Is the death penalty racially bias?

So I previously came to the conclusion that the death penalty is in fact gender bias, but now, with even further research, I've learned that it's not only gender bias, the death penalty is also racially bias. However, I was not as surprised as I was about the gender bias, and honestly this should come as no surprise to anyone who pays attention to the news across the country or perhaps even local news, institutional racism is still very much a thing in the United States, and it rears it’s ugly head here in the death penalty, and while we cannot change the ugly past the United States has with race, we can change it’s future. The issue of race and the death penalty has been clear for quite some time, with Justice Harry Blackmun even explaining in his 1994 dissent from the court’s refusal to hear the death penalty case Callins v. Collins that “the biases and prejudices that infect society generally influence the determination of who is sentenced to death, even within the narrower pool of death eligible defendants selected according to objective standards.”(“Racial Bias” 1)  So if a Justice on the Supreme Court can acknowledge the fact that the death penalty is subject to “the biases and prejudices that infect society” why are we still talking about it twenty-three years later? Well, as I previously stated, the majority of the literature about this topic focus solely on whether the constitution supports the death penalty or not, but the constitution was written in 1787 by slave-owning men, so how can you look to the constitution to protect those who had absolutely no rights, and were considered property rather than actual human beings at the time it was written? Every time they will find a loophole to support their claim, and if you look at the history of the debate, they succeed every time. However, there is no way of finding a loophole around stone cold statistics. Ninety-six percent of states where studies examined race and the death penalty, they found clear patterns of discrimination(“Cruel & Unusual: The Death Penalty V. The Eighth Amendment ” 1). African-Americans account for fifty-one percent of homicide victims, and whites account for forty-six percent. However, fifteen percent of executions are for African-american victims, and seventy-six percent are for white victims.(1) How is it that African-Americans account for five percent more of the nation's homicides, yet white victims account for sixty-one percent more of executions. Looking at this evidence here, any normal human being can clearly come to the conclusion that the death penalty has a clear racial bias, and that it is unjust and wrong.

Works Cited:

"Cruel & Unusual“  Cruel & Unusual: The Death Penalty V. The Eighth Amendment. Criminal Justice Degree Hub, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.

"Racial Bias." Racial Bias | National Coalition to. National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.

Is the death penalty gender bias?

Is the death penalty gender bias? The research I've done seems to indicate that it is. The first woman executed, Velma Barfield, was executed in 1984(“Introduction to the Death Penalty” 1). Since then, only fifteen other women have been executed, with the fifteenth being executed on September 30th, 2015. She was sentenced to death in 1998 after she had convinced her boyfriend at the time shoot her husband(Oliver, 1).Since the reinstatement of the death penalty, one thousand three hundred and ninety-nine men were executed. In October of 2014, there were three thousand thirty-five people on death row, and out of that only fifty-four of them were women.(1). These numbers are alarming when you consider the fact that women make up roughly ten percent of the murders committed, but only account for one percent of the executions via the death penalty("Part I: History of the Death Penalty." 1). We still live in a very male dominated society here in the United States, with many people still looking down on women and not really acknowledging them as equals compared to men, and this seems to be the case here when it comes to death penalty sentencing. Often times jurors will look at a woman and see her as emotionally fragile, and may even sympathize with her more than they would a man. According to Ohio Northern University Law Professor Victor Streib, “It’s just easier to convince a jury that women suffer from emotional distress or other emotional problems more than men.”(Qtd. In Oliver, 1). It’s also worth noting that the rule books judges abide by when sentencing people to death or other sentences, was essentially written in it’s entirety by old white men. The way society views men and how we expect men to act and behave also plays a part in this. In order to be a ‘manly man’ per se, you must be dominant, strong, and protective. Women are considered weaker and inferior, so it is your job to protect them and look out for them, so sentencing women to death would go against all of these values you’re familiar with. I think the solution to this bias is simply just embracing feminism, and allowing the movement to grow and take shape, so that there can actually be equality in the justice system.

Works Cited:

Oliver, Amanda."The Death Penalty Has a Gender Bias." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 01 Oct. 2015. Web. 226 Apr. 2017.

"Part I: History of the Death Penalty." Part I: History of the Death Penalty | Death Penalty Information Center. Death Penalty Information Center, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.

Is the End of the Death Penalty Near?

Is the end of the death penalty near? All of the statistics and facts seem to point towards this conclusion. One of the reasons the end may be coming is that, after all of the time and effort we've spent to try and improve how we carry out death sentences, moving from hanging, to execution, to lethal injection, in the end, we're not much better at it than we were before. In Arizona, it took prison official two hours to kill an inmate(Drehle, 29) and in Oklahoma, it took prison official approximately forty minutes to execute an inmate. In the beginning, when lethal injections were first being used as a more humane alternative to hangings, electrocutions, etc. it may have been acceptable, but once pharmaceutical companies began not allowing prisons to use their drugs to execute people, more and more executions began to go awry. It’s because of this that we end up with ridiculous situations like the ones in Oklahoma or Arizona. The crime rate has also dropped significantly since the death penalty was reinstituted in the United States. Now that the crime rate isn’t as high as it was before, the death penalty does not really seem as necessary. There are very little ways you can justify the use of the death penalty anymore, most of the historical justifications have since been removed and are no longer valid. Also, state government’s do not have as much money as they may have had before, so buying the chemicals and everything else required to execute an inmate is becoming a cost some governments are not willing to accept. All of these put together with the continued indecisiveness of the Supreme Court Justices that I have mentioned in previous posts, all point towards the end of the death penalty. The more I read, the more I continue to see that all of the experts, essentially every single article I can find everywhere, seems to say that the end of the death penalty is in sight, that it's just right around the corner. They show surveys and charts showing that approval of the death penalty is continuously decreasing, but at the end of the day, state legislatures are still turning down bills to end the death penalty, and there are still people being executed, like those in Arkansas. I feel as if no one is talking about them, and the situations that got them sentenced to death and the hows and whys of it all. It seems as if everyone is just focused on the bigger picture.

Works Cited

Von Drehle, David. "Bungled Executions. Backlogged Courts. And Three More Reasons the Modern Death Penalty Is a Failed Experiment. (Cover Story)." Time, vol. 185, no. 21, 08 June 2015, pp. 26-33. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=102909399&site=ehost-live.

The Death Penalty Today

The death penalty to this day is still a hot topic across the United States. Many States are still having debates about whether the death penalty is constitutional or not. In Arkansas, Governor Asa Hutchinson announced that eight inmates on death row in the state will be executed in a 10-day span, with the first inmate being executed on April 17th, the first in Arkansas since 2005. This many executions in such a short time span in one state has never been done before. The governor stated that the timing was "not my choice" (qtd. in Daniels 1) and that "If we do not set the execution dates, that will not trigger a review and we'll never bring finality to this long and arduous process that really is so difficult on the victims and their families."(1) However, it is believed that they are rushing the executions due to a lack of execution drugs. According to reports from the New York Times, their Midazolam supply will expire by the end of April. Midazolam is a sedative used in a drug cocktail for executions in certain states across the US. Whether Midazolam is constitutionally acceptable or not is currently being debated in the state of Ohio, with attorneys representing inmates currently on death row. A stay of execution was issued for the three upcoming inmates, after the attorneys argued that using the drug violated the inmate's eighth amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. This issue came to light due to the execution of Dennis McGuire on January 16, 2014. The drug Midazolam was used for the execution, and Alan Johnson, a reporter for The Columbus Dispatch, testified that McGuire "began coughing, gasping, choking in a way that I had not seen before at any execution. And I remember it because I relived it several times. Frankly, that went on for 12 to 13 minutes." (qtd. in Daniels, 2) The issue of Midazolam has even made it to the Supreme Court several times, with the court ruling in 2015 that using Midazolam did not violate the inmate's eighth amendment rights. The issue still keeps trying to make it's way back, but the Supreme Court refused to hear a case involving the stay of execution of Thomas Arthur in Alabama. In Montana, bills were passed through the state house which would end the use of the death penalty, just like they had every year since 1999, and just like every year since 1999, the bill was turned down.

Works Cited

Daniels, Kristen Whitney. "States Debate Death Penalty Issues." National Catholic Reporter, vol. 53, no. 12, 24 Mar. 2017, pp. 1-4. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=122036914&site=ehost-live.

Decline in the death penalty

The death penalty continues to decline in the United States. The Death Penalty Information Center released a year-end analysis stating that the number of death sentences carried out across the United States reached history contemporary lows, with only twenty inmates being executed in 2016. This is the lowest number of executions in the United States since 1991, when only fourteen inmates were executed. Every year since 1991, there have been at least twenty-eight inmates executed, until 2016. This trend away from the death penalty comes across as great news for opponents of the death penalty.  Diann Rust-Tierney, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, stated these this data is“consistent with what we’ve been seeing—steady momentum away from the death penalty, an increasing number of people opposing it and a declining number who are expressing support for it.” and that “We are moving in the direction of the rest of the world” in regards to the death penalty. The United States is part of a handful of nations in the world who still legally allow the death penalty, and actively carry out capital punishment. However, despite this, there were still some setbacks for those opposed to the death penalty. Despite the number of Americans who support the death penalty dropping from 80% in 1996 to 60% in 2016, in some states referendums that approve the death penalty and even restore the use of death penalties passed. In California, a proposal to end the death penalty was rejected by voters, who then passed a measure to expedite the process of capital punishment. Karen Clifton, executive director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Death Penalty has stated that twelve out of the twenty people executed, and eleven that were sentenced to death, displayed evidence of mental health issues. Although the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that the execution of those diagnosed with mental retardation is unconstitutional, “yet those affected by severe mental illness can still be executed.”

Thoughts for later: If executing those suffering from mental retardation is unconstitutional because they cannot understand their actions and the consequences of their actions, how is it that executing those suffering from severe mental illnesses is constitutional?  This just furthers my belief that the supreme court needs to revisit this issue and create set-in-stone guidelines if they’re going to keep the death penalty legal, because there should be protections against those with severe mental illnesses who are not fully culpable.

Works Cited:

Clarke, Kevin. "Death Penalty’s Decline Continues." America, vol. 216, no. 3, 06 Feb. 2017, pp. 12-14. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=121282131&site=ehost-live.

Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty

The mentally retarded have had a long history with the death penalty in the United States. Psychology and science have long been used in the classification of intelligence, which in turn leads to the classification of legal competence. Throughout the early 1900s, the United States took part in eugenics sterilization practices, with the United States committing an estimated forty thousand forced sterilizations. Thought at the time, this pales in comparison to what was happening in Nazi Germany, it is still very significant. Involuntary sterilization was ended in the United States during the civil rights movement, because data showed it was mainly poor minority groups that were being sterilized. This is also when a push began for deinstitutionalization and community-based clinical services.  began to gain traction.  The case Wyatt . Stickney set standards in Alabama quality of care required for involuntary committal on grounds of mental retardation, including that it must be a humane environment, you must have sufficient qualified staff, an individualized treatment plan, and placement in the least restrictive environment possible. In Youngberg v. Romeo, the Supreme Court nationalized these standards for the entire United States. However, these rulings also had some unintended consequences that affected the view on mental retardation and the death penalty. For many states, it was for too expensive for them to maintain these facilities while following these guidelines, so many of them just closed and mentally retarded and mentally ill patients were released into communities that were not prepared to deal with their care needs. As a result of this, prisons and jails became the main home for mentally ill and mentally retarded patients due to their inadequate care. Due to community resistance against group homes, the Supreme Court made a ruling in City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, stating that mental retardation, in itself, does not determine a ‘quasi-suspect’ class, and therefore does not grant them any special rights beyond those afforded to all regular citizens. This ruling, similar to the previous rulings, also had unintended consequences. While this ruling allowed removed a large obstacle in the strategic placement of group homes for the mentally ill and retarded, it also took away their protections that were previously afforded to them, and made them liable for the death penalty. Finally, in 2002 in the Supreme Court case of Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled that executing inmates with mental retardation was unconstitutional. Prior to this ruling, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, at least forty-four people classified as being mentally retarded we sentenced to death and executed in the United States.

Thoughts for later: This source also briefly related back to my previous source about whether the death penalty is unconstitutional for juveniles. It seems that the general consensus in all of the sources that I have read that the death penalty is unconstitutional. If there have been rulings for all of these exceptions in the death penalty, like juveniles and mental retardation, why hasn’t a set-in-stone ruling been made as to whether the death penalty is actually constitutional.

Works Cited:

FRENCH, LAURENCE A. "Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty in the USA: The Clinical and Legal Legacy." Criminal Behaviour & Mental Health, vol. 15, no. 2, June 2005, pp. 82-86. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=18184426&site=ehost-live.

Juveniles and the Death Penalty

For a long period of time, the death penalty for minors (those under 18) was perfectly acceptable in the United States, and minors were being sentenced to death for committing capital offenses. However, the Supreme Court had ruled in Thompson v. Oklahoma that due to an “evolving standard of decency”, that executing offenders of capital offenses under the age of fifteen was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment, which safeguards against cruel and unusual punishment. Later that year, in Stanford v. Kentucky, Justice Scalia, a proponent of the death penalty, stated that the Eighth Amendment did not prohibit offenders of capital offenses older than fifteen at the time of their offense from being sentenced to death. Finally, in 2003, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in Simmons v . Roper, that executing juvenile offenders “violates evolving standards of decency” and is therefore unconstitutional, as it violates the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. This takes the same approach that the Supreme Court took in Thompson v. Oklahoma, but takes it a step further to include all juvenile defenders, as opposed to just those under the age of fifteen. In 1976, in Gregg v. Georgia, the Court ruled that the punishment must contribute “measurably” to retribution, deterrence, or both. If it does not contribute to those, then it must be deemed excessive, and violates the constitution. It also stated that capital punishment must be reserved for those “materially more depraved”, and should not be used for just the “normal” murderer. These are meant to carry out sentences in accordance with the degree of the offender’s culpability. Due to the inherent limitations of juveniles and their developing mind, capital punishment does not contribute towards retribution or deterrence, therefore making capital punishment against juveniles disproportionate, and unconstitutional. Ultimately, in 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that sentencing those who committed capital offenses that were under the age of eighteen at the time to death is unconstitutional. Prior to this, since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, 22 juveniles were executed for committing capital offenses.

Thoughts for later: I agree that the executing kids whose brains aren’t fully developed is not justice and definitely not proportionate to their crime, but how is executing those who are adults and commit heinous crimes a suitable punishment? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have them sit in a prison cell for the rest of their life as opposed to just executing them and that's it?

Works Cited:

James, Anne and Joanne Cecil. "Out of Step: Juvenile Death Penalty in the United States." International Journal of Children's Rights, vol. 11, no. 3, July 2003, pp. 291-303. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1163/157181804322794440.