While the death penalty is often characterized as flagrantly biased, the facts indicate otherwise. A synthesis of 28 studies shows that in many cases, U.S. Attorney personnel in certain districts recommend the death penalty for Black defendants at a lower rate than for whites. Psychiatrist Joseph Thornton visited prisoners on death row and saw that race played an important role in who gets executed. He also knows that geography matters: a few states account for most executions.
Blacks
The federal death penalty is disproportionately applied to people of color. In fact, of the 18 federal prisoners currently condemned to die in the United States, 82% are Black or Hispanic. This racial disparity is even more evident when one looks at the death row statistics in the USA on murder cases prosecuted in federal district courts. A study of all murder cases recommended by prosecutors to the Attorney General for review found that between 1995 and 2000, at every stage of the case evaluation process, Black defendants were more likely than white defendants to be recommended for prosecution for killing a White victim.
The reasons for this disproportionate treatment are myriad. They begin with police practices in the community, charging decisions of prosecuting attorneys, and geographic bias. They continue through the trial phase, with racialized perceptions of danger from jurors, racially biased “aggravating circumstances” being used against African American and Latino defendants, and, often, inadequate and unprofessional capital defense on the part of their court-appointed lawyers.
In addition, the gender and socio-economic class of a defendant also play a role. Women are sentenced to death at a rate far lower than men, even though women are more likely than men to be victims of violent crimes. Those who are poor (which is to say, a large number of racial minorities) are more likely to be indigent and thus have inadequate legal representation.
Hispanics
In a society where people experience racism at the surface level, it is also easy to miss how deeply rooted and persistent prejudice can be. It can take the form of insensitive remarks, subtle acts, or more insidious and engrained beliefs that lead to a lifelong hold on core values and customs. Those attitudes affect how Americans view the death penalty. While most think that it is generally applied fairly, a substantial minority say there are inequalities by race, class, and gender. For example, 85% of Black adults say that they are more likely than Whites to be sentenced to death for similar crimes, while only about half of Hispanics and 25% of Whites agree. Regarding the federal system, most Hispanics (56%) and a smaller but still substantial number of Whites (48%) support it. About three-quarters of White Republicans favor it, as do about eight of those who describe themselves as conservative or moderate Democrats. A substantial share of all Americans — 67% — say that poor people are more likely to be sentenced to death than wealthy ones who commit similar crimes. Similarly, 50% of Americans say that men are more likely to be sentenced to death for comparable crimes than women. And more than four in ten say that innocent people are likely to be put to death by mistake.
Whites
Whites, who are just under half of the population, are overrepresented on state and federal death row and are more likely to be convicted of capital crimes than Blacks. And even when prosecutors are not explicitly seeking the death penalty for defendants, they have unfettered discretion over which cases to pursue, and they seek the death penalty more frequently in cases with white victims. In part, these disparities are the result of geography; a small number of states have the highest murder rates and execute more people than other states. But they also reflect the systemic racism of our criminal justice system, which has its roots in slavery and Jim Crow laws. People convicted of killing white victims are 17 times more likely to receive the death penalty than people convicted of killing Black victims, and prosecutors routinely seek the death penalty for defendants with white victims while only pursuing it in a small percentage of cases involving Black victims. Overall, 85% of Black adults say that people with similar backgrounds are treated differently when it comes to the death penalty. In contrast, only about a third of White adults and two-thirds of Hispanic adults agree with this view. Moreover, among the people who have completed four-year college degrees, 82% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans agree that Blacks are more likely than Whites to be sentenced to death for similar crimes.
Asians
Throughout the modern era, people of color have been overrepresented on death row. In 2019, Blacks accounted for 53% of the nation’s death row population, while they only make up 13% of the country’s population (Prison Policy Initiative). In addition, killers of Black people are more likely to be prosecuted for capital murder than those who kill white victims, indicating that the system is biased against Black defendants. In 82 of the studies that have found an influence of race in capital cases, researchers have found that the racial makeup of the victim is more predictive than the defendant’s racial makeup. However, the influence of race on decisions to charge or impose the death penalty is less consistent, and the impact of the victim’s racial makeup is more significant at earlier stages in the process. A majority of Americans, across educational and racial/ethnic lines, say that the death penalty does not deter serious crimes. This view is more widespread among Democrats and adults ages 50 to 64. Women on death row often have to endure shoddy trials that fail to properly consider their circumstances and mitigating factors, such as long-term physical or sexual violence or abuse. As a result, many women on death row have been denied justice. Yet research into this issue has been limited and inconsistent. The only study that has isolated the effects of gender on decisions in death penalty cases is by Professor Martin Urbina, who published a first-of-its-kind survey of 127 Latinos executed between Furman and 2018. That initial study found that the gender of the defendant was much more influential than the underlying offense or victim, and he also concluded that these findings were consistent with a model that included bias against women.
