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.

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