Race & Capital Punishment

Running Head : Race and Capital Punishment

Name

University

Course

Tutor

Date

Introduction

Thesis

The process of determining recipients of capital punishment in the United State involves sequential stages of decision making by the prosecutor and jury . Despite structural reforms to minimize its potential influence in capital sentencing , race still plays a crucial role in capital punishment

With this background knowledge , this will attempt to evaluate the role played by race and economics in crimes and sentencing in the United States capital punishment cases . This will

be done through a review of the history of death row and executions . Some cases touching on statistics , financial influences , due process will be reviewed to clearly show the issue of race is prevalent in capital punishment

History

Death row

Race is an important factor in determining who is sentenced to die . In 1990 a report from the General accounting office concluded that in 82 percent of the studies reviewed , 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 more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks (Jason et al 2007

The human cost of this racial injustice cannot be measured in figures The decisions about who lives and who dies are being made along racial lives by a nearly all white group of prosecutors . The death penalty presents a stark symbol of the effects of racial discrimination . In individual cases , this racism is reflected in ethnic slurs hurled at black defendants by the prosecution and even by the defense . It results in black jurors being systematically barred from service and in devoting of more resources to white victims of homicide at the expense of black victims . And it results in a death penalty in which blacks are frequently put to death for murdering whites , but whites are almost never executed for murdering blacks . Such a system of injustice is not just unfair and unconstitutional it tears at the very principles to which United States struggles to follow (Jason et al , 2007

Executions

Since the resumption of the death penalty in 1976 , there have been 1 ,099 executions in the United States . This was as of October 2007 There were 53 executions in 2006 . The largest single execution in United States history was the hanging of 38 Dakota people convicted of murder and rape in the Dakota war of 1862 . The second largest mass execution in the United States history was also the execution of 13 African American soldiers for their involvement in the Houston Riot . Notably , both incidents involved ethnic minority defendants and military tribunal judgments in time of war . Nationwide , over half , 55 percent of those executed between 1930 and 1991 were blacks (Davies et al , 2006

Executions of black Americans occurred at such a high rate compared to other racial categories that in 1972 the Supreme Court temporarily prohibited death penalty sentences when a black defendant successfully argued that the...