Racial Biases In Death Penalty Essay

Racial and wealth biases in the death penalty Since the Mayflower first set foot on the shores of North America in 1620, white settlers have relied upon the death penalty for the punishment of those who have been convicted of the most heinous of crimes. The death penalty was supposed to be fair and equal, with Lady Justice seeing nothing but that justice. Rather than fairness, the death penalty has been unequal in function, with African Americans being sentenced at much higher rates and the poor getting unequal access to legal resources. The death penalty has been a failed experiment that, rather than necessary to improve society through deterrence, targeted the vulnerable. To understand minority discrimination with the death penalty, one needs to understand the role of minorities in the history of the United States of America. United States history is a lesson in racism, with application of the death penalty another example of the history of this racism. Taken to this nation as the property of white landowners, African Americans were sentenced to death for a long

The Supreme court case of United States v Bass (1971) mandated that if a defendant claims that he was prosecuted improperly based on discrimination, they must prove intentional discrimination and that those intentions had an impact on the case. Essentially, the ruling outlined that recieving a prison sentence with discrimination was legally permissible, so long as it wasn’t an intentional act of discrimination that affected the case (Schaeffer 376). This ruling still stands and is one of the main case precedents used when lower courts consider appeals based on discrimination or bias of the prosecution. Unless a defendant can prove the prosecutor intentionally discriminated and that intention negatively impacted the case, the odds of getting a judgement vacated or a new trial is