The Ethics of Capital Punishment

[Sky Dancer]

As of October 2002, 12 people have been executed where the defendant was white and the murder victim black, compared with 178 black defendants executed for murders with white victims.

For many years reports from around the country have found that a pervasive racial prejudice in the application of the death penalty exists.

A systemic racial bias in the application of the death penalty exists at both the state and federal level.
Race and the Death Penalty | American Civil Liberties Union

 

[Tank]

People of color are far more likely to be executed than white people.

This is a lie

 

[Sky Dancer]

People of color and people of low income are more likely to be executed than others in the United States.

“Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder.” Coretta Scott King

 

[Tank]

 

[Sky Dancer]

In the Philadelphia study, the racial combination which was most likely to result in a death sentence was a black defendant with a nonblack victim, regardless of how severe the murder committed.
The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides | Death Penalty Information Center


Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ In the late 1980s, Congress asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to review the empirical studies on race and the death penalty which had been conducted up to that time. The agency reviewed 28 studies regarding both race of defendant and race of victim discrimination. Their review included studies utilizing various methodologies and degrees of statistical sophistication and examined such diverse states as California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Texas. Their conclusion in 1990, based on the vast amount of data collected, was unequivocal:

In 82% of the studies, race of victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving a death sentence, i.e., those who murdered whites were found to be more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks. This finding was remarkably consistent across data sets, states, data collection methods, and analytic techniques. The finding held for high, medium, and low quality studies.16

The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides | Death Penalty Information Center

 

[Tank]

Far more whites are executed then blacks and Hispanics

 

[Amelia]

In the Philadelphia study, the racial combination which was most likely to result in a death sentence was a black defendant with a nonblack victim, regardless of how severe the murder committed.
The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides | Death Penalty Information Center


Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ In the late 1980s, Congress asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to review the empirical studies on race and the death penalty which had been conducted up to that time. The agency reviewed 28 studies regarding both race of defendant and race of victim discrimination. Their review included studies utilizing various methodologies and degrees of statistical sophistication and examined such diverse states as California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Texas. Their conclusion in 1990, based on the vast amount of data collected, was unequivocal:

In 82% of the studies, race of victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving a death sentence, i.e., those who murdered whites were found to be more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks. This finding was remarkably consistent across data sets, states, data collection methods, and analytic techniques. The finding held for high, medium, and low quality studies.16

The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides | Death Penalty Information Center

You're talking to people who don't care if people are executed for crimes they didn't commit.

How can you expect them to care about the game being rigged against poor people? And about some people's lives apparently counting for more than others?

 

[California Girl]

People of color and people of low income are more likely to be executed than others in the United States.

“Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder.” Coretta Scott King

So, since you also say - in other threads - that prison is inappropriate.... how exactly do you see our justice system working? Give murderers a stern talking to?

 

[Sky Dancer]

Far more whites are executed then blacks and Hispanics

Blacks convicted of killing whites are not only more likely than other killers to receive a death sentence – they are also more likely to actually be executed, a new study suggests.

There is more than a two-fold greater risk that an African American who killed a white person will be executed than there is for a white person who killed a non-white victim.

Hispanics who killed whites were also more likely to be executed than were whites who killed non-whites, the study showed. But the risk of execution were not as strong for Hispanics who killed whites as they were for blacks who killed whites.

The likelihood of a legal death penalty was greater in states with higher proportions of black residents, an ideologically more conservative population, and in states where there was greater support for Republican candidates.

“Overall, we found that our justice system is not colorblind, even after offenders are put on death row,” Jacobs said. “White lives are still valued more than black ones when it comes to deciding who gets executed and who does not.”




Study: Blacks Who Kill Whites Are Most Likely To Be Executed

Racism affects how the death penalty is applied. Politics affect how the death penalty is applied.

 

[Sky Dancer]

While blacks and whites are murdered in roughly equal numbers in the USA, the killers of white people are 6 times as likely to be put to death, according to a statistical analysis released last week by the anti-death penalty human rights organization Amnesty International USA. It found that of 845 people executed since the U.S. resumed capital punishment in 1977, 80% were put to death for killing whites, while only 13% were executed for killing blacks.

The findings point to but one chilling conclusion: The criminal justice system places a higher value on the lives of whites than on the lives of blacks and other minorities.

The General Accounting Office, the congressional watchdog agency, in 1990 reviewed more than 50 studies of race and punishment and found "a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing and imposition of the death penalty."

Fight the Death Penalty in USA - Racism in the judicial system

 

[Sky Dancer]

In the Philadelphia study, the racial combination which was most likely to result in a death sentence was a black defendant with a nonblack victim, regardless of how severe the murder committed.
The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides | Death Penalty Information Center


Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ In the late 1980s, Congress asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to review the empirical studies on race and the death penalty which had been conducted up to that time. The agency reviewed 28 studies regarding both race of defendant and race of victim discrimination. Their review included studies utilizing various methodologies and degrees of statistical sophistication and examined such diverse states as California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Texas. Their conclusion in 1990, based on the vast amount of data collected, was unequivocal:

In 82% of the studies, race of victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving a death sentence, i.e., those who murdered whites were found to be more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks. This finding was remarkably consistent across data sets, states, data collection methods, and analytic techniques. The finding held for high, medium, and low quality studies.16

The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides | Death Penalty Information Center

You're talking to people who don't care if people are executed for crimes they didn't commit.

How can you expect them to care about the game being rigged against poor people? And about some people's lives apparently counting for more than others?

Good point. Fuck it. I give up. They aren't worth talking to.

 

[Sky Dancer]

People of color and people of low income are more likely to be executed than others in the United States.

“Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder.” Coretta Scott King

So, since you also say - in other threads - that prison is inappropriate.... how exactly do you see our justice system working? Give murderers a stern talking to?

LWOP is an appropriate sentence for a murderer.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Religion and the Death Penalty | Death Penalty Information Center

 

[California Girl]

People of color and people of low income are more likely to be executed than others in the United States.

“Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder.” Coretta Scott King

So, since you also say - in other threads - that prison is inappropriate.... how exactly do you see our justice system working? Give murderers a stern talking to?

LWOP is an appropriate sentence for a murderer.

How does that fit within your previous comments about prisons being inappropriate punishment?

 

[Sky Dancer]

So, since you also say - in other threads - that prison is inappropriate.... how exactly do you see our justice system working? Give murderers a stern talking to?

LWOP is an appropriate sentence for a murderer.

How does that fit within your previous comments about prisons being inappropriate punishment?

Not in DP cases. LWOP is appropriate.


In 1970, fewer than 200,000 Americans were incarcerated. Today, with some 2.3 million in prison or jail, the US has more people and a higher percentage of its population locked up than any other country. Adding those on probation and parole, over seven million are under penal supervision. Although much of the growth stems from tougher drug laws, increased sentencing for most offenses has played a large role, too. According to criminologist Todd Clear, prison sentences in the US today average almost twice as long as thirty years ago. American prisoners now endure sentences twice those of the English, four times those of the Dutch, and five to ten times those of the French for the same crimes.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/30-9

 

[Tank]

And about some people's lives apparently counting for more than others?

Some lives do count more then others

 

[Sky Dancer]

And about some people's lives apparently counting for more than others?

Some lives do count more then others

Right. White lives count more than black lives. That's how the death penalty is applied.

 

[Sky Dancer]

For those who called me a liar:

Statistics confirm discrimination. Between 1930 and 1990, 4,016 persons were executed in the United States. Of these, 2,129 (or 53 percent) were black. For the crime of murder, 3,343 were executed; 1,693 (or 51 percent) were black.(17) During these years African-Americans were about 12 per cent of the nation's population.
The Case Against the Death Penalty

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

For those who called me a liar:

Statistics confirm discrimination. Between 1930 and 1990, 4,016 persons were executed in the United States. Of these, 2,129 (or 53 percent) were black. For the crime of murder, 3,343 were executed; 1,693 (or 51 percent) were black.(17) During these years African-Americans were about 12 per cent of the nation's population.
The Case Against the Death Penalty

What percentage of the people in the prison system are black as compared to white?

is it 53% black in the prison population or higher or lower. If it is higher than whites are put to death more than blacks as a percentage of the population, if it is lower then your premise is correct.

I honestly don't know the numbers which is why I presented the question

 

[Amelia]

For those who called me a liar:

Statistics confirm discrimination. Between 1930 and 1990, 4,016 persons were executed in the United States. Of these, 2,129 (or 53 percent) were black. For the crime of murder, 3,343 were executed; 1,693 (or 51 percent) were black.(17) During these years African-Americans were about 12 per cent of the nation's population.
The Case Against the Death Penalty

What percentage of the people in the prison system are black as compared to white?

is it 53% black in the prison population or higher or lower. If it is higher than whites are put to death more than blacks as a percentage of the population, if it is lower then your premise is correct.

I honestly don't know the numbers which is why I presented the question

Sounds like you're making a good start in trying to understand the phenomenon.

Keep in mind that blacks tend to receive harsher sentences than whites for similar crimes. So that will add to the percentage of blacks in prison as a percentage of the population. A related condition, which would impact the analysis you're proposing.