Abstract

A great deal of research has been done on the death penalty in the United States and what groups of people are most likely to be sentenced to death. Different studies have been examined and compared to determine to what extent discrimination plays a role in the judicial selective processes that lead to the execution chamber. This paper will explore different key topics which include; race of the accused and his or her victim, gender of the accused and his or her victim, and the financial status of the defendant and how these factors may or may not bias a jury, judge, or even society as a whole towards the sentiments of capital punishment. Results, explanations, and indications for further investigations are discussed.

An Assessment of Discrimination and the Death Penalty

The death penalty has always been one of the most controversial subjects in American society. Staunch supporters of the death penalty believe it is justice and retribution for the murderers as well the victims and surviving families who have suffered from violent crime and murder. While this conviction does have merit, there remain aspects of the death penalty which should lead to the abolition of this ultimate penalty until we can ensure a system that leaves no room for prejudices. We must first consider all of the injustices of the death penalty and determine what groups of people are most likely to die in the execution chamber. Supporting data appears in The American Bar Association Resolution (cited in Vodicka, 1997) stating: The death penalty is administered through a haphazard maze of unfair practices. Truth and justice sometimes have little to do with whether an inmate ends up on death row in the U.S.

Facts found in a study compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center ( "Racial Disparities in Federal Death Penalty Prosecution 1988-1994", 1994) determine that racial minorities are being prosecuted under federal death penalty law far beyond their proportion in the general population of criminal offenders. In another related article it is found that most capital murder defendants are under-privileged financially and often have no access to competent legal counsel (Vodicka, 1997). In another study of death row inmates, but of female offenders, it is found that women are unlikely to be arrested for murder, extremely unlikely to be sentenced to death, and almost never executed (Streib, 1998) .

The facts listed above lend support that the death penalty should be abolished due to its inexhaustible amounts of internal problems. Capital punishment is racially biased, sexually discriminatory, and unjust in it's treatment of the poor. All these studies indicate that a very serious problem is being neglected by the American citizens. This present study's objective was to gather information on the extent and nature of the discriminations within our nation's courtrooms and to discuss some possible explanations.

MethodI examined several different studies, reports, and articles in books, magazines, newspapers, and on the internet to find the facts and figures of the race, gender, and financial status of the people who are now under sentence of death in America's prison system. I have found many instances of the discriminations that do indeed exist for our unlucky community of condemned men and women.

Discrimination Based on Race

According to one magazine editorial ("Wait no Longer: Death Row Moratorium Needs to Happen Now", 1997) in 1996 in the state of Pennsylvania, 108 of the 182 prisoners awaiting execution were black, representing 59% of the total number sentenced to die. In contrast, just 10% of the state's total population is black. Nationally, roughly 50% of the total number of prisoners sentenced to die are non-white. Additionally, blacks make up more than 40% of death row inmates, but just 12-13% of the total United States population of citizens.

The Stanford Law Review (Arkin,1980) published a study that found similar patterns of racial disparity, based on the race of the victim, in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Virginia. For example, in Arkansas, findings showed that a defendant in a murder case involving a white victim are 3 1/2 times more likely to be sentenced to death; In Illinois 4 times as likely to be sentenced to death; In North Carolina 4.4 times as likely to be sentenced to death; And in Mississippi 5 times more likely to be sentenced to death than defendants convicted of murdering blacks. This is not primarily because minorities commit more murders, but because they are more often sentenced to death when they do.

Consider the case of James Adams , a black man who died in Florida's electric chair in 1984. Adams' appellate attorneys dug up convincing evidence that he had been railroaded to Death Row through manufactured evidence and unremitting racism on the part of the justice system. The United States Supreme Court refused to consider Adams' appeal, a refusal that allowed his execution, despite the fact that it had already issued an indefinite stay of executions in Georgia because of bias against black defendants. (Wallace, 1995)

In an essay by Sister Helen Prejean (1997) she sees the death penalty as being connected to the deepest wounds in our society: racism and poverty. She quotes: In this society, first the hangman's noose, then the electric chair, and now the lethal injection gurney have been almost exclusively reserved for those who kill white persons. The rhetoric says that the death penalty will be reserved only for the most heinous crimes, but when you look at how it is applied, you will see that in fact there is a great selectivity in the process. When the victim of a violent crime has some kind of status there is public outrage. Especially when the victim has been murdered, death, the ultimate punishment, is sought. But, when people of color are killed, district attorneys do not seek to avenge their deaths.

Discrimination Based on Wealth

Who pays the ultimate penalty for crimes? The poor. Who gets the death penalty? The poor. After all the rhetoric that goes on in legislative assemblies, in the end, when the net is cast out, it is the poor who are selected to die in this country. And why do the poor get the death penalty? It has everything to do with the kind of defense that an accused person is able to purchase. Money gets you a good defense and that is why you'll never see a rich person on Death Row. Sister Prejean (1997) continues and also quotes a saying: Capital punishment means them without the capital get the punishment.

In an article published in the Houston Chronicle (Parker, 1995) the author interviews Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and also a Yale University law professor. He gives his opinions that defense lawyers appointed by judges for poor clients are ones who are sure to help the jurist politically and not lawyers who will provide the best defense. He quotes: What you get is a very obsequious group of lawyers. The lawyers basically are more loyal to the judge than to their clients, because the clients do not have anything to do with it. The clients didn't get them their jobs, they are not paying them.

Mr. Bright also discusses the fact that judges often will not appoint an aggressive defense lawyer because it would hurt their popularity. Judges in Texas, California, and Mississippi have been defeated in recent years when their opponents campaigned as supporters of the death penalty.

In a publication of the Mennonite Central Committee (Zehr, 1987) a great deal of research was conducted on discrimination and capital punishment. Some of their findings included the fact that most of the people on death row are poor. A full 90% of the people now condemned to die by execution could not afford and were unable to hire private attorneys to ensure a fair and thorough defense.

Discrimination Based on Gender

Only a tiny minority of Death Row inmates are women, even though women commit about 1 in 5 of all criminal homicides. (Zehr, 1987) In general, both the death sentencing rate and the Death Row population remain very small for women in comparison to that of men. Women account for 13% of all murder arrests but only 2% have death sentences imposed at trial level. Women account for 1.3% of all persons serving on death row but only 0.5% of all persons actually executed. (Streib, 1998)

Actual execution of female offenders is quite rare, with only 533 documented instances beginning with the first in 1632. These 533 female executions constitute less then 3% of the total of 19,000 confirmed executions in the United States since 1608. Death sentences and actual executions for female offenders are also rare in comparison to such events for male offenders. In fact, women are more likely to be dropped out of the system the further the capitol punishment system progresses. Despite the statistically high probability (97%) that death sentenced female offenders will never be executed, some women have exhausted their appeals and 2 executions of female offenders were carried out in the early spring of 1998. ("Women and the Death Penalty", 1998)

Another source cites facts that the female criminality is often masked because criminal justice authorities are reluctant to take actions against a woman. Referred to as the "chivalry hypothesis", this view holds that much of the criminality of females is hidden because of the general protective benevolent attitudes toward them in our culture. Police are less likely to arrest, juries less likely to convict, and judges less likely to incarcerate the female offender. (Siegel, 1997)

Results

There are more than 3000 men and women on death row across the nation. Most states and also the federal government have imposed death sentencing laws. However, the American Bar Association attorneys have adopted policies that should minimize the risk that persons will be executed based on discrimination by race, affluence, or gender. The policies have called for competent counsel for all capital defendants and efforts to eliminate all racial discrimination in capital sentencing (Carelli, 1997). But, in the words of Sister Helen Prejean, (1997) In regard to racism, we'd have to change the whole soil of this country for the criminal justice system not to be administered in a racially biased manner.

In short, only about 1% of all killers end up on death row. They are not necessarily the worst 1% of all killers, just the unluckiest. Nobody knows exactly why they have been selected but the facts behind the standards clearly show that prejudices run rampant. The death penalty is, in fact, a type of lottery in which the primary consistency is a pattern of discrimination. (Zehr, 1987)

According to the Death Penalty Information Center (Kroll, 1991), while black people comprise 65% of all homicide victims, 85% of all the capital trials are for white victim cases. In potentially capital cases, the District Attorney sought the death penalty 34.3% of the time when the victim was white but only 5.8% of the time when the victim was black.

Also, the quality of counsel in capital cases is a national disgrace. Lawyers are so poorly reimbursed that they are often working for less than minimum wage. On occasion, lawyers who have never tried a single criminal case at all are appointed to represent defendants facing the death penalty. And, according to a comprehensive report in The National Law Journal (cited in Kroll, 1991), lawyers in capital trials in the South have been suspended, disbarred, or otherwise disciplined at a rate up to 46 times the discipline rates for other lawyers in those states.

Although women account for 1 in 8 of all murders committed in America, they account for only 3 of 462 persons actually executed in this modern era. Beginning with the earliest American colonial period, female executions constitute 2.7% of all American executions. In Comparing all the available twentieth century data with the existing data from previous American eras would reveal that this practice is even rarer now than in was in previous centuries. (Streib, 1998)

Discussion

Discrimination within the death penalty is an issue that is severely being ignored by us, the American citizens. Capital punishment continues to be racially biased, sexually discriminatory, and unjust in it's treatment of the poor. We must find another way to deal with the crimes committed by the men and women of our nation and seek new and more effective ways to administer punishment. We must choose death for these offenders in a completely fair and just manner, without any bias or prejudice, or we must choose life for them all. Even if the choice would be imprisonment for life with no option for parole, it would be a choice in favor of the significance of all life, without consideration of race, affluence, or gender. We could possibly look into creating alternatives that leave room for the criminals to receive punishment and also make compensation to the victim and family, leaving ample opportunity for transformation and healing for all involved. We could keep our laws which deal with individual guilt and punishment for the criminal, laws which continue to allow the discrimination and prejudices towards our citizens to fester and consume us, or we could make changes which would examine the causes and meanings of the offenders violent behaviors. We all can make the change to learn and understand the causes of violence and make an effort to reform into a culture that has less want for such brutality and savagery. The answers to this moral and social dilemma are not easy and the questions will not be comfortable for us to explore for the answers, but this is an overdue and necessary task. Not one of us should rest comfortably until we have found the motive for violence and the causes of injustice that are present in our country.


MORE...

Discrimination and the Death Penalty

Euthanasia: Is It Mercy or Murder?

History of Rape

Women In Prison