IS RACISM TO BLAME FOR DISPARITY IN DEATH SENTENCES WHEN MURDER VICTIM IS WHITE?
Last week RRR reported on a new study by Amnesty International which claimed that the race of a victim was a major factor in determining if a murder defendant was given the death penalty. The study found that nationwide the number of murder victims was about equally divided among blacks and whites. However, 80 percent of all people executed in this country since 1977 had murdered white victims. The inference is that black life is cheap and murdering African Americans is not a serious enough offense to warrant the death penalty. But Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation of Sacramento believes that the Amnesty International data does not necessarily point to racism in sentencing. Rather, Scheidegger points out in USA Today that the race-of-victim argument disappears when the data is examined county by county. “The people in more conservative counties elect tougher-on-crime prosecutors who seek the death penalty in a larger proportion of cases,” Scheidegger writes. “An
