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North Carolina Study: Race Matters

By Steve Hall

Specifically, the race of the victim matters in death penalty charging decisions and death sentences. "Disparity seen in death penalty," is the title of Michael Hewlet's report in today's Winston-Salem Journal.A new study examining the death penalty in North Carolina over a 28-year period makes the same point other studies have made over the years: The race of the victim is a factor in who gets the death penalty. According to the study, the odds of a death sentence for those suspected of killing whites are three times higher than for those suspected of killing blacks. And that racial disparity remained, the study found, even taking into consideration whether the person is charged with killing multiple people or with killing someone while committing another felony, such as rape or robbery...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on July 23, 2010 (boomark / email).