Saying that ​“race plays a deci­sive role in who lives and who dies” in cap­i­tal cas­es in the United States, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL) vot­ed at its 40th annu­al con­fer­ence on December 14, 2016, to adopt its first ever res­o­lu­tion call­ing for the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. The res­o­lu­tion states that ​“racial bias in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, includ­ing the death penal­ty and its appli­ca­tion, is an undis­put­ed fact,” and notes that ​“from slav­ery to Jim Crow to the present day, the death penal­ty has long been a tool of injus­tice and dis­crim­i­na­tion.” The res­o­lu­tion says ​“African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and all peo­ple of col­or are sen­tenced to longer prison terms, more like­ly to be tried as adults, and more like­ly to be sen­tenced to death in the United States.” The NBCSL joined the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators and the Movement for Black Lives, which passed anti-death penal­ty res­o­lu­tions in August 2016, in advo­cat­ing for leg­is­la­tion to repeal cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statutes across the coun­try. In sup­port­ing death penal­ty repeal leg­is­la­tion, the NBCSL res­o­lu­tion cit­ed stud­ies and reports show­ing that: Black jurors are three times more like­ly than oth­er jurors to be struck from a jury in a case in which a Black defen­dant faces a death sen­tence; accord­ing to 88% of crim­i­nol­o­gists, the death penal­ty is not an effec­tive deter­rent against crime; the death penal­ty has a neg­a­tive impact on the fam­i­lies of both the mur­der vic­tim and the defen­dant; and 156 wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed death row pris­on­ers have been exon­er­at­ed and released from death row. “[T]he risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son is high­er than ever,” the res­o­lu­tion states, ​“and evi­dence sug­gests that inno­cent African-Americans have been exe­cut­ed.” The NBCSL also con­sid­ered the exces­sive cost of the death penal­ty and the uses to which the mon­ey saved could be used as addi­tion­al rea­sons to abol­ish the death penal­ty. The res­o­lu­tion says ​“repeal of the death penal­ty will free up mil­lions of tax dol­lars in cash-strapped state bud­gets that could be redi­rect­ed to vio­lence pre­ven­tion, com­bat­ing implic­it bias, or sup­port­ing vic­tims of vio­lence in Black com­mu­ni­ties.” The NBCSL offered its sup­port for ​“jus­tice rein­vest­ment ini­tia­tives and alter­na­tive pro­grams that address crim­i­nal jus­tice reform” and urged the ​“U.S. jus­tice depart­ment to inves­ti­gate the fair­ness, effec­tive­ness, and costs of the death penal­ty and dis­pro­por­tion­ate sen­tenc­ing.” Nebraska State Senator Tanya Cook spon­sored the res­o­lu­tion, say­ing that the death penal­ty ​“is not a deter­rent to vio­lent crime. Period.” In 2002, the NBCSL had passed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for a mora­to­ri­um on capital punishment.

(See S. Craft, Black Lawmakers Call for Repeal of the Death Penalty, EJUSA, December 23, 2016.) Read the res­o­lu­tion. See New Voices and Race.

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