The employment of the death penalty as the ultimate criminal sanction has been the subject of enormous debate both in the United States and internationally. Execution has been challenged not only on moral grounds, but on constitutional grounds. Specifically, capital punishment has been argued to violate the Eighth Amendment, which guarantees protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court held in Furman v. Georgia (1972) that the arbitrary nature of the death penalty system was in violation of the Eighth amendment, and ordered states to rework their sentencing procedures. Justice Thurgood Marshall identified racial discrimination based both on the race of the defendant and the race of the victim, as the primary reason he joined the Supreme Court's majority decision in the Furman case. He was one of several justices who found that racial discrimination produced different patterns of sentencing and rates of execution for blacks and whites. ( Rothman, p.1)The Court's subsequent ruling in Gregg v. Georgia (1976) required judges and juries to use "guided discretion" when implementing capital sentences in an effort to combat arbitrariness, consequently reinstating the death

Numerous other studies found similar results from the 1930s through the 1960s. However, when most research found that blatant discriminatory sentencing of Blacks was confined mostly to the South and ending with the Civil Rights Movements of the 1950's and 60's, researchers began to look for more subtle evidence of racial discrimination. (Rothman, p.3)

Racism among the jury members has been offered as another possible cause of the disparity in capital punishment cases. The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) in New Jersey found that the race of the defendant has an unfair impact on the jury. They found that jurors in New Jersey are ten times more likely to sentence a Black man to death than a White man. A recent study conducted by The Capital Jury Project, indicates that former jurors were "subject to a wide range of misconceptions and prejudices which may undermine their ability to render reliable verdicts in capital cases." (Amnesty International, p.14) Some of the juror comments included in the study were " He (the defendant) was a big man who looked like a criminal...He was big and Black....So I guess when I saw him I thought this fits the part" and "Just a typical nigger. Sorry, thats the way I feel about it". Even the Supreme Court has conceded that racism can play a part in jury deliberation, consequently, ruling in 1986 that potential jurors could be questioned about their racial attitudes. (Amnesty International, p.15)

Studies, as early as the 1930's, have found that Blacks who killed Whites were more likely to receive the death penalty than Blacks who killed Blacks. A 1941 study that looked at a sample of three southern states found that 64% of Blacks sentenced to death for killing other Blacks were executed, while 81% of Blacks sentenced to death for killing Whites were executed. (Rothman p.3) This researcher argued that Blacks who killed other Blacks were viewed as "childish" and "not fully capable of their actions". Whereas those convicted of killing Whites were punished severely, "to keep them in their place." More recent studies, post Gregg v. Georgia, have found similar conclusions as the 1941 study. For example, a 1983 study found that "the offender-victim racial combination was at least as significant a predictive factor in death sentencing as any other legal variable ( e.g. contemporaneous felony, multiple victims)" (Rothman, p.3) Another study found that of the 227 prisoners executed between 1976 and 1994, 84% of the victims were White. Furthermore, since 1976 86 black/minority prisoners have been executed for murdering white victims, while only two white murderers have been executed for killing a non-white. ( Ross, p.2) A study by William Bowers and Glenn Pierce, conducted in the late 1970's, found that in Florida and Texas, Blacks who killed Whites were five and six times more likely to be sentenced to death than Whites who killed Whites. Among Black offenders in Florida, they found that those who killed Whites were 40 times more likely to receive a death sentence than those who killed Blacks. ( Ross, p.2) It was not until 1980 that a white person was sentenced to death for the murder of a sole Black person in Florida, he has not been executed. (Ross, p.2)

penalty. Now, in the post-Furman death penalty era the question remains " does race matter in capital punishment cases, either the race of the victim or the defendant?" Based on and despite the efforts of Gregg v. Georgia (1976) to eradicate the arbitrary nature of the Capital Punishment system, race continues to influence procedures in prosecuting, sentencing, and administering capital punishment, thus violating the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.

Another possible link in the racial disparity of death sentences is ineffective counsel. However, the Supreme Court's standard for proving ineffectual counsel is extremely difficult, and often provides little recourse for the defendant. One such case of ineffective counsel is tha

Some topics in this essay:
Gregg Georgia, Supreme Court, Justice Act, Rossp3 Researchers, Amnesty International, Blacks Ross, Rights Movements, Kentucky Jersey, District Attorney, Justice Department, capital punishment, death penalty, racial discrimmination, death sentence, supreme court, capital punishment system, racial discrimination, punishment system, sentenced death, death sentences, amnesty international, racial justice act, arbitrary nature death, discrimmination capital punishment, racial discrimmination capital,