“For every nine people executed in the United States in the modern era of the death penalty, one person on death row has been exonerated” (DPIC). That comprises 11.1% of people on death row, innocent. The death penalty is engulfed with racial bias and discrimination and according to the DPIC – Death Penalty Information Center – race has played a historical role within the death penalty and continues to do so to this day. Senior Director of Research and Special Projects at the DPIC stated that “The death penalty has been used to enforce racial hierarchies throughout United States history, beginning with the colonial period and continuing to this day,” (DPIC). This is why the death penalty needs to be addressed when discussing police reform reversing mass incarceration, and the entirety of the criminal justice system (DPIC). The death penalty is unjust and should be reformed due to the consistent racial bias and uncertainty throughout the criminal justice system. While most would think that there would be little to no error in the death penalty, we easily forget the prejudice involved and the lack of convicting evidence. How does our criminal justice system reproduce racial and sex inequality through its treatment of discrimination and biases?
Born in 1960, Adam Liptak is an American Journalist, lawyer, and instructor in journalism and law. In his sidebar, “A Vast Racial Gap in Death Penalty Cases, New Study Finds”, published in the New York Times in 2020, Liptak addresses the topic of racial bias within the death penalty and argues that black lives are valued at a lower rate than white lives. He supports his claim by referring to the McCleskey v. Kemp supreme court ruling which decided the execution of Warren McClesky in the case of a dead police officer. He then supports his claim by citing information from a new study that was published in The Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. This study examined death sentences and whether or not the defendants were eventually executed. He finally supports his claim with words from Eric E. Freedman and Professor Phillips, a law professor at Hofstra University, and one of the authors from the Harvard Study. Both state that the racial bias within capital punishment remains a poignant issue to this day. Liptak’s purpose is to stimulate doubt within the criminal justice system and how it influences the death penalty in order to show how racial bias makes for an unstable country which then affects the certainty of capital punishment. He adopts a formal tone for his audience, readers of the New York Times, and others interested in the topic of the death penalty (Liptak).
Professor of law at the University of Iowa, David C. Baldus held said position from 1969 until his death in 2011. His studies focused on law and social science and he investigated the death penalty thoroughly throughout his time. In his Cornell law review, “Racial Discrimination and the Death Penalty in the Post-Furman Era: An Empirical and Legal Overview, With Recent Findings from Philadelphia”, published in 1998, addresses the topic of racial discrimination in capital punishment and argues that post-Furman America, the time period after Furman V. Georgia, encourages racial prejudice in relation to the death penalty and lacks the skills necessary to encourage otherwise. He supports this claim by discussing discretion and discrimination, followed by the legal, moral, and ethical concerns linked with racial discrimination in the management of the death penalty. He then supports his case by showing evidence to support his first two claims with specific reference to findings from Philadelphia. He supports his claim finally with judicial and legislative responses to claims of racial discrimination. Baldus’ purpose is to convince his readers of the presence of racial biases within capital punishment, and why that remains an issue in order to show what we can do as a society to help put an end to it. He adopts a serious tone for his audience, the readers of Cornell Law Reviews, and others interested in the topic of capital punishment.
Both Liptak and Baldus create environments in which the death penalty is not condoned and especially fought against. Liptak states that “Black lives do not matter nearly as much as white ones when it comes to the death penalty” (Liptak). He also states, “Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra, said courts and lawmakers had failed to confront the question of racial bias in the administration of capital punishment.” (Liptak). Baldus extends Liptak’s point by providing statistical references to support his claims. Baldus states that “While blacks make up only thirteen percent of the nation’s civilian population, blacks make up forty-one percent of the nation’s death row population.” (Baldus, 1651). Through these numbers, we see the disproportionate division of punishment while Baldus supports the claim that black lives are less important than white lives in relation to the death penalty. It is at this point the readers start to understand the racial discrimination that influences capital punishment. This statistic then leads to thoughts of historical precedents of the US including slavery, segregation, and racial discrimination. Liptak quotes Freedman once again stating, “The continuing failure of Congress and the state legislatures to remedy the situation is a continuing admission that the states are unable to run racially unbiased death penalty systems.” Baldus extends this point once more when he references McMillian V. State, a case in which a black man was wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Baldus explains the moral and ethical issues with cases such as McMillian’s and goes on to tell that society frames the criminal justice system very different from how it actually is. Both Baldus and Liptak discuss the racial bias in the criminal justice system and the lack of action taken by legislatures to fix the issue.
Founded in 1990, the Death Penalty Information Center is a nonprofit organization allotted in Washington D.C. The DPIC focuses on serving the media and the public with erudition concerning capital punishment. In their report, “Enduring Injustice: The Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty”, published in 2020, addresses the topic of racial prejudice within capital punishment and argues that racial bias persists to this day within the death penalty. They support their claim by quoting the Senior Director of Research and Special Projects and the report’s lead author of the DPIC. He states that ‘“The death penalty has been used to enforce racial hierarchies throughout United States history, beginning with the colonial period and continuing to this day,”’ (DPIC, 1). He then supports his argument by listing five realities about the death penalty in relation to racial bias, one of the points being, “A 2014 mock jury study of more than 500 Californians found that white jurors were more likely to sentence poor Latinx defendants to death than poor white defendants.” (DPIC,1) They finally support their argument by listing capital punishment cases in which racial bias was a driving factor of their sentencing for black men. The DPIC’s purpose is to bring light to the racial discrimination ever-present within these cases in order to convince people that change is needed if we want to proceed with our criminal justice system. They adopt a serious tone for their audience, the readers of the DPIC and others interested in racial bias within capital punishment.
Both the ACLU and DPIC discuss the racial bias within the death penalty and just how deadly that can be. Both organizations work to disseminate information to educate mass populations in relation to humanitarian issues such as discrimination within capital punishment. The ACLU states that “Our nation’s death rows have always held a disproportionately large population of African Americans, relative to their percentage of the total population.” (ACLU,1) The DPIC extends the ACLU’s argument by providing a case in which the defendant was racially discriminated against throughout his trial in order to imprison yet another black citizen. The case that the DPIC references are the case of Julius Jones, a black man convicted by an all-white jury for killing a white businessman. The DPIC states that “His case was riddled with racial discrimination, including an officer using a racial slur during his arrest, prosecutors striking every Black potential juror but one, and a juror who used the n-word to describe Jones.” (DPIC, 1) The DPIC explains how we have gotten to the point of a disproportionately large population of black Americans, relative to their total population.
The racial bias present in capital punishment defense cases is statistically shown by the DPIC along with a possible explanation, “Thirty-four of the 57 people currently on federal death row are people of color, including 26 Black men. Some were convicted and condemned by all-white juries” (DPIC, 1). Julius Jones, a 39-year-old man, was sentenced to death in 2002 for the 1999 killing of a businessman, Paul Howell. Despite the compelling evidence, this wrongful conviction has yet to be overturned.
Bryan Stevenson is a death penalty defense attorney who has dedicated his life to his nonprofit law organization focused on exonerating the wrongfully convicted on death row. Throughout his TedTalk “We Need to Talk About Injustice”, he discusses the concept of justice down to a tee. He speaks about the nature of justice and how we treat the rich and guilty better than the poor and the innocent.
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