Report: Racial Disparities in Death Sentences Imposed on Late Adolescent Offenders Have Grown Since Supreme Court Ruling Banning Juvenile Death Penalty

Racial dis­par­i­ties in U.S. death sen­tences imposed on late ado­les­cent offend­ers have grown sub­stan­tial­ly since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment against juve­nile offend­ers in 2005, accord­ing to a new report by University of North Carolina polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Frank R. Baumgartner (pic­tured).

Baumgartner’s report, Race and Age Characteristics of those Sentenced to Death before and after Roper, released on June 21, 2022 reviewed death sen­tences imposed on more than 8,700 indi­vid­u­als from 1972 through 2021, includ­ing more than 1,500 aged 20 or younger. Baumgartner found that through­out this time peri­od, defen­dants of col­or were over­rep­re­sent­ed among those sen­tenced to death for crimes they were charged with com­mit­ting before turn­ing 21 years old. 

More than 3 in 5 of both juve­nile offend­ers and late ado­les­cent offend­ers sen­tenced to death in the U.S. have been defen­dants of col­or, Baumgartner found. Since the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 in Roper v. Simmons that sub­ject­ing offend­ers younger than age 18 to the death penal­ty con­sti­tut­ed cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment, that num­ber has surged to nearly 80%. 

“[I]n the peri­od since Roper,” Baumgartner said, ​“minori­ties are sub­stan­tial­ly over-rep­re­sent­ed in the Late Adolescent Class. The dis­ad­van­tage of age cumu­lates with the dis­ad­van­tage of minority status.”

A DPIC analy­sis of the data found that, before Roper, 48.9% of death sen­tenced juve­nile offend­ers and 48.2% of death sen­tenced late ado­les­cents were Black. Those of Latinx descent con­sti­tut­ed 11.1% of death sen­tenced juve­niles and 8.8% of late ado­les­cents sen­tenced to death. But after Roper, more than half (51.3%) of all death sen­tenced offend­ers have been Black and 24.7% have been Latinx. Before Roper, 32.8% of juve­nile offend­ers and 35.1% of late ado­les­cent death-sen­tenced defen­dants were white. That plum­met­ed after Roper to 20.4% of late adolescent defendants. 

Baumgartner called the grow­ing racial dis­par­i­ties ​“a trou­bling fact … that should cause pol­i­cy­mak­ers to con­sid­er extend­ing the pro­tec­tions of Roper to those in the 18-to-20 age cat­e­go­ry as well. If we are to have a death penal­ty,” he said, ​“it should tar­get the most deserv­ing, rather than the most vulnerable.”

The Data on Race and Age of Offenders Sentenced to Death

235 juve­nile offend­ers were sen­tenced to death in the U.S. between the return of the death penal­ty fol­low­ing Furman v. Georgia on June 29, 1972 and the Court’s deci­sion in Roper In March 2005. Just under half (48.9%) were Black, rough­ly one-third (32.8%) were white, 11.1% were Latinx, and 1.3% were oth­er races. Overall, 61.3% were defen­dants of col­or. Baumgartner did not have race data on 6.0% of death-sen­tenced juvenile offenders. 

DPIC’s analy­sis of the data found that 59.3% of the 1,177 late ado­les­cent offend­ers sen­tenced to death before Roper were defen­dants of col­or. 48.2% were Black; 8.8% were Lantinx; and 2.3% were oth­er races. 35.1% were white and race data was unavail­able for 5.6%.

Baumgartner exam­ined the race and age char­ac­ter­is­tics of a data set of 8,733 peo­ple sen­tenced to death across the United States from the date the U.S. Supreme Court declared exist­ing death penal­ty statutes uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in Furman v. Georgia in June 1972 through the end of 2021. He reviewed both the data­base as a whole and a sub­set of death sen­tences that were imposed after Roper pro­hib­it­ed the use of the death penal­ty against juve­niles younger than age 18. 

He clas­si­fied death sen­tences by the age of the defen­dant at the time of the crime and the defendant’s race, divid­ing age into four cat­e­gories: juve­niles (under age 18), late ado­les­cents (aged 18 – 20), age 21 and old­er, and age unknown. He was able to obtain age and race infor­ma­tion for 8,046 of the indi­vid­u­als sen­tenced to death. DPIC also ana­lyzed an addi­tion­al sub­set of Baumgartner’s data that com­prised all death sen­tences imposed pri­or to Roper.

The analy­sis showed that the more vul­ner­a­ble death-sen­tenced defen­dants were as a class, the more the death sen­tences imposed on that class of defen­dants were racial­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate. This obser­va­tion held true across races, although juve­nile and late ado­les­cent Black defen­dants faced an equal­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate risk of being sen­tenced to death in the pre-Roper time frame when both groups were eli­gi­ble for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Baumgartner sug­gest­ed that the over­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Black defen­dants in these age groups may be attrib­ut­able, at least in part, to ​“the ten­den­cy to attribute adult char­ac­ter­is­tics to youth­ful black and minority individuals.” 

Prior to Roper, Blacks defen­dants com­prised 48.9% and 48.5% of death sen­tenced juve­nile and late ado­les­cent defen­dants, ten per­cent­age points high­er than the per­cent­age of death sen­tenced African Americans aged 21 or old­er. Latinx defen­dants com­prised 11.1% of juve­nile offend­ers sen­tenced to death, 8.8% of late ado­les­cents, and 5.9% of death sen­tenced offend­ers aged 21 or old­er. By con­trast, white defen­dants com­prised 32.7% of juve­niles, 35.1% of late ado­les­cents, and 48.8% of offend­ers aged 21 or old­er sen­tenced to death.

Further, Baumgartner found, Roper dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly ben­e­fit­ed white ado­les­cents, as the per­cent­age of death-sen­tenced late ado­les­cents of col­or rose by 18.9% per­cent­age points, from 59.3% to 78.2%. Meanwhile, the num­ber of death-sen­tenced white ado­les­cents dropped 14.7 per­cent­age points, from 35.1% to 20.4%.

Baumgartner’s data also shows that, at the same time the num­ber of death sen­tences has declined in the U.S., racial dis­par­i­ties in sen­tenc­ing have increased. Death sen­tences peaked in the United States in the mid-1990s, with more than 300 new death sen­tences imposed per year. They have declined by approx­i­mate­ly 90% since then, includ­ing a 70% drop in the decade before the pan­dem­ic. There have been few­er than 50 new death sen­tences imposed every year since 2015. 

From 1972 to March 2005, defen­dants of col­or com­prised 48.0% of all peo­ple sen­tenced to death, 45.5% were white, and race data was unavail­able for 6.9%. White death-sen­tenced defen­dants out­num­bered African Americans by 6.4 per­cent­age points. Since Roper, 57.8% of all defen­dants sen­tenced to death have been peo­ple of col­or, 40.7% have been white, and race data is unavail­able for 1.5%. The num­ber of white and Black death-sen­tenced defen­dants has been near­ly equal, with white death-sen­tenced defen­dants out­num­ber­ing African Americans by less than six tenths of a per­cent­age point. Moreover, the decline in death sen­tenc­ing across the United States pre­dates Roper, sug­gest­ing that the racial dis­par­i­ties asso­ci­at­ed with that decline are even greater.

In August 2022, the American Psychological Association (APA) over­whelm­ing­ly vot­ed in favor of a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for an end to the death penal­ty for indi­vid­u­als aged 18 – 20. The APA res­o­lu­tion said that ​“the same sci­en­tif­ic and soci­etal rea­sons” that led the U.S. Supreme Court to bar cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for offend­ers younger than age 18 also ​“apply to the late ado­les­cent class.” It also not­ed that ​“Black youth are pun­ished more harsh­ly than Whites” and that ​“it is clear death as a penal­ty is not applied equal­ly and fair­ly among mem­bers of the late ado­les­cent class.” Baumgartner’s data cor­rob­o­rates the APA’s contentions.

Baumgartner’s data also strength­ens the Death Penalty Information Center’s find­ing, report­ed when DPIC released its Death Penalty Census in late June 2022, that ​“mem­bers of vul­ner­a­ble groups who are sen­tenced to death (juve­niles, intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled pris­on­ers, the inno­cent) are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly like­ly to be defen­dants of color. 

DPIC found that defen­dants of col­or com­prise 64.2% of death-row exonerees and 83.1% of all death-row pris­on­ers lat­er found to be inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. DPIC also found that, while defen­dants of col­or con­sti­tute 44.3% of those exe­cut­ed in the U.S. over the past 50 years, 54.5% of those exe­cut­ed for offens­es com­mit­ted as juve­niles, 69.8% of the intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled defen­dants exe­cut­ed before Atkins v. Virginia declared the prac­tice uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and 75.0% of the like­ly intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled pris­on­ers who have been exe­cut­ed despite Atkins’ pro­hi­bi­tion of the prac­tice have been peo­ple of color.