On Thursday, the Death Penalty Information Center (“DPI”) released a new report detail­ing the trou­bling racial his­to­ry of the fed­er­al death penal­ty. Fool’s Gold: How the Federal Death Penalty Has Perpetuated Racially Discriminatory Practices Throughout History doc­u­ments how racial dis­crim­i­na­tion has been a through­line in the appli­ca­tion of the fed­er­al death penal­ty since the 1800s. The report explains that, despite often being mis­char­ac­ter­ized as the ​“gold stan­dard” of the death penal­ty, the same sys­temic prob­lems of racial bias, inef­fec­tive coun­sel, and arbi­trari­ness that exist in state lev­el death penal­ty sys­tems are also found in the fed­er­al death penalty system. 

DPI’s review of mod­ern sta­tis­tics reveals the con­tin­u­ing lega­cy of racial dis­par­i­ties in fed­er­al death pros­e­cu­tions and sen­tenc­ing. 73% of all cas­es select­ed for death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion between 1989 and June 2024 have been autho­rized for non-white defen­dants. Furthermore, a study of these mod­ern sta­tis­tics found a cor­re­la­tion between cas­es with white female vic­tims and the like­li­hood of a defen­dant receiv­ing a death sen­tence. This is con­sis­tent with many state-lev­el reports detail­ing the pro­found effect of the race of vic­tim bias, which is one of the most per­sis­tent forms of racial bias found in the death penalty. 

Black and Native American peo­ple were dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly sub­ject to fed­er­al exe­cu­tions for over a cen­tu­ry. Between the start of the Civil War and the turn of the cen­tu­ry, the major­i­ty of peo­ple fed­er­al­ly exe­cut­ed were Native Americans, many of whom were pun­ished for resist­ing col­o­niza­tion. Black Americans were also dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly sub­ject to the fed­er­al death penal­ty dur­ing the Reconstruction era; there was a 488% increase in the num­ber of Black peo­ple exe­cut­ed after the Civil War. Both groups were often sub­ject to mass exe­cu­tions (defined as three or more exe­cu­tions at once) after being tried based on cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence with poor legal representation. 

The report also fea­tures sto­ries from the past and present that exem­pli­fy the role of race in cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions. For exam­ple, the fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor in Rejon Taylor’s case used racial­ly cod­ed and dehu­man­iz­ing lan­guage to refer to Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor was referred to as a ​“wolf,” ​“chameleon,” ​“hunter,” ​“Dr. Jekyll,” ​“Mr. Hyde,” and an ​“ugly look­ing mon­ster guy.” There were also repeat­ed men­tions of Mr. Taylor ​“stalk­ing” the vic­tim, like an ani­mal would stalk its prey. Mr. Taylor is cur­rent­ly on fed­er­al death row. 

“This report expos­es the deeply embed­ded racial dis­crim­i­na­tion with­in the fed­er­al death penal­ty. Our find­ings reveal that the same his­tor­i­cal bias­es and inequities that marred the fed­er­al death penalty’s ori­gins per­sist today, with Black and Native American peo­ple bear­ing the brunt of its appli­ca­tion,” said Tiana Herring, DPI’s Data Storyteller and the lead author of the report. 

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