HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/anarchy/essays/schoolsucks/racefx.txt

Text File | 1996-04-27 | 7KB | 127 lines

Sam Houston State University, Huntsville
CJ 478W-Introduction To Methods Of Research


     The Effects of Race on Sentencing in Capital Punishment Cases

    Throughout history, minorities have been ill-represented in
the criminal justice system, particularly in cases where the
possible outcome is death.  In early America, blacks were lynched
for the slightest violation of informal laws and many of these
killings occured without any type of due process.  As the judicial
system has matured, minorities have found better representation but
it is not completely unbiased.  In the past twenty years strict
controls have been implemented but the system still has symptoms of
racial bias.  This racial bias was first recognized by the Supreme
Court in  Fruman v. Georgia, 408 U.S.  238 (1972).  The Supreme
Court Justices decide that the death penalty was being handed out
unfairly and according to Gest (1996) the Supreme Court felt the
death penalty was being imposed ôfreakishlyÆ and æwantonlyö and
ômost often on blacks.ö  Several years later in Gregg v. Georgia,
428 U.S. 153 (1976), the Supreme Court decided, with efficient
controls, the death penalty could be used constitutionally.  Yet,
even with these various controls, the system does not effectively
eliminate racial bias.
    Since Gregg v. Georgia the total  population of all 36 death
rows has grown as has the number of judicial controls used by each
state.  Of the 3,122 people on death row  41% are black while 48%
are white (Gest, 1996, 41).  This figure may be acceptable at first
glance but one must take into account the fact that only 12% of the
U.S. population is black (Smolowe, 1991, 68).  Carolyn Snurkowski
of the Florida attorney generals office believes that the
disproportionate number of blacks on death row can be explained by
the fact that, ôMany black murders result from barroom brawls that
wouldnÆt call for the death penalty, but many white murders occur
on top of another offense, such as robberyö (As cited in Gest,
1986, 25).  This may be true but the Washington Legal Foundation
offers their own explanation by arguing that ôblacks are arrested
for murder at a higher rate than are whites.  When arrest totals
are factored in , æthe probability of a white murderer ending up on
death row is 33 percent greater than in the case of a black
murdererö (As cited in Gest, 1986, 25).
    According to Professor Steven Goldstein of Florida State
University, ôThere are so many discretionary stages:  whether the
prosecutor decides to seek the death penalty, whether the jury
recommends it, whether the judge gives itö (As cited in Smolowe,
1991, 68).  It is in these discretionary stages that racial biases
can infect the system of dealing out death sentences.  Smolowe
(1991) shows this infection by giving examples of two cases decided
in February of  1991, both in Columbus.  The first example is a
white defendant named  James Robert Caldwell who was convicted of
stabbing his 10 year old son repeatedly and raping and killing his
12 year old daughter.  The second example is of a black man, Jerry
Walker, convicted of killing a 22-year-old white man while robbing
a convenience-store.  CaldwellÆs trial lasted three times as long
as WalkerÆs and Caldwell received a life sentence while Walker
received a death sentence.  In these examples, it is believed that
not only the race of the victims, but also the value of the
victims, biased the sentencing decisions.  The 22-year-old man
killed by Walker was the son of a Army commander at Fort Benning
while CaldwellÆs victims were not influential in the community.  In
examples such as these, it becomes evident that racial bias, in any
or all of the discretionary stages, becomes racial injustice in the
end.  Smolowe (1991) also makes the point that Columbus is not
alone:  ôA 1990 report prepared by the governmentÆs General
Accounting Office found æa pattern of evidence indicating racial
disparities in the charging, sentencing and imposition of the death
penalty.ö
    In an article by Seligman (1994),  Professor Joseph Katz of
Georgia State ôand other scholars have made a separate point about
bias claims based on the ædevalued livesÆ of murder victims.ö
Seligman also asserts that those claiming bias believe that it is
in the race of the victim and not the race of the defendant, and
because the lives of blacks have been ôdevalued,Æ people who murder
blacks are less likely to receive death sentences than those who
murder whitesö (Seligman, 1994, 113).  An Iowa Law Professor, David
Baldus, also found that ôjuries put a premium on the lives of
victimsö (As cited in Lacayo, 1987, 80).  In a study of more than
2,000 Georgia murder cases, Baldus found that ôthose who killed
whites were 4.3 times as likely to receive the death penalty as
those who killed blacks.  And blacks who killed whites were most
likely of all to be condemned to dieö (As cited in Lacayo, 1987,
80).  According to Gest (1996), of those executed since the
reinstatement of the death penalty, 80% have murdered whites, while
only 12% of those executed in the same time period have had black
victims.  These figures show an obvious trend of racial bias
against those who murdered whites.  Could these disparities be
because, as sociologist Michael Radelet put it, ôProsecutors are
political animals, they are influenced by community outrage, which
is subtly influenced by race,ö or is it because ôit is built into
the system that those in the predominant race will be more
concerned about crime victims of their own race,ö as stated by
Welsh White of the University of Pittsburgh Law School (As cited in
Gest, 1986, 25).
    Because of the immense possibility of discrimination in
sentencing in capital punishment cases, each stage of prosecution
must be controlled as much as possible.      Although these
offenders are the worst the criminal justice system has to offer,
prosecutors must be encouraged to consider the crime and not the
race of the victim or offender and the judge must attempt to
exclude the same racial issue when deciding the punishment.  I
believe Justice Brennan said it best when he wrote the dissenting
opinion in a capital punishment appeal.  He wrote, ôIt is tempting
to pretend that minorities on death row share a fate in no way
connected to our own, that our treatment of them sounds no echoes
beyond the chambers in which they die.  Such an illusion is
ultimately corrosive, for the reverberations of injustice are not
so easily confinedö (As cited in Lacayo, 1987, 80).  With great
effort, the judicial controls can begin to battle the racial bias
of Americas Judicial system but to completely eliminate such a
bias, the people involved in the judicial process must learn to
look past the race of the offender or the value of the victim, and
instead focus on circumstances of the crime.