Death Penalty

" (Rothman, p.2) While discriminatory sentencing may not always have been written into law, numerous studies cite statistical evidence showing the increased likelihood of Black offenders being executed when compared the Whites. H.C. Brearley reported that in South Carolina from 1920-1926, blacks accused of murder were twice as likely as whites to be convicted and executed.
             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) .
             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.