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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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