Blacks and Capital punishment
In the United States, about 13,000 people have been legally executed since the colonial times. The 1930's executed up to 150 people yearly. Due to the lack of support of the death penalty from the public the rate went to nearly zero by 1967. The United States Supreme Court banned the practice in 1972. It was later authorized for resumption in 1976. The book The Death Penalty in America provides a table from 1968 to 1980; the total number of blacks on death row during that period of time was 3,014 verses 3,099, the total number of white men ( Bedau 63-64). One thing to keep in mind is that blacks make up only 12% of our total population. Racism is a nasty word, and many people would prefer to look the other way and deny it existence. But not only does it exist, it exists in one of the most sensitive areas of our judicial system: capital punishment. Many African American people believe that race is an important factor in determining who will be sentenced to die and who will receive a lesser punishment for the same crime. Research on the capital sentencing patterns over the past 20 years has shown that race considerations permeate decisions of life and death in the state courts. This topic has cr
------------------------------------------------------------------------ eated conflict in America and in the courts. Throughout the years a conflict between the white and the blacks has surfaced. A majority of the black population would argue that the death penalty is aimed toward them. Whites would, of course, disagree and say that all men are created equal and punished the same. In the words of Coretta Scott King, " Our society loses its humanity and compassion and we sow the seeds of violence. We legitimize retaliation as the way to deal with conflict."(Vo*censored*a 78) Our Society must remember " the unique worth of dignity At the beginning of the twentieth century, most black Americans still lived in the Southern states. These states were white-supremacy states. Black Americans did not vote, and they were suppressed and oppressed in countless ways. The criminal justice system in the South was no friend of the Southern blacks. Gerald C. Brandon, of Natchez, Mississippi, was a rarity among white Southern lawyers; he told the truth about Southern justice. Addressing the Mississippi Bar Association in 1910, Brandon said "we have three classes of homicide, If a nigger kills a white man, that's murder. If a white man kills a nigger, that's justifiable homicide. If a nigger kills another nigger, that's one less nigger" (Friedman 374-375). Apologist for the South insist that the courts were fair and honest. After that change came slowly. A few landmark cases occurred in a period of time, but The question of racial discrimination in capital sentencing procedures has prompted an ongoing debate throughout the years. In a recent article by Frank Keating the Republican Governor of Oklahoma says that "Capital punishment in America is a deliberate, cautious process, with built-in appeals that subject every conviction to a meticulous and rigorous review." (Keating 4) Claims of racial bias in capital punishment are simply untrue. Forty-eight of the sixty-eight killers executed in 1998 were white; only Many people and groups think the death penalty is biased and 18 were black. Of all the executions since 1976, fifty-six percent were white. Of 3,452 prisoners on death rows at the end of 1998, 1,906 were white. What gets you sentenced to death row in America is not your color; it's the nature of the crime you commit, which can often be predicted by past behaviors. The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that a death sentence could not be overturned solely on the basis of statistics that show general racial disparities in sentencing. To overturn a death sentence, defendants must show evidence of discrimination in their particular cases. The Racial Justice Act was intended to nullify the Supreme Court's ruling by allowing statistics to be the basis of death penalty appeals. The act was passed by the House, but omitted in the final crime bill being considered by Congress. The Congressional Black Caucus promised to use executive orders to achieve the same result on the federal level, but their effort failed. Under the Racial Justice Act, the burden of proof would shift from state to federal authorities. They would have to show any racial disparities in sentencing. The impact of race on the distribution of punishment in the criminal justice system has been the source of intense debate in contemporary legal scholarship. The very nature of the question whether blacks are treated fairly by the criminal justice systems suggests that somehow blacks may be shortchanged or cheated by the imposition of the death penalty. The three main criticisms in this regard assert that the death penalty is pronounced more often against blacks than against whites; that the death penalty is imposed more often against blacks than against whites; and that the death penalty is not equally imposed against blacks and whites for the same crimes.
Some common words found in the essay are:
Oklahoma Capital, African American, United Nations, Capital Punishment, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Oakland California, Governor Roemer, Millard Farmer, Center Washington, Penalty America, death penalty, capital punishment, criminal justice, criminal justice system, death row, justice system, blacks whites, opponents death, opponents death penalty, racial discrimination, african american, imposed blacks whites, united nations, racial discrimination capital, judicial system capital,
Approximate Word count = 3141
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)
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