A new study by Professor Frank Baumgartner of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Tim Lyman, a Documentation Specialist in New Orleans, reports stark disparities in Louisiana death sentences and executions depending upon the race and gender of the homicide victim. The study — to be published in the Loyola University of New Orleans Journal of Public Interest Law — finds that defendants accused of killing white victims are nearly twice as likely to be sentenced to death and nearly four times as likely to be executed than defendants accused of killing black victims.
The disparities are even greater when both race and gender are compared. Defendants accused of killing white women are sentenced to death at nearly 12 times the rate of defendants accused of killing black men (56.94 vs. 4.88 death sentences per 1,000 homicides), and executed at a rate that is 48 times higher (11.52 vs. 0.24 executions per 1,000 homicides). The authors find that both the race and gender of victims affect sentencing outcomes in murder cases, but that death sentencing and execution rates are higher in cases involving white victims, irrespective or gender, and in cases involving female victims, irrespective of race.
72% of murder victims in Louisiana since 1976 have been black, but just 33% of death sentence have involved black victims. Cases involving black male victims had the lowest rate of death sentences and executions per homicide of any class of victim. 12,693 black males have been murdered in Louisiana since 1976 (61% of murder victims), with only 3 executions (0.02% of these murders; 8% of Louisiana executions). (Click here to enlarge image.)
Frank Baumgartner and Tim Lyman, Race-Of-Victim Discrepancies in Homicides and Executions, Louisiana 1976 – 2015, Loyola University of New Orleans Journal of Public Interest Law, Fall 2015.
