A new study by Professor Frank Baumgartner of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill finds stark racial and geographic disparities in the application of the death penalty in Missouri.
A majority of Missouri’s executions came from just 2.6% of the state’s counties, mirroring national trends, as 2% of U.S. counties have produced 52% of all executions since 1976. St. Louis County — the home of Ferguson, Missouri — has carried out more executions than any other Missouri jurisdiction. A person convicted of homicide in that county is three times more likely to be executed than someone convicted of the same crime elsewhere in the state and is 13 times more likely to be executed than for having committed the same crime in neighboring St. Louis City.
Baumgartner also found significant racial disparities, particularly relating to the race of victims. Homicides involving white victims were 7 times more likely to result in executions than those involving black victims. Although 60% of murder victims in Missouri are black, 81% of people executed in Missouri had been convicted of killing white victims. Cases involving white female victims were 14 times more likely to result in execution than those involving black male victims.
“If left unaddressed, these racial, gender, and geographic disparities may erode judicial and public confidence in the state’s ability to fairly administer the ultimate punishment,” Baumgartner concludes. “A punishment that is so arbitrarily and unfairly administered could reasonably be deemed unconstitutional.” (Click here to enlarge image.)
Frank Baumgartner, The Impact of Race, Gender, and Geography on Missouri Executions, July 16, 2015; Jeremy Kohler, Study points to race and gender disparity in Missouri executions, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 19, 2015.
