be maintained when it comes to capital punishment (Yorke, 2008 Judgments have been passed in favor of the death penalty in many of the states in the United States of America on both individuals of the white and African American descent. Because of the new law that permits victims to challenge such decisions when they strongly believe that it was influenced by their race. This has seen the rise in such filings in the recent past. This is a reality that dates back to as early as 1930. Statistics show that between 1930-1967, when death penalty executions were stopped. During this period when there was an overhaul on the death penalty, it was on record that 54% of those under the U.S civilian authority were of African American decent (Allen et al, 2008). From this it is clear that racism still remained to be the leading problem in the American judicial system especially when it comes to decisions being made regarding capital punishment. Such decisions were very common in the southern states of America. Here there were many cases of disproportionate judgments passed against individuals of black descent. Many blacks were put to death in comparison to white men especially when the woman involved in the rape case was white. From statistics, of the 455 of the men who were convicted to death due to rape cases, 90% of them were of black descent. It is worth noting that the juries that passed such rulings were all white (Freedman and Jones, 2008). The facts about the number of blacks being sentenced to death formed the basis of the Supreme Court’s consideration of reviewing the death penalty between the 1960s and 1970s. The challenge was championed by the legal defense fund of the national association (LDF). This led to the 1972 case, Furman v. Georgia which resulted in the government chucking prevailing death penalty legislations. These cases were grouped in three where two of the black men were convicted of raping white women in the south and the third man convicted of killing a white man in a burglary case. During this time the Supreme Court refused to hear petitions brought before them. Furman on the other hand received backing from William Douglas who argued that racial disparities contributed to making the death penalty “cruel and unusual” (Allen et al, 2008). Thereafter Furman led the reinstatement of capital punishment if they were willing to eliminate the overall lack of reliable standards, ethnic or otherwise upon which the courts had relied on for their constitutional rulings. This was done with the aim of ensuring that the state weighed on the defendants’ sentence differently from their innocence or guilt (Yorke, 2008). This would allow them to look at the arguments that led to the ruling for the death penalty and eliminate that evidence that argued against the ruling. The effort to have amendments bore fruit in 1976 in a case, Gregg v. Georgia. The ruling made by a three bench jury reduced murders to capital punishment and reduced the risk of wholly subjective and capricious deeds. The practice was resumed in 1977 with amendments such as omitting the death penalty for rape and stating that first degree murder with particular aggravating factors as the only crime qualified for the death penalty. According to human rights organizations opposed to death penalty, it was found that 80% of 845 people executed since the practice resumed in 1977, murdered whites (Jackson, J. (1996). During this time, blacks never took part in voting nor did they serve on juries in large numbers in the south until the late 1960s. Because of this reason there were no juries who would limit the passing of capital punishment on blacks. The black population was small and this resulted into high death incidences of black defendant/black victim homicide (Kennedy, 1997).For instance, in Baltimore which had a large population of white residence of about 75,000 in 2005, this meant that whites would form the highest number of homicide victims. Due to the polar opposite laws pursued by its black majority neighbors, it is obvious that the county’s death penalty was directed more repeatedly to white killers (Kennedy, 1997). Blacks and whites are killed in almost equal numbers but the judgments passed on their killers differ greatly. Those who are found guilty of murdering whites have the highest likelihood of execution than those found guilty of killing blacks; this is a report as per amnesty international. Amnesty, after scrutinizing the government’s statistics and those from their own tracking came to a conclusion that the death penalty is applied unfairly. It is a fact that still prevails that killers of whites are likely to receive the death penalty (Freedman and Jones, 2008). Law professors at Cornell, who were against death penalty confirmed Baldus’ research by detecting what they referred to as “a racial hierarchy” in capital sentencing, they came to the conclusion that blacks charged with killing fellow blacks were less frequently sentenced to death as in comparison to whites charged with killing whites, and blacks charged with killing whites were sentenced frequently with death penalty (Yorke, 2008). According to LDF after going through the Baldus study report, death penalty sentences was completely influenced by illogical considerations such as skin color. From LDF’s understanding of the Baldus study, it was evident to them that knowingly or not, Georgia’s legal apparatus for instance “placed more value” on the lives of whites than blacks. This would mean severe punishment and judgment to come with for the white killers than black murderers especially when they believed that the killer was convicted of killing a white person (Parks, Jones and Cardi, 2008). As for McCleskey’s intentions of trying to challenge the study being conducted by Baldus, it was thwarted, as the study continued with more studies indicating prevalence of race related disparities across several states in America. This was cemented by the presence of many death row culprits citing the study done by professionals from Michigan State University ascertaining that white murderers have more than twice the probability of receiving death sentences as killers of blacks. Because of McCleskey’s intentions, he acquired a bad reputation to the extent of being compared to the Dred Scott decision that stated “people with African descent or origin could not allege American citizenship” Freedman, E., & Jones, S. A. (2008). This is a clear evidence of how some white members of the judicial system undermined people from other races (blacks) instead of being neutral as expected when passing judgements. During the post-Gregg era, the number of blacks sentenced to death declined tremendously. However another strange observation was made, the LDF funded study done between 1973 and 1979 found that despite adding into consideration the variables that are not race related, defendants who were charged with the death penalty for killing whites had a 4.3 times likelihood of receiving a death penalty charge as compared to whites charged with killing blacks (Jackson, J. (1996). The other aspect of racial discrimination came with the argument that the probability of a black killing a fellow black is minimal and therefore few will find themselves being sentenced to death as compared to blacks killing white and thereby will be sentenced to death. This is the reason for the under-representation of black murderers among those serving death sentences. For those blacks who were under the group of killing whites, they had 10% more chance of receiving the death penalty than their white counterparts (Parks, Jones and Cardi, 2008). Circumstances as those depicted by Kent Scheidegger where there are large numbers of minority areas with few prosecutors who are willing to seek the death penalty in their cases. The prosecutor might resort to seeking the death penalty in every eligible case (Kennedy, 1997). Conclusion According to (Yorke, 2008), it would be biased and inexperienced to claim that racism has been eradicated in the United States but it also would be by the same token misleading to assume that there has been no change attained. It is however evident that death penalty sentences were and are still passed more frequently on blacks who kill whites as compared to those where blacks kill fellow blacks or when whites murder blacks. With the discussed evidence from scholar and institution that have done research on the existence of racism when passing charges on defendants in courts, it is quite clear that the judicial system is being misused by some judges who pass judgments based on racial point of view rather than on the amount of evidence tabled before them. References Allen, H. W., Clubb, J. M., & Lacey, V. A. (2008). Race, class, and the death penalty: capital punishment in American history. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. Freedman, E., & Jones, S. A. (2008). African Americans in Congress: a documentary history. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. Jackson, J. (1996). Legal lynching: racism, injustice, and the death penalty. New York: Marlowe & Co.. Kennedy, R. (1997). Race, crime, and the law (lst ed.). New York: Pantheon Books. Parks, G., Jones, S. E., & Cardi, W. J. (2008). Critical race realism: intersections of psychology, race, and law. New York: New Press. Yorke, J. (2008). Against the death penalty: international initiatives and implications. Farnham, England: Ashgate. Read More