The Death Penalty & Race

By Janel Casto
 Capital
Punishment

The penalty of death for the commission of a crime.

 History of Death Penalty
In the Eighteenth Century B.C. the first death penalty laws were
established, by King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which 25 different crimes
held the death penalty.

Under the reign of Henry VIII during the Sixteenth Century, an estimated
of 72,000 people were executed. Such as being boilied, burned at the
stake, hanged, and beheaded. Some capital offenses were such as
marrying a Jew, not confessing to a crime, and treason.

From 1823 to 1837, the death penalty was eliminated for over 100 of the
222 crimes punishable by death.
American Indians
and Injustice

Since1976, 26
American Indians
have been executed
mainly for the murder
of white victims.
In the 1980s a University of
Iowa law professor David
Baldus did a criminal
sentencing study in Georgia.
He found that prosecutors
sought the death penalty for
70% of black defendants with
white victims, but only 15% of
black defendants with black
victims. Similar patterns of
racial bias are found across
the country.
Overall national number of prisoners sentenced
to the death penalty separated by race.
 Injustice for All

Studies in Arkansas
showed it is more
likely for black people
who kill white people
to be charged with
capital murder and
stances to death.
 In 2007
42 persons in 10 states were executed -- 26 in Texas; 3 each in Alabama and
Oklahoma; 2 each in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee; and 1 each in South Dakota,
Georgia, South Carolina, and Arizona.

All 42 inmates executed in 2007 were men Of those men 28 of them were white and
14 were black.

Lethal injection was used in all but one execution

by electrocution.

Of persons under sentence of death in 2007:

1,804 were white, 1,345 were black, 26 were
American Indian, 35 were Asian, 10 were of
unknown race.

Also a report sponsored by the American Bar

Association in 2007 concluded that one-third of
African-American death row inmates in
Philadelphia would have received sentences of
life imprisonment if they had not been African-
American.
A study done by professor John Donohue in
Connecticut showed blacks received the death
penalty three times as much a rate of a white
defendant where the victim is white.
Donohue’s study also
showed that the killer of
a white victim is treated
more severely then that
who kill minorities.

Also minorities who kill

whites receive the death
penalty much more
likely then minorities
who murder minorities.