DPIC Analysis: Racial Disparities Persisted in U.S. Death Sentences and Executions in 2019

A DPIC analy­sis of exe­cu­tions and new death sen­tences in 2019 has found that even as death penal­ty usage declined across the United States, racial dis­par­i­ties in its application persisted. 

Studies have con­sis­tent­ly found racial dis­par­i­ties at near­ly every stage of the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment process, from polic­ing and charg­ing prac­tices, to jury selec­tion, to jury ver­dicts, to which cas­es result in exe­cu­tions. Those pat­terns of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry sen­tenc­ing and exe­cu­tions — and par­tic­u­lar­ly race-of-vic­tim effects — were evi­dent once again in 2019.

In 2019, new death sen­tences declined to 34 and exe­cu­tions fell to 22. A dis­pro­por­tion­ate per­cent­age of both involved white vic­tims. Nationwide, the mur­der-vic­tim­iza­tion rate for African Americans is sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er than for whites. About half of all mur­der vic­tims are black; yet, in 2019, near­ly 80% (27 of 34) of new death sen­tences were imposed in cas­es involv­ing vic­tims who were white. 73% of exe­cu­tions in 2019 (16 of 22) involved cas­es with only white victims.

The racial dis­par­i­ties were even stark­er when DPIC looked at the race of both the defen­dants who were sen­tenced to death and the victim(s) they were accused of killing. 

In 2019, 17 white defen­dants were sen­tenced to death. In each case, there was at least one white vic­tim and only one case involved any black vic­tim. In the five cas­es in which Latino defen­dants were sen­tenced to die, four involved a Latinx vic­tim or vic­tims, one involved a sec­ond vic­tim who was white, and one involved a sin­gle white vic­tim. Only African Americans were pre­dom­i­nant­ly sen­tenced to death for inter­ra­cial mur­ders. Of the 12 black defen­dants sen­tenced to death, three involved only black vic­tims. By con­trast, five involved only white vic­tims and sev­en had at least one white vic­tim. Black defen­dants were also sen­tenced to death for mur­ders of LatinX-only vic­tims and Asian-only vic­tims. No non-black defen­dant was sen­tenced to death a killing involv­ing only black victims.

Since exe­cu­tions resumed in 1977, 308 black defen­dants have been exe­cut­ed for mur­ders involv­ing at least one white vic­tim, com­pared to 34 white defen­dants who have been exe­cut­ed for mur­ders in which at least one black vic­tim was killed. In 294 of these cas­es, black defen­dants were exe­cut­ed for mur­ders involv­ing only white vic­tims, while only 21 white defen­dants were exe­cut­ed for mur­ders in which only black vic­tims were killed. 

As the num­ber of new death sen­tences decreas­es, death row is grow­ing even more racial­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate, with a sig­nif­i­cant increase in the per­cent­age of Latinx death-row pris­on­ers. Half of the 34 defen­dants sen­tenced to death in 2019 were peo­ple of col­or, with 35% African American and 15% Latinx. Southern California coun­ties account­ed for all of the death sen­tences in the state in 2019, and all three defen­dants sen­tenced to death were Latino. 

The coun­ties that have most aggres­sive­ly pur­sued cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have also been impos­ing it in an increas­ing­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate man­ner. Only two coun­ties imposed more than one death sen­tence in 2019: Cuyahoga County in Ohio (3) and Riverside County in California (2). Riverside has sen­tenced more peo­ple to die than any oth­er coun­ty in the United States since 2013, and 92% (23 out of 25) of those con­demned in the coun­ty in that time frame have been black or Latino. In Cuyahoga County, 4 of the last 6 defen­dants sen­tenced to death have been black.

Those num­bers coin­cide with the death-sen­tenc­ing trends of oth­er coun­ties that heav­i­ly use the death penal­ty. In Los Angeles, the last 22 peo­ple sen­tenced to death have been peo­ple of col­or. In Harris County, Texas — home to Houston — 18 of the last 20 con­demned defen­dants have been black or Latino; a 19^th was of Middle Eastern descent.

The Increasing Minority Concentration of Death Row

Over time, the com­po­si­tion of death row has become increas­ing­ly racial­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate, with peo­ple of col­or com­pris­ing a high­er and high­er per­cent­age of death-row pris­on­ers each decade. In 1980, a major­i­ty of death-row pris­on­ers were white (54.4%). By July 2019, 57.8% were peo­ple of col­or. The most dra­mat­ic increase has been among the Latinx pop­u­la­tion, whose pro­por­tion of death row more than dou­bled between 1980 and 2000 (from 4.4% to 9.0%) and has increased by anoth­er 4.4% this cen­tu­ry. Latinx pris­on­ers now com­prise 13.4% of the nation’s death row.

Race was also a sub­stan­tial fac­tor in two of the biggest death-penal­ty devel­op­ments in the United States in 2019. Citing its dis­crim­i­na­to­ry appli­ca­tion against black and brown peo­ple and call­ing the death penal­ty a ​“fail­ure,” California Governor Gavin Newsom imposed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. In June, the United States Supreme Court reversed the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence imposed in Mississippi death-row pris­on­er Curtis Flowers’ sixth tri­al, find­ing that District Attorney Doug Evans had exhib­it­ed a pat­tern of delib­er­ate­ly exclud­ing African Americans from serv­ing on the jury. No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked Flowers to a quadru­ple mur­der in a white-owned busi­ness where he had pre­vi­ous­ly worked, and the deci­sion marked the fourth time that Flowers’ con­vic­tion had been over­turned as a result of prosecutorial misconduct.

New Death Sentences Imposed in 2019
(by Race of Defendant and Race of Victims)