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More evidence that race infects the death penalty

By Douglas A. Berman

The New York Times has this new piece from Adam Liptak titled "New Look at Race When Death Is Sought." Here is how it starts: About 1,100 people have been executed in the United States in the last three decades. Harris County, Tex., which includes Houston, accounts for more than 100 of those executions.  Indeed, Harris County has sent more people to the death chamber than any state but Texas itself. Yet Harris County?s capital justice system has not been the subject of intensive research ? until now.  A new study to be published in the Houston Law Review this fall has found two sorts of racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty there, one commonplace and one surprising. The unexceptional finding is that defendants who kill whites are more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill blacks...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 29, 2008 (boomark / email).