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.

[Enemy Of The State]

Freep Info:

For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web: http://www.amnesty.org

For latest human rights news view http://news.amnesty.org

[Enemy Of The State]

"studies consistently indicating that the justice system places a higher value on white life than on black".

That is the most rediculous line of Horse Hockey I have ever heard.

Our justice system does not place a higher regard for the lives of Whites over Blacks and if these fruit cake peons would look at the real figures they would find out that the reason the majority of death row inmates are black is because the number of blacks comitting these are higher than whites. duh!

[BeAllYouCanBe]

"We don't believe the courts catch all inequities, including those caused by conscious or unconscious racism"

This usconscious racism is an interesting concept. So even though we are trying not to be racist until the numbers come out right we're racist.

Maybe the numbers (statistics) are unconsciously biased to find a problem where none exists?? Just asking - but my limited exposure to the "justice system" says that incompitance is responsible more than anything mystical.

[kesg]

If racial discrimination is supposedly the problem (a premise I do not accept, but will assume for purposes of argument), how is halting executions the solution to the problem? Applying the death penalty more rigorously (e.g. in more cases in which the victim is black or the accused is white) would be an equally effective solution. This argument also ignores how capital crime cases are actually decided, i.e. they are based on what the accused actually did (as proven by the prosecution beyond a reasnable doubt), not on the color of his skin.

[dark_lord]

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.

One reason for this statistic is that murderers are much more likely to get the death penalty if they kill a stranger rather than an immediate member of their family or a "friend". The latter are often considered "crimes of passion" and have a lower penalty (for various reasons -- the killer may feel terrible remorse from a killing while drunk, and they may not be viewed as someone who will "kill again".) It is also the fact that many of these black killers have been dangerous low-life scumbags with little regard to human life. Killing a few people while robbing a convenience store, with a long criminal record, will get you executed regardless of your race.

[thoughtomator]

It's too bad that the anti-death penalty brigades have latched onto racism as the keystone of their reasoning, when there are at least two reasons that are much more compelling and universal that they ignore. (Of course, those reasons are conservative, that's why they ignore them.)

[codercpc]

I know I will be flamed on this board, but I have on my fire retartdent gear on so I am ready.

I am a firm believer in the death penalty in principle, but in reality I find it extremely unfair. I don't have a problem with the number of blacks on death row unfair, if they deserved it, I find the descrepancy of numbers of whites on deathrow the problem.

If we truly have a color-blind, and "wallet"-blind justice system, why are the descrepancies there? Why is a poor person more likely to get on death row than a rich person.

I don't find the total #'s disturbing, I just think it should be more across the board. Why did the DA of California even hesitate to charge Scott Peterson with a Capital offense? Because of the chance of not getting a good looking white man found guilty. Its a proven fact in some jurisdictions that you have a better chance of a guilty verdict if you take out the capital punishment. Why? Look at OJ. Until it is either enforced across the board in the states where it is a law, I have problems with it.

I hope you all understand my point, I am not against the death penalty at all, I just think it has become to unfair to have in a "fair" judicial system.

[Bogey78O]

What is this the California chapter of Xinhau?

I read on the People's Daily that only 15 white people have been executed by the Feds ever. While over 10,000 blacks have been executed.

Talk about off by a mile.

[nothingnew]

Minjok-Tongshin ^

Who or what the heck is that?

FMCDH

[templar]

African Americans account for 12 per cent of the population, ...

The author seems to have omitted the per cent of overall murders they account for. A simple oversight, I'm sure. However he does mention almost equal numbers of murders of blacks and whites and most murders involving members of the same race, which makes me think that maybe 12 per cent of the polulation commits 50 per cent of the murders (based strictly on race, but not implying all blacks are murders or other races not murderers. I have no idea from this article what percentage of blacks are murders or other races not murderers).

Somebody please correct me if my thinking is wrong here.

[Enemy Of The State]

oh, so you think we need an afirmative action death penalty?

[codercpc]

Maybe. I just have a problem with the lack of consitancy in delivering the death sentence, not the death penalty in itself. Does that make sense? I don't know if it does to me or not. But I just think until we have more justice to ALL victims we have an unfair system. I actually think my misgivings would be put to rest if I saw more people on death row, not less.

I don't want to shave penalties off any criminal whether he be black or white, rich or poor. I just want to see more color blind , wealth blind justice.

Please remember I believe in the death penalty. I have more problems with justice than with race.

[Search4Truth]

Amnesty International is of the opinion that white people love to put black people to death, at every opportunity. That we place a lower value on someone's life, simply because of their race.

What is an honorable man to think of an organization that would have such a degraded view of him?

Reminds me of a saying, "A man sees in the world, that which is already in his heart".

[arthurus]

Amnesty International is a RACIST organization that believes that hatred, terrorism and torture is properly ascribed only to English speakers and/or Jews. Other peoples are either socialist, for which hatred, terrorism, and torture are only necessary methods for the creation of New Man and thus are for the greater good of all mankind or they are Non English speaking non Jewish societies of an order of magnitude less intelligent than English speakers and Jews and are unable to understand the higher things and thus cannot be held accountable for hatred-like or terrorism-like or torture-like actions and attitudes. In fact English speaking peoples and Jews are responsible for all such attitudes and actions in other peoples because those English speaking peoples' and Jews have not equally distributed the wealth they stole or stumbled onto purely by happenstance throughout the population of the whole planet.

[arthurus]

This usconscious racism is an interesting concept. So even though we are trying not to be racist until the numbers come out right we're racist.

We are officially racist until every political position in the country is held by a certified minority officeholder who got his position due to Affirmitive action and espouses the far left line , whatever it is at any given moment. Then we get into relative minority...

[MEG33]

I don't consider Amnesty Int.,I don,t consider them at all.

[ex-snook]

There also is sexual discrimination. More men than women receive the death penalty. What to do. Women have to change their nature.

[onedoug]

The penalties we ascribe for murder are a function of how we value human life. The way we carry them out may well reflect our human imperfections. But nothing should undermine our fundamental, American values.

[DED]

I have supported capital punishment since I've been old enough to understand it - UNTIL RECENTLY.

I changed my mind, not because of the screwball reasoning in this article, but because we're finding so many people on death row who are innocent. (They're found to be innocent through DNA testing not available when the murders occured.)

On top of this, when inmates are found to be innocent, it frequently turns out that either the police completely ignored evidence that didn't support their conclusion, or they went so far as to fabricate evidence.

In addition, the death penalty at this point is used so infrequently, and takes so long for the penalty to be imposed, that it no longer functions as a deterrent. If the would-be killer even considers the penalty, they can easily conclude that, I probably won't get caught, if I do get caught, there's a good chance I can get off, if I don't get off, I probably won't get the death penalty, and if I do get sentenced to death, it'll take 'em 18 years to execute me!

But the overriding factor for me is the number of people found to be wrongly convicted. How many innocent people are we willing to execute in order to have a death penalty?