Color of Death: Race and the Death Penalty (From Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in America, P 178-202, 1996, Sabra Horne, ed. - See NCJ-163438)

• NCJ Number: 163445
• Author(s): S Walker; C Spohn; M DeLone
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 25 pages
• Sale Source: Wadsworth Publishing Co
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter addresses the issue of racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty.

Abstract

The chapter includes a discussion of Supreme Court decisions concerning the constitutionality of the death penalty, statistics on death sentences and executions, the results of empirical studies of the effect of race on the application of the death penalty, and a discussion of the Supreme Court case that directly addressed the question of racial discrimination in the imposition of the death penalty. The findings of research into the effect of race on the capital sentencing process consistently demonstrate that those who murder whites are much more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murder African Americans. Many of those studies also have shown that African Americans convicted of murdering whites receive the death penalty more often than whites who murder other whites. These results suggest that racial disparities in the application of the death penalty reflect racial discrimination. Figures, tables, notes