FREE ESSAY ON DEATH PENALTY

DEATH PENALTY

RACE AND THE DEATH PENALTY
In 1977 the unjust law of capital punishment was once again enforced in the American
justice system. The use of Capital punishment has instigated many discussions among
American criminologists. The use of the death penalty as a form of justice has been
banned from many countries and states but there are still a few American states that
believe in this form of punishment. Some of them include Texas, Georgia and Virginia.
There have been many academic articles that have discussed the general pros and cons of
the death penalty, but there is one specific issue that stands out from the others. This
issue includes racism and how it's implicated in the capital punishment system. I will be
summarizing and analyzing the key point as well as the rhetorical features of three
articles written by researchers in the justice system.
There have been numerous debates about the involvement of racism in the death penalty
system. Michael Kroll has been a part of these debates by revealing flaws and negative
facts initiated by racism in the death penalty system. He wrote the article called
"Buckle Of The Death Belt." This article deals with the specific judicial district of
Chattahoochee, which is located in the state of Georgia. This state is also know as The
Nation's Executioner for its relatively high number of prisoners on death row per year. 
Another article called "Racial Disparities in Federal Death Penalty Prosecutions
1988-1994," written by the subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights, deals with
the underlying principle that racial minorities are being prosecuted under federal death
penalty law far beyond their proportion in the general population or the population of
criminal offenders. 
The third article is called "The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies,
Who Decides," written by Richard C. Dieter. This report releases two new studies which
show that the continuing injustice of racism in the application of the death penalty. All
three articles are written for the general public and can be very informative for many
reasons. I will focus on the key points of the articles, as well the important style and
features of the articles, which makes the article more convincing to the audience. For
these articles the main argument that the writer is trying to portray is racism does
occur in the justice system and should be recognized and changed. 
In the first article written by Michael Kroll, he states that the Chattahoochee Judicial
District in Georgia is a microcosm of the national disgrace. Nearly 20 years after the
supreme court held the death penalty as being unconstitutional, largely because of racial
discrimination, the death penalty in America continues to reflect the worst part of the
judicial system: racism, unequal treatment of the poor, and abuse of discretion by
prosecutors and other politicians seeking higher positions. By the end of 1990, 20 people
were imposed by the death penalty (Radelet). Out of those twenty, more than half were
black men, who were tried by all-white juries. The District Attorney used his discretion
to remove every black potential juror. While black people account for 65 percent of all
homicide victims, the DA seeks the death penalty almost exclusively in white victims
cases. Families of white murder victims are treated with dignity and respect by the DA's
office, while black victims families are abused or ignored. The DA has sought the death
penalty in nearly 40 percent of the cases where the defendant was black and the victim
white, in 32 percent of the cases where both defendant and victim were white, in just 6
percent of the cases where both the defendant and victim were black and never where the
defendant was white and the victim black (Radelet). 
Kroll emphasizes the fact that by executing more than any other state, 80 percent of them
black, Georgia has earned the title," The Nation's Executioner." The history of the death
penalty in America can be seen in Georgia's cases: Furman vs. Georgia (1972) [1] which
resulted in the death penalty due to racial discrimination (Douglas), Gregg vs. Georgia
(1976), Coker vs. Georgia (1977) [2] as well as many others were seen to have sentenced
the defendant to death despite strong evidence that race of victim is the most important
variable in predicting who will be sentenced to death. Kroll's argument about the
presence of racism in the decision of the DA is strongly supported by the statistics and
facts, but racist action is very difficult to prove since racism is a feeling, and it is
very difficult to obtain strong evidence of the feelings of people. Although sometimes
the evidence is present, it is disregarded. For example in four different capital trials
in Georgia the defense layer referred to his client as "nigger" (Kroll). Even after these
derogatory comments, no action was taken by the court to ensure an equal trial for the
prosecutor and defendant. Even so, Kroll's logical approach to the case gives a very
convincing argument. He does this by providing graphs and charts that show clearly the
trends that prove his point. These are some of the important graphs and charts, which he
presents in his article: 
1) Black Capital Defendants Convicted In Chattahoochee Judicial District Through 1990*
Defendant Date of Sentence DA's Discretionary Juror Strikes Jury Composition Verdict
White Black White Black 
Mulligan 11/4/76 4 4 12 0 death 
Bowden 12/9/76 0 10 12 0 death 
Graves 2/17/77 4 4 12 0 life 
Gates 9/1/77 unavailable unavailable 12 0 death 
Brooks 11/18/77 6 5 12 0 death 
Hance 12/16/78 1 9 11 1 death 
Lewis 7/19/79 1 8 12 0 death 
Hance 5/12/84 1 7 11 1 death 
Gary 8/27/86 5 5 9 3 death 
Bright 7/13/90 3 7 8 4 death 
* The DA sought the death penalty 38.7 percent of the time when the defendant was black
and the victim white, 32.4 percent when both defendant and victim were white, 5.9 percent
when both defendant and victim were black, and never when the defendant was white and the
victim black;
2)
*(Statistical research for Figures 3, 4, 5 and 6 provided by Michael L. Radelet, PH.D.,
University of Florida, Gainesville)
Towards the end of his article he shifts his focus to a broader view of the United
States. For example, in Philadelphia, a single judge is responsible for sentencing 26
people to death- two of whom were white. Secondly, A Native American in California had
his original death sentence reversed because of prevailing racism in the sentencing
county, and was acquitted at retrial in a different county. Of the 148 people executed
nationwide since 1977, nearly 90 percent were sentenced for killing white people, though
black people continue to be victims of murder at a rate six times greater than white
people (Ibid). Kroll presents a very disturbing fact that since the death penalty was
reinstated in the 1970's, not a single white person has been executed for taking the life
of a black person. By stating various examples Kroll clearly illustrates using a logical
as well as an emotional approach that racism has a direct effect on the use of the death
penalty. This emotional approach is seen when he provides detailed stories of certain
people. Such as:
? Johnny Johnson came home from church in 1984 to find the body of his wife, her throat
cut. His one contact with officials occurred when he was briefly jailed on suspicion of
her murder. Ultimately, an arrest was made, but Mr. Johnson was not informed either of
the arrest or of the trial and sentencing. They didn't tell me nothing, he testified. [3]

? Gloria Tells daughter was murdered in 1984. She learned by reading the papers that her
daughter's boyfriend had committed the murder. She was only informed of the preliminary
hearing when she phoned the county jail to inquire. No one from the DA's office ever
bothered to contact her. [4] 
The use of ethos and logos is also noticed when Kroll states the opinions of others. For
example Former Columbus Superior Court Judge, Albert Thompson, recently described the
justice system as having two faces: one white and one black [5]. Kroll also uses the
specific dialog between the defendant and the judge to show emphasize on the corruption
of the system. His article is very thorough and convincing. He ends the article with the
following quote:
...We remain imprisoned by the past as long as we deny its influence in the present. It
is tempting to pretend that minorities on death row share a fate in no way connected to
our own, that our treatment of them sounds no echoes beyond the chambers in which they
die. Such an illusion is ultimately corrosive, for the reverberations of injustice are
not so easily confined. [6]
The subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights can also appreciate this quote. Since
they believe in the same general ideas of the death penalty as Kroll's argument, that
racial discrimination is a continuing factor in the actions of the justice system. The
article also uses a similar stylistic approach to Kroll's by the use of many graphs and
facts to show patterns of inequality. Except this article focuses on not only the black
and white race but also other races such as Asian and Hispanic:
3) 4) 
The following graphs #3 and #4 were made by the facts from the November 18, 1988, 21
U.S.C SS848 (e)-(q)
The committee Analysis of prosecution under the federal death penalty reveals that 89
percent of the defendants selected for capital prosecution has been either
African-American or Mexican-American [7]. Moreover the number of prosecutions has been
increasing over the past two years with no decline in the racial disparities. All ten of
the recently approved federal capital prosecutions have been against black defendants.
This pattern of inequality adds to the mounting evidence that race continues to play an
unacceptable part in the application of capital punishment in America today.
This article focuses more on the federal level where the cases discussed have almost
exclusively involved minority defendants. Whereas in the previous article, written by
Kroll, focused more on the district or state level, where racial disparities are most
obvious in the selection of cases involving white victims. The racial disparities in the
federal records are much more than that of the specific states. The writer successfully
asks the audience to develop an understanding using the facts and patterns shown, that
racism is a factor in the justice system involving the death penalty. The writer uses a
very descriptive mode of development similar to one that is used in the article written
by Richard C. Dieter. By thoroughly explaining and describing different situations in
which racism is involved in the decisions of the court, helps to enhance the strength of
the argument.
The article written by Richard C. Dieter contains two studies, which show the continuing
injustice of racism in the application of the death penalty. The first study documents
the infectious presence of racism in the death penalty and demonstrates that this problem
has not decreased with time. The other study identifies one of the potential causes for
the continuing crisis: those who are making the critical death penalty decisions in this
country are almost exclusively white.
From the days of slavery in which black people were considered property, through the
years of various laws and attempts to gain equality, capital punishment has always been
deeply affected by race. Unfortunately the days of racial bias in the death penalty are
not left in the past.
Dieter talks about the studies of two of the countries foremost researchers on race and
capital punishment, law professor David Baldus and statistician George Woodworth, along
with colleagues in Philadelphia, who have conducted a careful analysis of race and the
death penalty in Philadelphia, which reveal that the odds of receiving a death sentence
are nearly four times higher if the defendant is black (Woodworth). These results were
obtained after analyzing and controlling for case differences such as the severity of the
crime and the background of the defendant. The data were subjected to various forms of
analysis, but the conclusion was clear: blacks were being sentenced to death far in
excess of other defendants for similar crimes.
The rest of the article contains facts and statistics to prove the above statements. One
thing that this writer does to make his argument very convincing is not only to use
strong facts and statistics but he uses a form of ethos to appeal to the emotions of the
reader. He does this by showing pictures of various people and stating their opinions
about the death penalty word for word. He uses not only a descriptive mode of development
but also and example - illustration method in which he uses various situations and
compares them.
All three articles present a similar stand in which they all present arguments that state
that racism does indeed play a major role in the actions of the capital punishment
system. These articles convey strong negative messages to the use of the death penalty as
a form of justice. This negativity is passed on very effectively to the reader by the
stylistic methods used by the authors. These methods include very thorough research and
statistics as well as an emotional appeal, which makes them convincing and logical and in
the end increases the strength of their argument. The articles should be read by the
government and justice department, that control the use of the death penalty,
specifically the government of the southern states in which the death penalty is
predominant. I believe that the author's main ideas are true and that this form of
punishment is very unjust to the minority. There should either be a reformation of the
system or the system should be banned all together due to its unethical and unmoral
treatment of mankind.
Bibliography
the study of crime.