USA: death by discrimination - time to halt executions

Minjok-Tongshin ^ | 4.27.03

[Enemy Of The State]

USA: death by discrimination - time to halt executions

 

The death penalty in the United States of America remains an act of racial injustice as well as an inherently cruel and degrading punishment, Amnesty International said today as it issued a new report on the continuing role of race in capital cases in the USA.

"President Bush has promised that the United States will always stand firm for equal justice," Amnesty International said. "If that's true, he and other politicians must call an immediate halt to executions in the face of studies consistently indicating that the justice system places a higher value on white life than on black".

Blacks and whites are victims of murder in almost equal numbers in the USA, but 80 per cent of the more than 840 people executed since judicial killing resumed in 1977 were put to death for murders involving white victims.

Most murders in the USA involve perpetrators and victims of the same race, yet nearly 200 African Americans have been executed for the murder of white victims --15 times as many as the number of whites put to death for killing blacks, and at least twice as many as the number of blacks executed for the murder of other blacks.

African Americans account for 12 per cent of the population, but more than 40 per cent of death row and one in three of those executed. The USA will soon execute its 300th African American prisoner since 1977.

"At least one in five of the African Americans executed since 1977, and a quarter of the blacks put to death for killing whites, were tried in front of all-white juries," Amnesty International continued. "What were the odds of this happening for entirely non-discriminatory reasons?"

The cases show a pattern of prosecutors dismissing minority jurors during jury selection. Prospective jurors may only be excluded for "race neutral" reasons in US capital trials, but this protection only catches the most overtly racist prosecutorial tactics. Even in the absence of questionable dismissals, however, defendants have faced jury pools in which minorities are under-represented in the first place.

"US capital juries do not represent the community because death penalty opponents are kept off them," said Amnesty International. "This is compounded where, for whatever reason, members of minority communities are under-represented in the pools from which jurors are selected".

Recent research into the attitudes of capital jurors indicates that racial stereotyping can taint juror deliberations, and that the racial mix of juries can play a role in the outcome of capital trials. Two black prisoners were executed last month despite allegations that the solitary African American on each of their juries was singled out for pressure by white jurors to change their vote from life to death.

"It is over eight years since the USA ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), thereby committing itself to work against racism and its effects, including in the justice system," Amnesty International noted. "As far as capital justice goes, there has been a manifest failure of human rights leadership. For example, the Bush administration allowed federal executions to resume in 2001 and to continue this year despite having failed to explain racial disparities in federal capital sentencing."

A 1987 US Supreme Court ruling, McCleskey v Kemp, remains a huge obstacle for legal challenges to death sentences on the grounds of racial bias in capital sentencing. In 2001, for example, a federal court referred to the racial disparities on Ohio's death row as "extremely troubling", but felt unable to offer any remedy because of the McCleskey precedent. A United Nations expert has said that the McCleskey ruling may be incompatible with the USA's obligations under CERD.

One of the hallmarks of the US capital justice system is the number of errors, at both the conviction and sentencing stage of death penalty trials, discovered on appeal. A landmark study released last year concluded that race is one of the factors that feed the high error rate in capital cases.

"We don't believe the courts catch all inequities, including those caused by conscious or unconscious racism among the decision-makers in capital cases," Amnesty International said. "What is more, the tough-on-crime politics of the death penalty means that executive clemency is not the fail-safe it is supposed to be. The only appropriate response to human fallibility is abolition of this irrevocable punishment".

"The USA's continuing resort to judicial killing gives the lie to its self-proclaimed status as global human rights champion," Amnesty International continued. "The fact that the condemned are selected for death under a system tainted by discrimination and error compounds the country's shame and lends weight to accusations of hypocrisy levelled at its leadership".

Background
Maryland Senators last month rejected a bill to impose a moratorium on executions in the light of a recent study showing significant racial bias in Maryland's capital sentencing -- specifically that those who kill whites are more likely to receive a death sentence. When outgoing Illinois governor George Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 people in January, he cited the failure of past Illinois legislatures to fix the state's problems with the death penalty. He stressed that these flaws went beyond Illinois's notorious record of wrongful convictions, and into questions of arbitrariness, with race being one of the ingredients.
See Amnesty International's report, USA: Death by discrimination - the continuing role of race in capital cases.

[DED]

No, you're not wrong. Blacks commit murders at a rate FAR beyond their percentage of the population.

The article also misses another point: when blacks kill blacks, it's frequently also a criminal killing a criminal. Juries aren't in a big hurry to execute someone who's killed a drug dealer or a gang thug.

This isn't racist thought on my part, just facts. It's no more discriminatory than charging young white teenage boys higher rates on car insurance because they are the ones most likely to have an accident.

[RightWhale]

Does FR need to discuss such issues of the Left? Most of these issues are made-up pedantic museum pieces not necessary for inclusion in a modern text.

[eddie willers]

How many innocent people are we willing to execute....

Since I (nor, apprently, Amnesty International) can find an instance where that has ever happened, I'd say the system is working out pretty well.

[Kevin Curry]

Well, you nailed it.

I suspect this kind of thread tends to exists for one overriding reason: to give the stealth liberals skulking about at FR a place to distibute their propaganda.

[Still Thinking]

African Americans account for 12 per cent of the population, ...At least one in five of the African Americans executed since 1977, and a quarter of the blacks put to death for killing whites, were tried in front of all-white juries," Amnesty International continued. "What were the odds of this happening for entirely non-discriminatory reasons?"

Well, the odds of an all white jury being selected by chance are (1.0-0.12)^12, or 21.57%. Oh, guess what, that's exactly in line with the jury composition figures they're using to "prove" racism! Besides, even if the prosecutors WERE trying to pack the jury box with those most likely to vote for conviction, doesn't the defense have the same power to shape the jury, and isn't that viewed as being part of their job, these days??

[MEG33]

Enemy said he gets a kick out of commie propaganda..after I told him I was grabbing for the Rolaids.

[Slings and Arrows]

From the looks of things, a North Korean news webpage.

[DED]

I've read about something like eight people recently who were sentenced to die and MUCH later found to be innocent through DNA testing. One can only assume that, prior to DNA testing, such people were executed.

The government almost ALWAYS refuses to allow further testing post-execution, so AI, or anyone else who tried, would be unable to find proof that it happened.

[boop]

Plus more than 99% of convicted rapists are males. using amnesty int'l logic, there is NO OTHER posible explanation than sexism, so we must release these victims of "discrimination" from prison.

[Dark Knight]

I loved your response.

>>"At least one in five of the African Americans executed since 1977, and a quarter of the blacks put to death for killing whites, were tried in front of all-white juries," Amnesty International continued. "What were the odds of this happening for entirely non-discriminatory reasons?" <<

Statistical.

I balked at Amnesty International and the death penalty when it put up the international death penalty statistics and the US was in the top five. They used numbers from past years and a few countries were not on the list at all. Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, etc. These countries did not report a number, and AI did not even want to guess as they did for China.

They just wanted better numbers to make the USA look like it was vastly more involved in the death penalty than it is.
China > 1000 (est)
USA < 100 documented

But I'm sure Amnesty International is well aware that it is better to protest anything in the USA than to live in one of those countries and think out loud badly.

DK

[schmelvin]

No, you're not wrong. Blacks commit murders at a rate FAR beyond their percentage of the population.

The article also misses another point: when blacks kill blacks, it's frequently also a criminal killing a criminal. Juries aren't in a big hurry to execute someone who's killed a drug dealer or a gang thug.

You've made a good point. There are a number of factors that determine whether or not a murderer receives the death penalty: criminal record, the circumstance and level of brutality involved in the killing(s), whether or not the victim was an upstanding citizen, the killer's remorse or lack of it, the killer's motive, state of mind, mental competency, etc.

I can't even begin to explain the disproportionate number of black criminals. I don't think it has anything to do with race, though. I don't think that the blacks who commit crimes do so because they are black. I think it may be because they've embraced a particular subculture.

There are a number of subcultures in America, one of them being the inner city, product of a single parent home, gangster subculture. I'm not saying that people aren't responsible for their actions and choices, nor that people can't overcome environmental influences. There are a number of reformed gangbangers and a number who never go down that path in the first place in spite of the overwhelming pressures to do so.

I've read that prior to LBJ's "War on Poverty" that blacks were well on their way to becoming middle class and upper middle class citizens. That the destruction of the black family, the diminishment of the incentive to work hard and strive to get a good education became rampant after LBJ's socialist meddling.

As a teenager, I had a friend whose mother was on welfare (she was white, if that matters). Because her mother was on welfare, my friend was not allowed to work. If she got a job flipping burgers like all her friends, her mother would lose welfare benefits. She really wanted to work, but her only choices were to remain idle, work illegally for cash "under the table" (or engage in worse illegal dealings to obtain money), or throw herself into her schoolwork, after-school activities, volunteer work, etc. She was a good kid and chose the latter.

Many choose idleness or crime and end up on welfare like their parent or they end up dead, in prison, or criminals at large. It's a vicious cycle. Nobody wins, except the politicians, who "compassionately" wrap the poor in chains.

[attiladhun2]

True. Actually blacks commit over half of the murders in this country, yet only about 35% of the death row population is black. They are getting a free ride if you ask me.

[BeAllYouCanBe]

"I think it may be because they've embraced a particular subculture."

I live in suburban Bay Area California and in my town there are no ghettoes but we have a ghetto about 30 miles north.(Oakland) A black teenager could go there for help in speaking and acting like a "Gangster".(Dangerous for a 16 year-old to do without getting killed.) It is interesting that young blacks here feel the need to act black.(Be black = being cool but your parents are middle-class and don't teach "homey-talk".) Well, how do you do that??

The answer is provided by music videos and movies from -- yes, HOLLY-WEIRD! Stay in your own comfy crib "brothers" and learn all about the '"hood" upt der in Oakland."

So kids here then will get programed to be anti-establishment and hate police and get the whole cultural baggage while you live in a $2 million house.

[Walnut]

I worry more about poor people being put to death

[Walnut]

except if they have the wrong person and that person doesn't have the money to defend him or herself. and they can accuse the wrong person when they want to get rid of a case fast. and what better than and uneducated person
(especially during an election year

[Walnut]

tell that to the woman who got put to death in Florida last year. She doesn't feel discriminated against(Arlene Werner Or Worner)

[FITZ]

Most murders in the USA involve perpetrators and victims of the same race, yet nearly 200 African Americans have been executed for the murder of white victims --15 times as many as the number of whites put to death for killing blacks, and at least twice as many as the number of blacks executed for the murder of other blacks.

You can't look at numbers ----you'd have to look at ratios ---not as many whites kill blacks as blacks kill whites. As for the number of blacks executed for killing other blacks ---that would be an argument for why there should be more death penalty executions.

[FITZ]

and MUCH later found to be innocent through DNA testing.

There might be some innocent who have died ---but many of the "innocent" were at the scene of the crime, they were participants with the real criminal ---sometimes the real criminal even put the blame on them but they were accomplices of his. DNA testing doesn't mean all were completely innocent ---just sitting home watching tv and just happened to get accused.

[NCLaw441]

My only two concerns in the death penalty issue are that as many of those who deserve the death penalty as possible actually receive it-- legally, justly...and promptly AND that those who do NOT deserve the death penalty do NOT recive it...ever. The fact that members of one race receive the death penalty more than those of another does bother me somewhat, but as long as each person who receives the death penalty deserves it, then what is the gripe? As suggested above, one solution is to work to impose the death penalty on more of those who deserve it, rather than less.
A final point..... the death penalty is easy to avoid..simply do not commit pre-meditated murder.

[BeAllYouCanBe]

"I worry more about poor people being put to death"

So we will set income guide lines that allow for convictions of only people above the median income.

How much you want to bet that in 3 years you'll never leave your house from fear of being murdered.

Poor people are not bad -- in fact I was born in a cold water flat on the wrong side of town (no white liberal guilt here) -- criminals' income doesn't make a criminal -- lifestyle choices -- lead to criminality.