Professor John Donohue of Yale University’s School of Law recent­ly con­duct­ed a study of death sen­tences in Connecticut and found that seek­ing the death penal­ty often cor­re­lat­ed with the race of the vic­tim and the defen­dant, and not nec­es­sar­i­ly with the sever­i­ty of the crimes, as the law requires. ​“There was basi­cal­ly no ratio­nal sys­tem to explain who got the death penal­ty,” Donohue said. ​“It real­ly is about as ran­dom a process as you can pos­si­bly con­struct.”

After review­ing 207 mur­der cas­es dat­ing back to the ear­ly 1970s that were eli­gi­ble for death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion, the study found:

  • Black defen­dants receive death sen­tences at three times the rate of white defen­dants in cas­es where the vic­tims were white.
  • Killers of white vic­tims are treat­ed more severe­ly than peo­ple who kill minori­ties, when it comes time to decide the charges.
  • Minorities who kill whites receive death sen­tences at high­er rates than minori­ties who kill minorities.

The study is being used in a suit brought by death row inmates in the state chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the way the death penal­ty is being applied. The state has con­test­ed the find­ings of the study. Read the study in full here.

(DAVE COLLINS, ​“Yale study: racial bias, ran­dom­ness mar Conn. death penal­ty cas­es,” Associated Press, December 12, 2007).

See Arbitrariness and Studies.

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