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Within the American criminal justice system, the color of your skin unfairly determines your sentencing.  African Americans are overrepresented on death row and make up 42% of executions since 1976 despite being only 12% of the population. We can see the effects of slavery and institutionalized racism in the criminal justice system, people of color are more likely to be arrested by police, sentenced longer and more likely to receive the death penalty than white people. Capital punishment is also rarely a sentence used for black victims, almost 80% of capital punishment cases involve white victims. This is because after slavery was abolished, the government found new ways to target minorities, through the criminal justice system.

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The death penalty is still racist today and continues to target minorities. A defendant is more likely to be sentenced to death for killing a white person then a black person even though minorities make up 2/3 of homicide victims. According to the research published by the New York Times in 2020 defendants convicted of killing white victims were 17 times more likely to be executed then those who killed black people.

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Studies show that being a black defendant influences sentencing more than violent murder and previous felonies. Aggravating factors are usually crimes that cause defendants to get harsher sentences and even the death penalty. These aggravating factors tend to be extreme harm to the victim, torture or mutilation, but in the diagram below it is shown that being black acts as an aggravating factor to juries and can even lead to harsher sentences.

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In states that allow the death penalty, almost all prosecutors on capital punishment cases are white as shown by the diagram below. Prosecutors make significant decisions and have strong influence in capital punishment cases. They make decisions about if they're going to accept plea deals, they choose whether to seek the death penalty or not and choose jurors. The lack of diversity in decision-making roles like prosecutors could is just one source of racial bias in the courtroom.

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The 13th amendment that was passed in 1865 said that slavery was outlawed except for as a punishment for a crime, because of this the criminal justice system became a replacement for slavery and lynching. The system of slavery shaped the formation of Americas criminal justice system, capital punishment was allowed for black people only and there were over 60 crimes that a black person could be executed for, but only one crime that could get the death penalty for white people. History shows that people of color were executed in more violent, painful and public ways than white people.

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In North Carolina in 2012 Marcus Robinson was resentenced to life in prison after being on death row because the judge found that racial bias played a role in his sentencing. Robinson was one of six death row inmates that had their sentencing reduced because the Racial Justice Act allowed their cases to be re heard. It was found that in Robinson's case almost all of the black jurors were dismissed, and it was concluded that racial bias played a role. After his sentencing was reduced the racial Justice Act was repealed by a republican governor and Marcus Robinson was put back on death row in 2015. Racially bias sentencing in North Carolina has seen many times in many cases. A Michigan State study found that in North Carolina capital punishment cases, 53% of black jurors were struck from the cases compared to 25% of white jurors. North Carolina also has one of the highest percentages of African American inmates on death row despite having a lower population of African American people.  According to the death penalty information website 17 people were executed in 2020, the races of almost all the victims we're white.

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There was an effort in 1987 to try to abolish the death penalty on the basis that it is racially biased against people of color. The Supreme Court decided that capital punishment was racially discriminatory but that it was “an inevitable part of our criminal justice system” so nothing could be done. The Supreme Court upheld capital punishment even though it is know that it is racially biased and since this ruling in 1987, 1200 people have been executed. While the death penalty is becoming less common it is not becoming any less discriminatory.  It is clear that the government is unable to enforce the death penalty in an unbiased way but the issue is not just with the death penalty, but with the whole system. History is shown that the criminal justice system in America targets people of color, legislation to end this immoral and historically racist punishment should be enacted immediately.

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Allen, Howard W., and Jerome M. Clubb. Race, Class, and the Death Penalty: Capital Punishment in American History. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, Albany, 2008.
Allyn, Bobby. “N.C. Supreme Court Hears Arguments On Racial Bias In Death Penalty Cases.” NPR, NPR, 26 Aug. 2019, www.npr.org/2019/08/26/754410571/n-c-supreme-court-hears-arguments-on-racial-bias-in-death-penalty-cases.
“Race and the Death Penalty.” American Civil Liberties Union, www.aclu.org/other/race-and-death-penalty.
Bright, Stephen B. “Discrimination, Death and Denial: The Tolerance of Racial Discrimination in Infliction of the Death Penalty.” Santa Clara Law Review (Santa Clara University) 35 (1995).
“The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides.” Death Penalty Information Center, deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/dpic-reports/in-depth/the-death-penalty-in-black-and-white-who-lives-who-dies-who-decides.
MLA Golash-Boza, Tanya Maria. Race & Racisms : a Critical Approach. New York :Oxford University Press, 2015.
Initiative, Prison Policy. “Visualizing the Racial Disparities in Mass Incarceration.” Prison Policy Initiative, www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/07/27/disparities/#slideshows/slideshow4/4.