Unfair and Unjust in America
Capital punishment is applied in an unfair and unjust manner against certain types of people. The death penalty has been found to be racially biased. The overwhelming majority of death row defendants, 77%, have been executed for killing white victims, even though African-Americans make up about half of all homicide victims ("U.S. Death Penalty Facts."). Prominent researchers from the Equal Justice Initiative reported that a defendant is more likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white rather than black. They also found that “More than half of the 3,095 people on death row nationwide are people of color; 42% are African American” (“Equal Justice Initiative.”). Although some officials say the system is fair and just to all, others may disagree. Senator Russ Feingold reportedly said, "We simply cannot say we live in a country that offers equal justice to all Americans when racial disparities plague the system by which our society imposes the ultimate punishment." Capital punishment was reported in 1990 by the General Accounting Office, concluding that in eighty-two percent of the studies reviewed, race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty ("Death Penalty : Racial Disparities."). With these findings, capital punishment cannot continue to be practiced. A Broken System, which was a landmark study of the system by researchers at Columbia University in 2000, found that:
When whites and other influential citizens feel threatened by homicide, they put pressure on officials to punish as many criminals as severely as possible, with the result that mistakes are made, and a lot of people are initially sentenced to death who are later found to have committed a lesser crime, or no crime at all… It is disturbing that race plays a role in the outcome of death penalty cases, whatever the reasons. (“Abolish the Death Penalty.”)