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Capital Punishment Essay: Racial Bias In The Death Penalty

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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. Furthermore, it has been documented that in some jurisdictions, Black defendants are given the death penalty …show more content…

2) Death sentences were sought or imposed significantly more frequently as punishment for capital offenses against persons of one race than as punishment of capital offenses against persons of another race. 3) Race was a significant factor in decisions to exercise peremptory challenges during jury selection. Under the Act, if a defendant successfully shows that racial considerations played a significant part in the prosecution’s decision to seek or impose the death sentence, the court is required to vacate the death sentence and to resentence the defendant to life imprisonment without the possibility of

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It also needs to be recognized how it may impact a person or groups day to day lives and decision making in these situations. In keeping with time-tested American traditions, black defendants were 38 percent more likely to be sentenced to die than others who committed similar crimes, according to a study by University of Iowa Law School researchers David Baldus and George Woodworth. Their research team analyzed 667 murders that occurred in Philadelphia from 1983 to 1993. Of the 520 cases involving black defendants, 95 were sentenced to die, while 19 of the 147 non-black defendants received the death penalty. (Clarence, Chicago Tribune,1998).

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Studies conducted by the people behind the death penalty information center, have shown that African Americans were over 80 percent of the people condemned by the death penalty in Pennsylvania. In the united states 82% of the studies the race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty. Those who murdered whites were found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks (deathpenaltyinfo). 5. Counterclaim

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