Throughout history, minorities have been ill-represented in the criminal justice system, particularly in cases where the possible outcome is death. In early America, blacks were lynched for the slightest violation of informal laws and many of these killings occured without any type of due process. As the judicial system has matured, minorities have found better representation but it is not completely unbiased. In the past twenty years strict controls have been implemented but the system still has symptoms of racial bias. This racial bias was first recognized by the Supreme Court in Fruman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). The Supreme Court Justices decide that the death penalty was being handed out unfairly and according to Gest (1996) the Supreme Court felt the death penalty was being imposed "freakishly' and 'wantonly" and "most often on blacks." Several years later in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), the Supreme Court decided, with efficient controls, the death penalty!

could be used constitutionally. Yet, even with these various controls, the system does not effectively eliminate racial bias.

Since Gregg v. Georgia the total population of all 36 death rows

In an article by Seligman (1994), Professor Joseph Katz of Georgia State "and other scholars have made a separate point about bias claims based on the 'devalued lives' of murder victims." Seligman also asserts that those claiming bias believe that it is in the race of the victim and not the race of the defendant, and because the lives of blacks have been "devalued,' people who murder blacks are less likely to receive death sentences than those who murder whites" (Seligman, 1994, 113). An Iowa Law Professor, David Baldus, also found that "juries put a premium on the lives of victims" (As cited in Lacayo, 1987, 80). In a study of more than 2,000 Georgia murder cases, Baldus found that "those who killed whites were 4.3 times as likely to receive the death penalty as those who killed blacks. And blacks who killed whites were most likely of all to be condemned to die" (As cited in Lacayo, 1987, 80). According to Gest (1996), of those executed since the reinstatement of the death pe!

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eliminate such a bias, the people involved in the judicial process must learn to look past the race of the offender or the value of the victim, and instead focus on circumstances of the crime.

Because of the immense possibility of discrimination in sentencing in capital punishment cases, each stage of prosecution must be controlled as much as possible. Although these offenders are the worst the criminal justice system has to offer, prosecutors must be encouraged to consider the crime and not the race of the victim or offender and the judge must attempt to exclude the same racial issue when deciding the punishment. I believe Justice Brennan said it best when he wrote the dissenting opinion in a capital punishment

Some common words found in the essay are:
Punishment Throughout, Justice Brennan, Florida University, Gregg Georgia, Law School, David Baldus, Katz Georgia, Snurkowski Florida, Legal Foundation, Supreme Court, death penalty, racial bias, smolowe 1991, supreme court, gest 1986, gest 1996, lacayo 1987, death row, cited gest 1986, seligman 1994, 1986 25, gest 1986 25, cited lacayo 1987, lacayo 1987 80, discretionary stages racial,
Approximate Word count = 1197
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)