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David Gilboa Capital Punishment Analysis

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Since the beginning of history, the death penalty has been utilized as a means of punishment for a crime. Capital punishment has taken on multiple forms and been used as punishment wide range of crimes; from stealing to murder. Questions and theories have risen that suggest that the penal system is racially biased when considering punishment and deciding when the death penalty is a congruent punishment to the crime committed. In David Gilboa’s report entitled, “Is the Death Penalty in America Racist?” Gilboa analyzes and studies three common conceptions on the death penalty and how it pertains to the African American race and Caucasian race. The three allegations Gilboa argues are: African Americans are at higher risk of receiving the death penalty because of the bias against them, no matter the racial identification, a person is more likely to receive the death penalty if the victim of the committed crime is white, and that …show more content…

He states that the reason the prosecution and conviction of minorities in the case where a white person is the victim is a result of the location of the prosecutions. In his paper, Gilboa analyzes some statistics regarding the claim and makes derives from it this: If death sentences are relatively unlikely in metropolitan areas, how might it shed light on the white-victim effect? Our best answer is this. Murder victims in metropolitan counties are predominantly African American (Gilboa, 2010). I don’t agree with this statement because it implies that African Americans are particularly singled out by the government to receive such a penalty because the government enforces capital punishment in certain states that are predominately black. This cannot be the case. I feel as though more violent and heinous crimes are committed in these cities or counties and therefore have more valid grounds for the sentencing of the death

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for a dull respondent than for a white prosecutor in a practically identical case. A study in California found that the people who killed whites were general 3 times more slanted to be sentenced to death than the people who killed blacks and more than 4 times more likely than the people who killed Latinos. Looks at exhibit that 96% of states where there have been surveys of race and capital punishment, there was an example of either race-of-casualty or race-of-litigant separation, or both. A respondent was a few times more prone to be sentenced to death if the homicide casualty was white. A January 2003 study discharged by the University of Maryland presumed that race and geology are central point in capital punishment choices.

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African American males has a six times greater chance than the general population and eight times greater chance than white males in becoming a murder victim. Chapter 18 focuses on crime and

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Primary Annotated Bibliography McCleskey v Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987) McCleskey v Kemp is a Supreme Court case that highlighted racism in the death penalty process. The petitioner in the case provided a controversial statistical study that correlated racism in death penalty sentencings. The Supreme Court Justices were asked to answer the question of whether or not the statistical study provided could substantiate that the sentence in the case violated the petitioner’s eighth and fourteenth amendment rights. This case will be the main focus of my research paper.

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522 Words | 3 Pages

First, Nathanson’s argument is based in majority upon statistics and therefore I must invoke the question of whether correlation equates to causation or not. The fact that statistically more blacks or murderers of whites receive the death penalty must be observed more closely as there could be many reasons attributing to sentencing to death. Many of the statistics presented do not accurately represent the cause of the correlation. Second, I present the argument that even if there was truth behind a relationship between discrimination and death penalties, the problem lies with those who are handing out these sentences rather than the idea of a death penalty. The problem can be solved by establishing more set guidelines on who receives the death sentence by making the death penalty more like a civil law practice rather than our form of common law where precedence decides the ruling.

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333 Words | 2 Pages

With the bar for execution being that the defendant needed to be shown to be a danger to society the testimony of the psychologist stating that a person 's race is a deciding factor in predicting future violent acts clearly brings the question of race into the supreme court. The appeal states “the latent association of African Americans with violence continues to distort perceptions of reality and result in racially biased assessments—and the risk of such bias is especially acute in death penalty proceedings. The Constitution, however, forbids racial stereotypes from affecting the administration of justice, expressly

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1343 Words | 6 Pages

This report is helpful because it highlights how race is influenced on the death penalty. It will help me see if the death penalty is racially neutral. Coker, D. (2003). Addressing the real world of racial injustice in the criminal justice system. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.

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Throughout time the death penalty has not been administered equally, and the Innocence Project has been receiving a lot of attention for allowing information such as this to be surfaced. The Innocence Project has been created to help exonerate those that are seeking death row. The Innocence Project has created a statistic from their own findings as a result will be used to show what really happens behind the scene of death row through a lenses that most people would not hear. The Innocence Project receives about 8000+letters each year from .prisoners seeking help with their case. Race plays a big factor in the decision process during trials.

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The author provides well founded reasons such as arbitrariness, racial bias, and execution of the innocent. According to Tribe, “It [the death penalty] has also opened the door to disturbing racial trends. Studies show that people in Arizona (and nationally) accused of murdering white victims are much more likely to receive the death penalty” (Tribe). This serves as an example of how the author is able to state a reason and then provide evidence for his statement. On the other hand, Montgomery’s article lacks supporting reasons.

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In Georgia, “people convicted of killing white victims are 17 times more likely to be executed than those convicted of killing black victims” (Philips).The death penalty is even seen as the “direct descendant of lynching” because of the significant imbalance in the prosecution of Black Americans for capital murder (Equal Justice Initiative). Given our long history of systemic racism in the justice system, we cannot trust ourselves to be the ultimate arbiter on whether to end a human

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1013 Words | 5 Pages

“We Need To Talk About Injustice.”). Unfortunately, race affects the chance of execution and it happens more than it should. As a society, we have made so many improvements throughout history. The abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement has immensely improved our society but every day when we incarcerate innocent black individuals and send them to death row, we as a society are setting ourselves back sixty years. Do you want that?

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296 Words | 2 Pages

Now a days 98% of the death penalty is associated with white people. While only 2% percent is involve with black people. Back in scouts time those numbers were flipped. This disproportion shows that black people are not as crazy as white people. On top of that the crimes that whites commit are not similar in any way to those of African Americans.

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1145 Words | 5 Pages

Another issue that was discussed is the inequality of death penalty in practice. There have been serious issues with racial discrimination. For reference in cases with white victims and black defendants convictions occurred twenty two percent of the time while with black victims and white defendants with percentage dropped to a measly three

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1642 Words | 7 Pages

Unfortunately, there are racial disparities in the United States in the legal system. Prison sentences imposed on African American males in the federal system are nearly 20 percent longer than white males convicted of similar crimes. The 1994 Crime Bill signed by President Clinton established mandatory minimum sentences. African American and Latino offenders sentenced in state and federal courts face greater odds of incarceration than white offenders who are in similar situations and receive longer sentences than whites in some jurisdictions. Research has shown that race plays a significant role in determination on which homicide cases resulted in death sentences.

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1674 Words | 7 Pages

Crime and Punishment have been the main symbols of the existing racial disparities in the United States for a long time now. In the earlier days, the criminal justice systems mostly entailed executions, prosecutorial and judicial prejudice, and chain-gang style penal practices. The judicial systems saw the minority groups being tried in all white court rooms by all-white juries. The highest number of offenders consisted of individuals from the black communities who were subjected to harsh punishments. Blacks who victimized the whites faced harsh and racially discriminative sentences.

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“The law may be color-blind as it is written, but not as it is enforced.” Racial bias in the death penalty can be traced back to Furman v. Georgia, where handing down the death penalty sentence, unfairly, constituted as a cruel and unusual punishment, violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The reinstatement of the death penalty with its new sentencing guidelines, implemented by the Supreme Court, was to ensure that the death penalty sentence was used in a constitutional way. Despite these guidelines, somehow, racial bias has found a way to thrive. It has been documented that an individual is more likely to receive the death penalty in a case where the victim is White than in cases where the victim is Black.

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