Clementina Arriaga

Racial Discrimination in the Death Penalty
The death penalty is a punishment in which a person is executed for having committed a serious crime. This punishment has been carried out in many different ways all over the world and has been around for many centuries. Since it started here in the United States, however, we have been seeing racial discrimination in sentencing to the death penalty. An African American man who kills a white man is more likely to be sentenced to this punishment than a white man if he kills an African American. African Americans form most of the minority group here in the United States and they are a majority that are falling in this discriminating situation. Being sentenced to the death penalty is an unjust way of punishment for any crime committed, and it is even worse to be sentenced to the death penalty because of the race or class standing of a convict. The race of the convict and the race of the defendant in capital cases are major factors in determining who is sentenced to die in this country. This is ethically wrong. It is choosing to end someone’s life because we do not like their physical appearance or because they cannot afford their way out of it. This is unconstitutional and is definitely not a way to practice for our safety. It is a choice made by a judge that can easily be protected by the law, and that is unfair. We need a system that affords the same fairness to everyone, that does not accept racial discrimination as evidence to sentence to the death penalty and does not allow convicts to be punished for not affording well enough lawyers to defend their case.
Capital punishment was originally used to discipline criminals for their political and religious beliefs, military justice, and to punish those who had committed murder, espionage, and treason. Although it is still used to punish some crimes as such, it is now dependent on who the convict is, his skin color, and his background. According to Baldus, there are three common racially based disparities in sentencing to the death penalty. The “race effect” is the most common disparity, which says that those who murder whites are found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murder blacks. Eighty-two percent of studies reviewed by the death penalty information center shows that race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty (U.S. General Accounting Office, Death Penalty Sentencing, February 1990). The next most common race-based disparity, the “minority-defendant/white-victim” discrimination, is the more “punitive treatment of cases involving a black or minority defendant and one or more white victims compared to the treatment of cases involving all other similarly situated defendant/victim racial combinations” (Baldus). This is an outcome from “convening authority charging decisions and court-martial panel findings of guilt at trial--decisions that advance death-eligible cases to capital sentencing hearings.” The least common racially based disparity, also known as the “independent” racial discrimination, are shown in cases “involving black and minority defendants compared to the treatment of similarly situated white-defendant cases, regardless of the race of the victim involved in the case.” This is mostly because of the “death-sentencing decisions of panel members in capital sentencing hearings.”
One reason why African Americans fall into racial discrimination in these situations is because they do not tend to afford good lawyers to defend their cases. Although they are provided with a lawyer in court, those lawyers do not care of the outcome of those convicts and do not try to defend them. Supporting Baldus’ studies, Wolfgang found that “black men who were convicted of rape were seven times more likely to be sentenced to death than white men, and that black men who were convicted of raping white women were eighteen times more likely to be sentenced to death than men convicted of rape in any other racial combination” (Gross).
It is hard to know which option would be best to take in the Utilitarian Approach. It would bring the most good for minorities if racial discrimination was to change and sentencing to the death penalty would be fair for everybody, but not for the state government who pays for the lawyers and court expenses that convicts cannot afford. White people tend to afford their own expenses, but minorities do not. Equally good lawyers would have to be hired and investigations would have to increase to find new evidence that could prove the innocence of many convicts. If the convict cannot afford these costs, then someone else would have to pay. These people also have the right to not spend their money on such things. It would bring greater good for our living if we were to change our system and prevent racial discrimination in the death penalty, but it would affect our government’s finances and might raise our taxes.
It is quite evident that in the Rights Approach the best option would be to give those affected by this problem the right to defend themselves, no matter the cost, and have the peace that they will not be sentenced to the death penalty just because of their skin color. We are all humans and are born equally. If any of us commits a serious crime and deserves capital punishment, then let that be, but the decision for the punishment should never rely on who you are, rather, on what you did. As for the costs and the stakeholders, it is our human right to be able to go to court and be able to defend ourselves. It is not fair that court expenses are so high that those who do not afford it are punished wrongly. That violates our rights of self-defense. According to Fisher, “At least 102 innocent people in the U.S. have been released from death row since 1973. Moreover, still unknown is the number of innocent persons that have been on death row for years or executed. Consistent findings that racial minorities and defendants from lower socioeconomic levels are more likely to receive a death sentence than white, middle class defendants also point to inequities and unfairness of capital punishment procedures.”
The Justice Approach goes hand-in-hand with the rights approach for this situation. We deserve to be judged equally, no matter our culture, our income, our backgrounds, and our race. An African American is not more dangerous than a white man. If their hearts are dark and blood thirsty, it never depends on how you look like on the outside. The best option is to abolish the death penalty altogether. Not only would it be just, but it would bring down so many costs to our government and it might lower our taxes. According to McLaughlin, “the cost and inefficiency argument has persuaded several state governments to conduct detailed examinations into the fiscal impact of their death penalty systems.” Not only would our government spend less on the practice of the death penalty, but we would not be at a risk of sentencing an innocent person to the death penalty.
When it comes to capital punishment, the best option with the Common Good Approach would be to judge equally and rightly those who deserve such punishment as the capital punishment, disregarding their race. For the safety of our communities and for the wealth of our society, it is best to keep away any serial killer or rapist, or whoever does serious crimes, and provide discipline to those who need it. It would be dangerous to only sentence those who have a darker skin than those who truly are dangerous to our society. The cost of any of this should not be a problem. The safety of our community should come first. If there is a rich white man who kills and rapes and uses his money and his physical appearance to avoid the punishment he deserves, our community is in danger. It is better to punish such person to the death penalty than prefer to sentence someone who is from a different race who might not deserve such punishment. To fairly punish any criminal of any skin color or class standing is to better serve our community.
The Virtue Approach should be taken by any judge that is about to sentence a person to the death penalty. Stakeholders have rights, like everyone else, but money should never have to be the reason why someone is killed unfairly. What kind of country will we be if we continue such racial disparities? All we will show is that white people are always favorable, and that competing for your life against one will give you an instant death. As a country, we should allow each person to rightly defend themselves, and put aside our discriminations and our racial judgments to correctly guide our country for the better. Our judges should give an opportunity to rightly sentence those who truly deserve the death penalty and not sentence only those who are not white. Our lives are equally valuable, and if a white man kills a black man, he deserves as much punishment as a black man who kills a white man. It is virtually correct.
I believe the Rights Approach and the Justice Approach bring the best options to solve this issue in our country. If we abolish the death penalty completely, we would best allow everyone to have their human rights and we would be just to those who are at stake and to ourselves. With this solution we would not have to worry about stakeholders or anyone who is providing the costs to perform the death penalty. We would not use the death penalty to kill someone who is of a darker skin color when they are innocent. According to McLaughlin, there are anti-death penalty advocates that have fought to abolish capital punishment in the United States for over two centuries. Many of states have abolished capital punishment because they have seen the benefit of never practicing it. If these states believed in this option, I am sure that if I were to tell anyone else, they would support it too. It is the best way to avoid racial discrimination in sentencing someone to a morally incorrect severe punishment.

Works Cited
Baldus, David C., et al. "Racial Discrimination In The Administration Of The Death Penalty: The Experience Of The United States Armed Forces (1984-2005)." Journal Of Criminal Law & Criminology 101.4 (2011): 1227-1335. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Nov. 2014
Fisher, Celia B. "Human Rights And Psychologists' Involvement In Assessments Related To Death Penalty Cases." Ethics & Behavior 23.1 (2013): 58-61. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
Gross, Samuel B. "David Baldus And The Legacy Of Mccleskey V. Kemp." Iowa Law Review 97.(2012): 1905-1924. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
McLaughlin, Jolie. "The Price Of Justice: Interest-Convergence, Cost, And The Anti-Death Penalty Movement." Northwestern University Law Review 108.2 (2014): 675-710. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
Trémolière, Bastien, Wim De Neys, and Jean-François Bonnefon. "Mortality Salience And Morality: Thinking About Death Makes People Less Utilitarian." Cognition 124.3 (2012): 379-384. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.