Is Capital Punishment Discriminatory?

¶ … Capital Punishment Discriminatory? (Yes) The death penalty is an arbitrary institution that is employed for a series of reasons that are unrelated to the crimes committed by actual persons (assuming, of course, that those sentenced to the death penalty are even guilty of the crimes that they have committed). Indeed, the death penalty is employed differently depending upon the race, gender, and wealth of accused person. These criteria are unacceptable for use in determining outcomes that will result in imminent death for accused persons.

The death penalty, since it is influenced by these factors is used arbitrarily and must be stopped. One of the most powerful and often used arguments, which notes that the application of the death penalty is spurious and often based on socioeconomic or other factors irrelevant to the severity of the crime itself, is that the death penalty is employed in a racist fashion.

Indeed, this particularly argument has been made in multiple rigorous analytical studies of applications of the death penalty and has been used to argue that death penalty, as it is currently employed, is unconstitutional, because it is dsicriminatoril applied on the basis of race, which is not allowed according to Supreme Court precedent. One of the most high profile examples of this is in the Supreme Court case, McClesky v.

Kemp (1987), in which it was argued that the death penalty was racist because blacks were much more likely to be sentenced to the death penalty: In support of his claim, the accused proffered a statistical study indicating that, even after taking account of numerous nonracial variables, defendants charged with killing whites were 4.3 times as likely to receive a death sentence in Georgia as defendants charged with killing blacks, and that black defendants were 1.1 times as likely to receive a death sentence as other defendants. McClesky v.

Kemp") This assertion is particularly telling. Not only do these statistics suggest that black are more likely to receive the death penalty, but also show specifically that a black person who kills a white person is more than four times more likely to get the death penalty than a white man who kills a black man.

This statistic reveals to what degree the application of the death penalty is based on factors that have nothing to do with the severity of the crime, and in fact have to do with unconstitutional biases on the part of jurors. Indeed, this is even clearer in other areas.

Notably, Texas, which is now famous for its wanton use of the death penalty in criminal cases, provides an excellent example in that the city Dallas, which has "has sent dozens of people to death row" has not ever given anyone the death penalty "for killing an African-American" (Cockburn and St. Claire). The death penalty, although it may seem fair in the procedures for its application, fails to be fair in its practice.

Notably, the death penalty is employed more commonly if the attacker is black and the victim is white, and this disparity is significant enough to constitute racism.

Indeed, our society does not tolerate racism in other areas, such as in work, education, and social services, so why would it tolerate racism when it is literally a matter of life and death? Don't we use affirmative action in other areas to correct these ills? The death penalty is wrong because it is racist, and we, as a country, should not tolerate this travesty any longer. Similarly, there is a great discrepancy in the application of the death penalty along the axis of gender as well.

Men are significantly more likely to be sentenced to the death penalty than women are, and in the rare cases in which women are sentenced to the death penalty, they are typically not executed. Indeed, the statistics show how few women have been executed since the reinstatement of the death penalty is paltry in comparison to the number of men executed: Presently, there are forty-seven women on death row. Only two have been executed since nineteen seventy six [when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty].

Usually the court finds an excuse for the women, such as a mental illness or self-defense... women are seen as less threatening. Boyd) Literally more than 300 men have been executed in the same exact span of time. Indeed, it should be realized that far fewer women commit and are convicted of capital crimes, which partially explains the lower number of death penalty sentences for women. Even proportionally, however, the gender bias regarding the death penalty is pervasive.

Although this is a minor issue in terms of the number of people effected, it reinforces the fact that the death penalty is unfairly applied. The law must be consistent in its application and blind to the details surrounding the accused person's race and socioeconomic background. Nevertheless, the reality is that quite often, these issues are decisive factors in how an accused person is sentenced. There is also a wide discrepancy in the number of people sentenced to the death penalty as relates to their personal wealth.

The poorer one is, the more likely one is to be sentenced to death. Indeed, there may be many reasons why such discrimination occurs; it is possible that jurors are less likely to sentence wealthier people, for example. More probably, however, the discrepancy has to do with the issue of being able to afford a lawyer other than the one that is court-appointed: Almost all defendants facing the death penalty cannot afford their own attorney.

Hence, they are dependent on the quality of the lawyers assigned by the state, many of whom lack experience in.