New Study Finds Evidence of Racial Bias in California Death Sentences As Resentencings Begin in Cases Tainted by Discriminatory Jury Selection

As Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price seeks to remedy her office’s history of discriminatory jury selection, an study published in the 2024 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies by Catherine M. Grosso, Jeffrey Fagan, and Michael Laurence finds empirical evidence that the race of the defendant and the race of the victim affect the likelihood of a death sentence being imposed in California. 

“The Influence of the race of defendant and the race of victim on capital charging and sentencing in California” examined 27,000 California murder and manslaughter cases between 1978 and 2002 (a timeframe that covers about 75% of persons on California’s death row) and finds that “Black and Latin[a/o] defendants and all defendants convicted of killing at least one white victim are substantially more likely to be sentenced to death.” The report also finds that “prosecutors were significantly more likely to seek death against defendants who kill white victims [and] juries were significantly more likely to sentence those defendants to death.”

The authors tie the racial disparities to California’s expansive definition of death-eligibility. They write, “The magnitude of the race of the defendant and race of the victim effects is substantially higher than in prior studies in other states and in single-jurisdiction research. The results show an entrenched pattern of racial disparities in charging and sentencing that privileges white victim cases, as well as patterns of racial disparities in who is charged and sentenced to death in California courts that are the natural result of California’s capacious statutory definition of death eligibility, which permits virtually unlimited discretion for charging and sentencing decisions.” 

The study comes at a key time as California seeks to reckon with discrimination in its death penalty system. In April 2024, Alameda County’s District Attorney was ordered by a federal judge to review 35 death penalty convictions after the disclosure of evidence that several prosecutors intentionally excluded Black and Jewish people from serving on a capital murder trial in 1995. DA Price has since requested three resentencing hearings for death row prisoners affected by that exclusion. The first of those hearings began on July 17. The state legislature also recently passed the California Racial Justice Act (RJA), which that the “state shall not seek or obtain a criminal conviction or seek, obtain, or impose a sentence on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.” In addition to animus or bias showcased during legal proceedings, the RJA opens a path for redress if “a longer or more severe sentence was imposed on the defendant when compared to other individuals convicted of the same offense, and longer or more severe sentences were more frequently imposed for that offense on people that share the defendant’s race.” In 2022, the RJA was expanded to apply to people previously convicted of felonies, including everyone on California’s death row. The RJA specifically allows for prisoners to challenge their sentences using statistical evidence.

Since March 13th, 2019, California has had a gubernatorial hold on executions (along with five other states). Governor Gavin Newsom affirmed that no execution will occur in the state during his tenure. The last execution in California took place in 2006.