Content area
Full text
How race and class affect who ends up on death row
IN 1972, THE U.S. SUPREME COURT DECLARED THE death penalty unconstitutional. The Court found that because the capital-punishment laws gave sentencers virtually unbridled discretion in deciding whether or not to impose a death sentence, "The death sentence [was] disproportionately carried out on the poor, the Negro, and the members of unpopular groups."
In 1976, the Court reviewed the revised death-penalty statutes-which are in place today-and concluded that they sufficiently restricted sentencer discretion such that race and class would no longer play a pivotal role in the life-or-death calculus. In the 28 years since the reinstatement of the death penalty, however, it has become apparent that the Court was wrong. Race and class remain critical factors in the decision of who lives and who dies.
Both race and poverty corrupt the administration of the death penalty. Race severely disadvantages the black jurors, black defendants, and black victims within the capital-punishment system. Black defendants are more likely to be executed than white defendants. Those who commit crimes against black victims are punished less severely than those who commit crimes against white victims. And black potential jurors are often denied the opportunity to serve on deathpenalty juries. As far as the death penalty is concerned, therefore, blackness is a proxy for worthlessness.
Poverty is a similar-and often additional-handicap. Because the lawyers provided to indigent defendants charged with capital crimes are so uniformly undertrained and undercompensated, the 90 percent of capitally charged defendants who lack the resources to retain a private attorney are virtually guaranteed a death sentence. Together, therefore, race and class function as an elephant on death's side of the sentencing scale.
When and how does race infect the death-penalty system? The fundamental lesson of the Supreme Court's 1972 decision to strike down the death penalty is that discretion, if left unchecked, will be exercised in such a manner that arbitrary and irrelevant factors like race will enter into the sentencing decision. That conclusion remains true today. The points at which discretion is exercised are the gateways through which racial bias continues to enter into the sentencing calculation.
Who has the most unfettered discretion? Chief prosecutors, who are overwhelmingly white, make some of the most...