Racism and the Death Penalty...

[Jack_DeLeon]

I said in other threads that I thought the Death Penalty is racist not because more minorities are executed, but rather because not enough whites are.

To me it doesnt really matter how many minorities are executed, if they are all murderers then they deserve it.

What bothers me is why more whites dont recieve the same punishment?

I believe that many Hispanics in my area support the death penalty and would have no problems problem in imposing it on other Hispanics if they deserve it.

So why is it that white juries/jurors wont give more white men/women the death penalty?

[porphyrian]

1. It's not really racist, it's classist.

Poor people get executed while rich people can afford lawyers who can get them off. The fact that minorities, and specifically blacks, are largely more poor than whites is a result of racism as well as classism. Classists may be racists as well, but they are primarily concerned with the superiority of their class and the inferiority of others.

[Jack_DeLeon]

3. While I do think money has alot to do with it...

I dont think its the whole thing.

Like you said if you are rich you can afford the good lawyers to get you off. However even they too can fail.

Lets take Scott Peterson case for example. His big $$$ lawyer wasnt enough, and he now faces the death penalty.

However in one of the thread someone posted something to the effect of "HAHA some of you guys think they are going to give a white guy the death penalty."

Anways in the Scott Peterson case its now up to the jury to decide whether he lives or he dies.

Isnt it true that when a white person is convicted of murder that he is less likley to get the death penalty than if he were a minority?

This really shouldnt have much to do with his wealth or his lawyer should it?

So what is it? Do juries just somehow trust or feel more sorry for a person begging for thier life when they are white than when they are a minority?

[Ms. Toad]

6. Actually, the race of the victim

has a much stronger correlation with the imposition of the death penalty than the race of the perpetrator. Although I am opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances, it the sad reality in our country that the life of a minority victim is valued less than the life of a white victim - and death is primarily imposed to vindicate the death of a white person.

[porphyrian]

8. I didn't say whites never get the death penalty.

I was responding to whether the death penalty was racist or not, and I believe that it is more classist than racist. That does not mean that there is no racism surrounding the death penalty, nor does it mean that classists are never accused.

[ulysses]

2. ROFL!

The solution to racism in the criminal justice system is to simply kill more white folks? GOD, but I love moderates! :D

[Jack_DeLeon]

4. lol, I support equality...

If a black, a Hispanic, A White, and a Jew all commit murder shouldnt they all be punished similarily.

;)

[ulysses]

5. of course!

It's your solution that I find so amusing.

[H2O Man]

10. If it were a black Jew

would you execute him/her twice? Or how about a white Jew? I'm not clear on your sense of equality with this grouping: "a black, a Hispanic, A White, and a Jew" .... lower cae "b" in black; upper cae "W" in White. Hmmm.

[Mandate My Ass]

7. "it doesnt really matter how many minorities are executed..."

Thanks for that informed opinion, massah!

"Two of the country's foremost researchers on race and capital punishment, law professor David Baldus and statistician George Woodworth, along with colleagues in Philadelphia, have conducted a careful analysis of race and the death penalty in Philadelphia which reveals that the odds of receiving a death sentence are nearly four times (3.9) higher if the defendant is black. These results were obtained after analyzing and controlling for case differences such as the severity of the crime and the background of the defendant. The data were subjected to various forms of analysis, but the conclusion was clear: blacks were being sentenced to death far in excess of other defendants for similar crimes."

"These new empirical studies underscore a persistent pattern of racial disparities which has appeared throughout the country over the past twenty years. Examinations of the relationship between race and the death penalty, with varying levels of thoroughness and sophistication, have now been conducted in every major death penalty state. In 96% of these reviews, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both. The gravity of the close connection between race and the death penalty is shown when compared to studies in other fields. Race is more likely to affect death sentencing than smoking affects the likelihood of dying from heart disease."

"Despite the prior example of legislation in response to similar discrimination in such areas as employment and housing, legislatures on both the federal and state level have failed to pass civil rights laws regarding the death penalty for fear of stopping capital punishment entirely."

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=45&did=539

Randolph N. Stone: "Yes, I think those are good reasons, but I think racism is one of the driving forces, particularly if you look at, historically, who the death penalty has been imposed on and for what crimes. Until the '70s, black men were executed for rape of white women. As recently as McCleskey v. Georgia, which was a famous death-penalty case in which the Supreme Court looked at rather persuasive statistics that analyzed the imposition of the death penalty, the driving factors were the race of the defendant and the race of the victim. study concluded that the odds of being sentenced to death were 4.3 times greater for defendants who killed whites than for defendants who killed blacks--even though, during that period of the study, roughly half of the victims of homicide were black. The racial angle, unfortunately, cannot really be minimized in the imposition of the death penalty in the United States."

http://www.fathom.com/course/10701044/session1.html

[Jack_DeLeon]

12. "My informed opinion"

As I stated before the injustice isnt that more minorities get the death penalty, its that white murders get it at a lessened rate.

IMO if they are murderers regardless of thier race or the race of thier victim they deserve it.

However both you and Ms. Toad have brought up something that I didnt really think about earlier when I posted this, but it does make some more sense now in the obviously racist and hypocritical way.

Blacks killing whites = you deserve getting the death penalty

Blacks killing blacks = maybe we will kill you, or maybe we will let you get off sooner so you can keep up the good work.

Whites killing blacks = meh who cares.

Whites killing whites = golly, we are in a connundrum, we will actually have to think some.

:\

I guess thats the way the jury really works.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cattleman22]

11. What about percentages?

I thought a study showed that among those convicted for murder, that a higher percentage of whites were sentenced to death than people with a different skin color. I forget the exact numbers, but I thought it was something like 5% of whites concivted for murder received the death penalty while 4% of non whites received the death penalty.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

13. Find the link

because it pretty much contradicts most studies on the application of the death penalty.

[cattleman22]

14. Here is the first link I came to

http://www.ncpa.org/pi/crime/pd111998d.html




"Whites arrested for murder or manslaughter (other than negligent manslaughter) are more prone to be sentenced to death than blacks -- 1.6 percent of whites versus 1.2 percent of blacks, according to the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics."

[Kathy in Cambridge]

16. Not a valid source, since it is a RIGHT-WING THINK TANK

try again.

Check out this little gem:

http://taxesandgrowth.ncpa.org/

Why did you use a RW source?

[cattleman22]

20. Is the data accurate or not?

I simply did a google search and posted the first link I found. While I certainly understand distrusting info from a rw source, is the data accurate?

[Kathy in Cambridge]

22. No, it's not

Find another link-you made the assertion, you back it up.

You should know thatRW websites are never valid sources. This one has a thinly veiled racist agenda.

[itzamirakul]

15. Let the Mafia Kill the death penalty

This subject title is the heading of an opinion piece, ON JUSTICE, in tonight's New York Daily News written by regular contributor, Richard Cohen. 11/19/04
**************************

snip
But Massino<61 years old who ran New York's Bonanno crime organization> is about to go on trial for yet another murder - his eighth (or so) - and for this one, Attorney General John Ashcroft is demanding the death penalty. For once, Ashcroft is right.

By insisting that Massino die if convicted of the eighth murder, allegedly ordered in 1999, Ashcroft has inadvertently illustrated what is so rotten and unfair about the death penalty itself.

It turns out that Mafia bosses, no matter what they have done, are almost never executed for their crimes.

Hispanic and African-American gang leaders are granted no such immunity. About 130 of them, gang members or leaders, have faced the death penalty since 1988. The figures for Mafia members is a bit different: one.

The ultimate bias is identification - the extent to which the jury can identify with the defendant. This, essentially, is what happened in the O.J. Simpson case, which is why he walked. It is what happens all the time when juries have to decide to take the lives of people like them. It is a lot easier if the defendant is caricatured as an animal, fierce, merciless and beyond rehabilitation. That's easier to do with minority gangbangers than with middle-aged mobsters who sometimes have an avuncular demeanor and a loving immediate family. Mostly, the death penalty is reserved for society's outcasts.

[David Zephyr]

17. The Death Penalty is Racist, Classist, But Most of All Barbaric

Yes, Jack_DeLeon, the application of the death penalty is certainly racist and as Porphyrian points out, it is also classist.

But most of all it is barbaric and has no place whatsoever in a civilized society.

[Chomp]

18. Well said DZ

The death penalty is utterly, utterly repugnant and is an absolute shame on any country that chooses to use it routinely.

And vicious racism is certainly one of the thousands of reasons it is a very bad thing.

[David Zephyr]

19. Nice meeting you here, Chomp

:)

[rachel2004]

21. Witnessed an execution

I'm not ashamed to say that I support the death penalty. My 6 year old daughter was abducted, raped and murdered 14 years ago. The man that did it HAD been a neighbor and friend. This animal actually helped co-ordinate the search for my baby! He was at our house consoling us! My husband and I fought long and hard for the death penalty and the jury agreed with us. Witnessing his execution was actually theraputic. I've never regretted it and now advocate FOR the death penalty when it comes to crimes, such as murder, against children.