|
The following is the full text of a pamphlet produced in October 2006 by the Corpus Christi chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty in conjunction with CHR Media Collective. 1. THE DEATH PENALTY IS RACIST. “Even under the most sophisticated death penalty statutes, race continues to play a major role in determining who shall live and who shall die.”
- Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun (1994) In 1972, the Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty on the grounds that it was imposed in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner. Although it was reinstated in 1976, the biggest problem with the capital punishment system continues to be that blacks and other minorities are disproportionately executed with respect to whites. A defendant’s race is a much stronger predictor of whether that person will receive the death penalty than the fact that the crime was committed along with another felony or that the defendant killed with multiple stab wounds. Victims’ races also help determine whether a defendant will receive the death penalty: In general, murdering blacks is not treated as severely as murdering whites. Unsurprisingly, almost all the prosecutors (98 percent) making the key decision about whether the death penalty will be sought are white males. Since it was reinstated thirty years ago, 211 black defendants have received the death penalty for murdering whites, whereas only 14 white defendants have been executed for murdering blacks. A black defendant who kills a white person is 19 times more likely to receive the death penalty than a white defendant who kills a black person. Of the 18,000 executions carried out in our country’s history, less than one percent have been of whites who murdered blacks. Although it is true that more whites have been executed than blacks have, black defendants are executed at a much higher rate than white defendants are. Today, 41.9 percent of all death row inmates are black, even though blacks make up only 12.9 percent of the U.S. population. In Texas—where blacks and Hispanics have made up 69 percent of those executed—the capital punishment system is a racist outgrowth of slavery’s legacy. Geographically, it is applied in an arbitrary manner, with Texas alone accounting for one-third of all executions in the United States. Because of the death penalty’s racist, arbitrary application, the time to abolish it is 30 years overdue. 2. THE DEATH PENALTY PUNISHES THE POOR.Constitutional due process and elementary justice both require that trial and sentencing be conducted fairly, especially where the punishment is irreversible. This means defendants must have attorneys who are experienced in capital cases, that are adequately compensated for their work, and who have access to the resources necessary to fulfill their obligations. However, more than 90 percent of all defendants in capital cases are indigent or poor and cannot afford to hire their own attorneys. And of the attorneys appointed to defendants in capital cases, many are overworked, underpaid, and inexperienced at handling death penalty cases. According to one report, death row prisoners “face a one-in-three chance of being executed without having the case properly investigated by a competent attorney or without having any claims of innocence or unfairness heard.” Executing defendants based on their attorneys rather than their crimes only adds to the arbitrary and discriminatory character of the death penalty. In Texas, where there is no public defender system, judges appoint lawyers to handle death penalty cases, often selecting ones they know are unable to do the job well, or based on their reputations to rapidly move cases through the system. There have even been instances in which lawyers were so inexperienced that they were completely unprepared for the sentencing phase of the trial. Other appointed attorneys have slept through parts of the trial or arrived to court intoxicated. “People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty. . . . I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial.” - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (2001)
Death penalty supporters have claimed that blacks and other minorities are more likely to receive the death penalty because these groups are more likely to commit violent crimes. Given that racial minorities in the U.S. are disproportionately poor with respect to whites, a more plausible explanation is that they receive death penalties at a much higher rate than whites do for the simple fact that whites are more likely to have better access to legal recourse. 3. THE DEATH PENALTY CONDEMNS THE INNOCENT.
A glaring flaw with the capital punishment system is the possibility of executing the innocent. Since 1973, 123 death row inmates have been exonerated, or freed from death row with evidence of their innocence. Nationally, this means that one person is exonerated for every eight that are executed. There is no way to know how many of the over 1,000 people executed since 1976 may also have been innocent, since courts do not generally investigate claims of innocence when the defendant is dead. Given that the death penalty discriminates strongly against defendants who cannot afford to hire competent lawyers, it’s not surprising that so many innocent people are condemned to die. Capital trials often last less than a week, which does not allow defendants adequate time to mount a defense. Prosecutors also have withheld relevant evidence, such as witnesses, and many defendants are bullied into confessions: Some 90 percent of all criminal cases are decided in plea bargains, meaning they never go before a jury. Prosecutors admit openly that they use the threat of the death penalty to obtain confessions, thus avoiding long and costly trials. “The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder.” - Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun (1993)
once convicted and sentenced to death, prisoners find it very difficult to get courts to hear evidence based on innocence. Judges are concerned primarily with whether procedures were followed correctly during trial, and with whether motions were filed in a timely fashion. In fact, in a 1993 case, Herrera v. Collins, the Supreme Court ruled by a vote of 6-3 that a claim of actual innocence based on newly discovered evidence was not grounds for overturning a capital conviction. For those who support the death penalty because they believe the principle of eye-for-an-eye is fair, the prospect of executing the innocent should be a hard pill to swallow. It’s not a question of whether murderers and rapists deserve to die, but rather a question of whether we should risk murdering the innocent. 4. THE DEATH PENALTY DOES NOT DETER VIOLENT CRIME. A popular myth among death penalty supporters is that capital punishment deters criminals from committing violent crimes such as rape and murder. It is true that the national murder rate has decreased while the number of executions has increased. However, states that implement the death penalty consistently experience higher homicide rates than states which do not implement it: Ten of the twelve states without the death penalty have homicide rates below the national average, whereas half of the states with the death penalty have homicide rates above. In addition to this, death penalty states that neighbor non-death penalty states usually experience higher murder rates than their neighbors. Far from deterring crime, a strong case can be made that capital punishment has a dehumanizing, brutalizing effect on society. Moreover, many murders are not premeditated, but rather are crimes of passion. It is unlikely that these defendants had the foresight to weigh the consequences of their actions. More practical ways to deter violent crime include gun control, creating jobs, wealth redistribution, and education efforts. 5. THE DEATH PENALTY IS CRUEL AND UNUSUAL. Today, the United States stands alone among advanced industrialized countries as the only one to continue executing people. Most nations have turned their back on capital punishment, regarding it as a cruel and barbaric practice. Whether lethal injection is a painless procedure is almost beside the point, though. Simply put, forcing people to count down the days until they must die is a torturous, sadistic practice. In addition to this, somewhere between 5-10 percent of all inmates on death row suffer from some form of mental illness. Some even have IQs that legally qualify them as being mentally retarded. Although the Supreme Court has made it illegal to execute the mentally retarded, it has not set strict criteria as to what constitutes mental retardation. Because of this, continuance of the death penalty will inevitably result in executions of the mentally retarded. 30 YEARS IS ENOUGH.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court Ruling that reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Since then, the capital punishment system has compiled an ugly, shameful record, reeking of racism, class bias, and flaws. The time to do away with the death penalty is 30 years overdue. "A system that will take life must first give justice.” - Former ABA President John J. Curtain, Jr.
Information in this pamphlet was gathered from the Death Penalty Information Center and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. For more information about the death penalty and efforts to end it, visit:
|
July - October 2006 
