According to a new study to be published in the Santa Clara Law Review, a defandant in California is more likely to be sentenced to death for killing a white person than for murdering a person of any other race, despite there being more black and Hispanic murder victims in the state. The research also shows that geography plays a key role in whether the death penalty will be sought in a particular case.
The study implies that the loss of white lives is considered more important in the justice system than the loss of black or Latino lives. Among the findings of the study were:
- Those who kill non-Latino whites are over three times more likely to be sentenced to die as those who kill African-Americans.
- Those who kill non-Latino whites are over four times more likely to be sentenced to die as those who kill Latinos.
- A person convicted of the same crime is more than three times more likely to be sentenced to die simply because the crime was committed in a predominantly white, rural community rather than a diverse, urban area.
“To put it bluntly, there’s apparently different values being placed on victims from different racial and ethnic groups. That’s what the pattern would suggest,” said Northeastern University criminal justice professor Glenn Pierce, a co-author of the study. Santa Clara University professor Ellen Kreitzberg added, “This study force[s] the people in California to confront the unfairness of how the death penalty is applied in this state. The decision of who will live and who will die in California turns on arbitrary and unlawful factors such as the race and ethnicity of the murder victim or the location where the murder was committed.”
(Associated Press, September 22, 2005; ACLU of Northern Calif. Press Release, Sept. 21, 2005; G. Pierce & M. Radelet, “The Impact of Legally Inappropriate Factors on Death Sentencing for California Homicides, 1990 – 1999,” 46 Santa Clara Law Review ___(forthcoming)). See Race and Arbitrariness.
Arbitrariness
Aug 06, 2024
