Capital Punishment Disparity in Application in the United States
Capital Punishment in the United States: Disparity in Application
Critics of capital punishment in the United States object to perceived arbitrariness and discrepancies in its administration. Numerous studies have documented the influence of race on sentencing decisions. However, supporters and opponents provide varying opinions on the meaning of the disparity in treatment of offenders as a result of race.
Those who believe the states administer the death penalty in a racially biased manner emphasize the disproportionate numbers of African Americans on death row. Critics of the application of the death penalty also note that the race of the victim provides a statistically clear determinant of whether or not a defendant receives a sentence of death or imprisonment. Thus, although about half of all murder victims in the United States are nonwhite, 80 percent of all death sentences are imposed for murders of whites. Supporters of capital punishment attribute statistical disparities in sentencing to the different circumstances surrounding the offenses. For example, supporters claim that murders of white victims more often involve a killing during the course of a robbery or other felony, an aggravating factor that makes the murderer eligible for a death sentence.
Legal challenges to imposition of the death penalty based on allegations of racial discrimination have achieved little success. In the 1987 decision of McCleskey v. Kemp, the Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence of an African American man convicted in Georgia of killing a white police officer during the course of a robbery. The defendant had submitted data to the Supreme Court indicating that defendants in Georgia charged with killing white victims were more than four times as likely to receive a death sentence as those convicted of killing a nonwhite victim. In a 5-to-4 vote, the Court concluded that while the study indicated “a discrepancy that appears to correlate with race,” the defendant had not clearly demonstrated that the jury in his particular case acted with discriminatory purpose. While not rejecting the validity of the statistical analysis, the Court refused to overturn a particular death sentence without evidence that the issue of race had influenced the jury in that specific case. (1)
The Capital Punishment contents in this American legal encyclopedia also includes: Capital Punishment Distribution of Authority, Capital Punishment and the Constitution, Capital Punishment Current Conditions, Capital Punishment Delay, Efficiency and Fairness, Capital Punishment Disparity in Application and Capital Punishment Conflicting Efforts at Reform. For a worldwide overview click here
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