Vitale 1

Vincent Vitale

Dr. Gunter

Texts and Contexts

21 November 2017

A Case Against the Death Penalty due to Locational and Racial Biases

The United States does not exactly have the greatest history when it comes to the fair

treatment of black people in the justice system. For centuries in the United States, African

Americans have been subject to some of the worst prejudice in the history of mankind.

In addition to this prejudice, Americans have been known for supporting capital punishment in

high percentages throughout the nations history. This is especially evident in the Southern parts

of the United States where capital punishment is distributed at rates significantly higher than

other parts of the country. According to a poll done by the Pew Research Center, as of April

2015, just over half of Americans support capital punishment, 35% of Americans believe that

capital punishment has the ability to deter crimes from being committed, and 52% of Americans

believe that minorities are more likely to be sentenced to death than white people (Berman).

These statistics may lead to the question of just how accurate are Americans in their knowledge

of the death penalty. A reason those in favor of the death penalty frequently give when asked

why they are in support of it is that capital punishment deters crime because people will opt not

to commit a crime when they can be killed if they are caught doing so. The accuracy of this

statement has been a topic of discussion for many years. Futhermore, I believe that the

distribution of capital punishment is arbitrarily and blatantly racist and should be outlawed

because the race of the victim and where the trial takes place holds the most influence of all

factors in determining who gets put on death row.

 Vitale 2

Given the history of the United States, one might just assume that the race of the

murderer alone plays an extremely significant role on whether he or she would be given capital

punishment. However, the real cause for concern regarding race in the death penalty is that of

the victim. The victims race perhaps plays the largest role of all in terms of who is sentenced to

death. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, from the year 1976 to 2002, there were

12 white people who were sentenced to death for killing black people as opposed to the

staggering 278 black people who were given the death penalty for murdering a white person

(Race and the Death Penalty). Though there have been more Caucasian people killed by

African Americans from 1976 to 2002, this ratio still does not come close to that of one that

would seem logical in any universe. In fact, in the state of Alabama, while 65% of murders

involve black victims, 80% of death sentences involve white victims (Love). This simply means

that a murderer whose victim is white is far more likely to receive capital punishment in

comparision to one whose victim is black. These two absurd statistics alone show evidence that

white supremacy is still very much alive today and precisely how it made its way into the justice

system of the United States. With the discovery of this information, one could easily see just

how much racism is involved in the determination of who gets capital punishment. Because of

all of this information, the death penalty should continue to be seen as nothing but a racist form

of punishment.

One might think that the United States as a whole, without a doubt, has a racist justice

system that is in need of immediate reform. However, when examining statistics at the state

level as opposed to looking through the lens nationally, it becomes evident that some states rates

of capital sentencing are blown out of proportion. It is widely known that southern Republican

states account for the majority of capital punishment victims even though many other large states
 Vitale 3

like California, a very traditionally Democratic state, have capital punishment. Former

Confederate states were responsible for about 90 percent of the total executions in the entire

United States in about the first 20 years after the famous court case Furman v. Georgia had taken

place in 1972 (Walpin). It doesnt end there. When analyzing the statistics at even smaller

degree, it becomes apparent that there are a few counties in particular that employ the death

penalty at rates so much higher than anywhere else in the country. There are fifteen counties in

the US that accounted for 30% of executions since the year 1976 (Love). All of these counties

reside in states that had receded with the Confederacy including nine alone in Texas. Since the

year 1976, Dallas County, Texas has executed 50 individuals, the second most in the nation. In

1910, a black man named Allen Brooks was accused of abusing a white child in Dallas County.

Before he could he could even have a trial, a mob of approximately 5,000 white people had

kidnapped him from jail and lynched him (Lawe). Similarly eleven years later in Dallas County,

a black man named Alexander Johnson was murdered for simply bragging about having sex with

a white woman. These crimes are no coincidence or outlier as these counties have a bad history

of elected officials and citizens supporting segregation and denouncing diversity and racial

integration. These two manslaughters are just two of many unlawful crimes that occurred in

Dallas County and many other counties in Texas. This history of racism in these counties still

lives today. According to the New York Times, Chuck Rosenthal, the district attorney of Harris

County in Texas, which has by far had the most executions in the nation since 1976 at 116,

resigned after racist emails that he had sent were leaked to the public (Dow). It is also important

to mention that Rosenthal and his successor in office had tried 32 men for capital punishment

with 29 of them being people of color. This could be interpreted that for about every one white

man that the district attorney attempts to give the death penalty, he also tries to give 9 black men
 Vitale 4

the death penalty. Chuck Rosenthal and his colleagues could not provide a more evident

example of how the location of where a black man commits a crime can possibly have an

everlasting effect on his future. With all of this in mind, the reasons to support the distribution of

capital punishment go down significantly.

One of the most common reasons capital punishment supporters give when they are

making a case for the death penalty is that it deters crime from being committed. They mostly

base this claim of the human drive and instinct to survive. In other words, a major reason why

people are deterred away from committing heinous crimes like murder is because they fear for

their own lives as a punishment for their decisions. When looking at it in this lens, it is easy to

lose sight of other factors that stray people away from carrying out detestable actions, such as

moral reasons. This is the mistake that capital punishment supporters make when making their

case for its purpose in society. According to most top criminologists, the death penalty has little

to no impact on crime rate in the United States. However, what they all certainly know is that in

regions like the South, where the death penalty is legal, one is twice as likely to be murdered

than if they were in places like the Northeast where capital punishment has very little presence

(Radelet and Lacock). In addition, the eight states with the highest murder rates in the United

States instate capital punishment. Seven of these eight states are located in the South and include

Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas (Race and

the Death Penalty). Likewise, seven of the eight states with the lowest murder rates do not have

the death penalty. Not coincidentally, the majority of these states are located in the Northeast

and Midwest and include the likes of Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Dakota,

Minnesota, and Maine. Interestingly, New Hampshire has the lowest murder rate in the nation

yet feels the need to have the death penalty. With these facts in mind, it is completely illogical to
 Vitale 5

suggest that capital punishment is a deterrent to crime. This data also makes it more difficult for

those in support of the death penalty to ignore locational biases and their effect on the outcome

of a trial.

There are many possible solutions to eliminating racial and geographical biases within

capital punishment. The obvious and simplest solution to getting rid of locational and racial

biases in the death penalty would be to abolish the death penalty everywhere in the country.

Even though many states individually have been abolishing the death penalty in recent years, it is

hard to imagine the abolishment of capital punishment in places like the South where the death

penalty is so prevalent. Another thing that would help this nation get rid of racial and locational

inequality in capital sentencing would be rooting out racist jurors and district attorneys in areas

with a history of racial discrimination and hiring those who have a good background in the fair

treatment of all races in the criminal justice system. By doing this, the true percentage of whites

and blacks who should be on death row would be revealed as there shouldnt be any bias. In my

opinion, instead of focusing heavily on capital punishment, Congress and local state legislatures

should be focusing on real solutions to violent crimes as the death penalty is now proven to have

little effect on crime rate in the fifty states. Some ways of decreasing the murder rate would be

installing stricter gun laws across the country, sponsoring anti-bullying programs for children as

bullying can lead them on a bad path, and instating new laws that help prevent dangerous drugs

from spreading across communities. If the Congress were able to find more ways of lowering

murder rates, capital punishments need in society would drop, thus decreasing support for it.

In conclusion, the death penalty is a corrupt method of punishing people due to racial and

locational biases that can be seen through various statistics and facts. There are many possible

solutions to eliminating these biases that Congress should explore. Many Americans believe that
 Vitale 6

the death penalty deters crime, but geographical evidence would suggest the opposite. Even

though a large percentage of the American population is in favor the death penalty, capital

punishment has many flaws that should not be overlooked. The blantant racism and

geographical inequity of the death penalty are just two of many factors that lead many to believe

its illegitimacy.
 Vitale 7

Works Cited

Berman, Mark. Most Americans Support the Death Penalty. They Also Agree That an Innocent

Person Might Get Put to Death. The Washington Post, WP Company, 17 Apr. 2015

Dow, David R. Death Penalty, Still Racist and Arbitrary. The New York Times, The New

York Times, 8 July 2011.

Lawe, Thedore M. Racial Politics in Dallas in the Twentieth Century, East Texas

Historical Journal, vol. 46, no. 2, 2008, pp. 172188.

Love, David A. The Racial Bias of the US Death Penalty. The Guardian, Guardian

News and Media, 3 Jan. 2012.

Race and the Death Penalty. American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union.

Radelet, Michael and Lacock, Traci L. Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates?: The Views of

Top Leading Criminologists, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 99,

no. 2, 2009, pp. 489508.

Walpin, Ned. Why Is Texas #1 in Executions? PBS, Public Broadcasting Service.