African American Death Row Inmates

There is also a large disparity between races when it comes to sentencing convicts to Death Row. Looking just at the federal death penalty data released by the Department of Justice between 1995 and 2000, 682 defendants were charged with death-eligible crimes. Out of those 682 defendants, the defendant was black 48% of the cases, Hispanic in 29% of the cases, and white in only 20% of the cases (Coker, 2003).

African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated; that is 60% of 30% of the African American population. African Americas are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. “Between 6.6% and 7.5% of all black males ages 25 to 39 were imprisoned in 2011, which were the highest imprisonment rates among the measured sex, race, Hispanic origin, and age groups." (Carson, E. Ann, and Sabol, William J. 2011.) Stated on Americanprogram.org “ The Sentencing Project reports that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more likely to be sentenced to prison.” Hispanics and African Americans make up 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population. (Henderson 2000). Slightly 15% of the inmate population is made up of 283,000 Hispanic prisoners.

One of the reason African-American serial killers which is known as a weak argument is that the commentators who are on social media announcing the killer would be seen as racist if applied to African Americans in a White media. An example, when an official form the Nassau County called serial killer Colin Ferguson an “animal”, many civil rights learned came into play saying that it was not the correct term (432). A second more reasonable reason would be that cops were less likely to take African-American crime serious unless the victims were white. The example for this reason was Jarvis Cote who kill African-American wome,n but then would switch to killing White women. In the beginning they would not focus on the crime, but once the race switch

"We simply cannot say we live in a country that offers equal justice to all Americans when racial disparities plague the system by which our society imposes the ultimate punishment." (Senator Russ Feingold, 2003). It has been proven that death sentencing across the USA is determined by the race of the victim and race of the defendant. In 1990, there was a report from the General Accounting office which concluded that those who murdered whites were more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks. (Focus, 2003) This injustice amongst us are because people are scared and don’t know. They don’t know whether a black man is pulling out a gun, their phone, wallet, etc. So just to remain safe, they retaliate by killing our men. Society has grown to function on the fear of black men. Capitalism and the imprisonment of black people have become profitable. They’ve made a big business to just imprison black men. Black men are inheritably a threat to the capitalist structure of America, it protects their money, their politics, and their society.

Baldus study was based on more than two thousand murder cases in Georgia, and “the study found that defendants charged with killing white victims received the death penalty eleven times more often than defendants charged with killing black victims.” (Alexander p.110) Baldus Study was significant to this chapter because it shows patterns of discrimination and how the government and police enforcement use race to harass African Americans.

1. Disparity of application of the death penalty is a researched and heavily discussed topic. There is no disparity applied to the death penalty due to race. Many individuals believe that discrimination against minorities directly contributes to the amount of offenders on death row that are African American, Hispanic, or part of a different minority group. These trends exist for a reason, however I believe the reason is due to the fact that individuals strive to meet different goals dependent on their racial background. Currently, approximately 41 % of inmates on death row are black, and 44 % are white. There are more inmates who are white on death row, which makes it hard to determine that disparity was applied based on race or gender when individuals are faced with a death penalty sentence. There are far less women on death row. There are not many women on death row because the death penalty is not often applied to their cases. However, this is not due to their gender, it is based on the crimes that were committed and typically women commit less violent crimes than men.

There have been 100,000 African Americans in prison since Brown vs Board of education. The article states that the trend will continue, 1 of every 3 African American males are apparently born today can expect to go to prison in their time, 1 in 6 Latino males, compared to 1 in every 17 White males. But for women, it is much lower, but the ethnicity does not change: 1 out of 18 African Americans, 1 out of 45 Hispanics, and finally 1 of every 111 White females, are expected to serve some time in prison. At any given day, 1 in every 13 African American males between 30 to 39 will incarcerated in a state or federal prison on any given day. This compares to the demographics of the group because in communities of color they are not affected only by incarceration but by high

Statistics prove that for many years the death penalty has fallen disproportionately on racial minorities in the United States. For example, since 1930

Black and Hispanic Americans are more likely to end up in prison. As Carroll writes, “According to the U.S. census, Blacks are incarcerated five times more than whites are, and Hispanics are nearly twice as likely to be incarcerated as whites. Hispanic men are 2.4 times more likely, to a sentencing project analysis of the data”. Given these statistics, the most important question is: why is the disparity so great between whites, Blacks and Hispanics in terms of the prison population.

In the article, “Supreme Court to Hear Death Penalty Cases,” in The New York Times; Adam Liptak talks about two different death penalty cases to be heard in October 2016. Case number 15-8049, Buck v. Stephens, is to be heard over whether or not race should one of the factors associated with future dangerousness. Buck, an African American male, was convicted for killing his former girlfriend and her friend, in front of her children.

A study conducted by Loyola University found that race and gender played a significant role in determining who faced the death penalty. The study and its findings will be available in the "Loyola University Journal of Public Interest Law." According to Black Enterprise, one example provided is the "more than 15,000 black male homicide victims in Louisiana between 1976 to 2011, and those killings have resulted in three executions. (In those cases, 62 defendants were sentenced to death.)". This is contrasted to 1,300 white

To look closely at many of the mechanisms in American society is to observe the contradiction between constitutional equality and equality in practice. Several of these contradictions exist in the realm of racial equality. For example, Black s often get dealt an unfair hand in the criminal justice system. In The Real War on Crime, Steven Donziger explains,

Capital punishment also reflects racial disparity. Between 1977 and 1984, the state of Texas executed 13 African Americans who were

Being sent to Death Row is the highest prosecution a criminal could be sentenced to and the process when determining of someone deserves a death sentence is a very bias decision. Since 1977 when capital punishment was restored there has been about 20,600 homicides and only about .7 death sentences for every 100 homicides has been given in the Cook county. The decision to impose a death sentence is not only based on the crime done but also the race of the victim. Attorneys at a state level has a less formal guide when giving death sentences. It is commonly seen how race plays a major role in the justice system. As apart of attorney protocol of determining if the death sentence is given it is seen black males will be given a higher sentence versus a white male even if the crimes where similar. In this article “Disparities on Death Row” published in Grumman points out the unjustness in the justice system. Through ethos, pathos, and logos Cornelia Grumman effectively persuades her audience to spread the issues of capital punishment assignment.

While supporters of the death penalty thought that the death penalty could be applied without racial and class disparities, research conducted through the years have indicated that race and class disparities have shown not in isolated cases, but in many cases. The authors argue that “Public opinion on the death penalty show that while most Americans recognize the problem of race and class bias, they do not view such discrimination as a reason to oppose the death penalty” (Radelet & Borg, 2000, page 5).