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.

[ladyinred]

To show how PC the world is, I hesitate to comment on this, but here goes. If more blacks have committed murder than other races, then that might be why they are on death row. In California they need not worry as it is doubtful they will ever be executed anyway.

[Reactionary]

"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."

Unfortunately, for the Leftist paradigm to work one must assume that all races commit crime at exactly the same rate. Quite an assumption, really, considering that there isn't one whit of evidence to back up that claim.

[BeAllYouCanBe]

"If more blacks have committed murder than other races, then that might be why they are on death row. "

Two theories here:

One is equal opportunity. Two is equal outcome.

The liberals are looking for equal outcome -- but the outcome is skewed by black murder rates that are the last I've heard higher for black on black crime and black on white crime.

It is all just trying to look at income and trying to determine how that makes you a killer -- it doesn't -- neither does skin color.

[goldstategop]

There was an article on the murder of a black son in a South Central Los Angeles family by Julie Leovy in this past Saturday's Los Angeles Times. Its always amazing how the murderer-loving crowd repeatedly raises up the discredited canard of how black murderers are XXX times more likely to be executed than white murderers. As if the race of the killer ever made a difference to the victims: they're still dead. I'd love for liberals to explain to this family why the killer(s) of their child should be given an exemption from Death Row simply because of their skin color. My goodness, don't the lives of innocent and law-abiding people count for anything? Apparently not to that great champion of human rights, Amnesty International. It'll come as a great comfort to that family in South Central, that thanks to the bleeding-heart crowd's insistence upon political correctness in the administration of the death penalty, their loved one's murderer will never find justice in this world.

[goldstategop]

Human justice by definition, will never be perfect. There always be mistakes and that will result at times in the appearance of inequitable sentencing. If you want justice to be perfect, then no one will ever get punished for the crime in question. Amnesty International and other liberal groups aim for an impossible ideal that can never be achieved in practice. An insistence upon absolute fairness would mean letting many murderers would escape justice. Life is a series of trade-offs and realizing that justice will never be perfectly administered, is the key to improving it. If the Left has a problem with the way the death penalty is carried out in America, the answer lies in making it more equitable, not in abolishing it. Making our justice system fairer will satisfy most people but it will never be acceptable to the likes of Amnesty International for whom the American system of justice will never be good enough, no matter how sensible the balance it strikes between punishing the guilty and protecting the rights of those accused of committing a crime.

[DED]

You're right about it not being because they're black. I've pointed out to many racist acquaintances that if white people were brought up like your average inner city black, they'd ACT like them. And it's a problem that we'd better get a handle on - if I remember the figures correctly, something like 70-80% of all black kids grow up without a father in the house.

And, yes, the Democrats and the liberals have helped put them where they are. And shame on the black leadership! Jesse Jackson USED to tell "his" people to forget blaming the white man, stiffen their backbone and rise up above their problems. Now he's an extortionist, but the media treats him with kid gloves.

[Walnut]

I wasn't implying that poor people are bad. We grew up in the City poor section too. Hell we didn't have an indoor toilet yet. (everyone else did)
I guess I'm not very good at explaining what I mean. I'm refering to cases like OJs ,and there are others out there.Money does talk. With all his money OJs a bad person. your right, money (or lack of it) doesn't make you a bad person. the act of murder does.
However you have a better chance of getting off the hook so to speak if you are rich and can afford the best lawyers to defend you.
I wonder just how many people get off because they had the money to hire the best of Attorneys. thats what makes the difference.(and how many didn't get off because they didn't)
have the means to hire a great Attorney