What evidence is there to show that the death penalty is applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner?
A. Even in the most sophisticated and stringent criminal justice systems, the sentencing process can be affected by factors such as the defendant’s resources, race, religion and by public support for the death penalty. There are cases where a prisoner has been executed while another whose crimes are equally grave and whose circumstances are similar is not. In South Africa the death penalty is disproportionately imposed on the black population by an almost entirely white judiciary. All judges are white except for one black judge in the Bophuthatswana “homeland”. Recent research has shown that black defendants stand a greater chance than white defendants of receiving the death penalty, especially when the victim is white. For example, between June 1982 and June 1983, of 81 blacks convicted of murdering whites, 38 were hanged; of 52 whites convicted of murdering whites, only one was hanged. None of the 21 whites convicted of murdering blacks was hanged, but 55 of the 2,208 blacks convicte
