Walker Letter I killed a man, it’s true. I’d do it again, if I had the chance. He was running his big black lips about things he shouldn’t. Me and the fellas took a pipe to his head, he didn’t stand a chance. Ever since they let these boys run around free, they just think they can do whatever they want and not face any consequences. Well, we showed him. They want to put me on death row. They say that my crime was “heinous” and “cruel”. It’s been a long time I’ve been behind these bars, waiting for the government to make up its mind. I’ve been doing a lot of reading since and I’ve learned a whole lot about our justice system. I’ve been able to put my mind at ease, seeing what could be in store for me. I found this guy named Walker. He talks a lot about racial inequality and the idea that our justice system is racist, skewed in the favor of white men, specifically for the death penalty. He talks about the 1972 case of Furman v. Georgia which the United States Supreme Court declares that death penalty is unconstitutional on account of how it’s being administered at the time. This causes death rows across the country to empty out, and no one being fed back into the system to replace them. It was thought to be a precursor to abolishment of the death penalty, but that wasn’t the case. No, the Supreme Court decided instead to require many states to create new statutes which were to prevent discriminatory sentencing to death based on race. This resulted in two different types of statutes. The first kind required the judge or jury to impose death penalty if the defendant was convicted of first degree murder, regardless of race. The second allowed the judge or jury to impose the death penalty on the basis of certain crimes. This required the court to have a trial which first decided guilt and then decided to impose the death penalty or not. It was also required that any death sentence would have an automatic appellate review. In 1975 the Supreme Court decided on the constitutionality of the new statues the states had drawn. They ruled against those from North Carolina and Louisiana because they provided no chance for the jury to consider mitigating circumstances and because the jury’s power to determine the degree of the crime gave them more power than the court they felt they should be afforded, leaving open the potential for abuse. In 1976, a case called Gregg v. Georgia declared that the public had a positive view of the death penalty, with a nationwide poll indicating that 66% of individuals favored the punishment. It was questioned by some justices that the data was skewed and not representative of actual public opinion. Justice Marshall even crated the “Marshall Hypothesis” which says that the average citizen who was properly educated on the facts of the death penalty would not agree with its application. Marshall wasn’t alone in being skeptical about the poll results and they were questioned by a number of researchers who said that the issue was too complex to be answered by one question. They pointed out that it was also important to consider that the circumstance of the case, character of defendant, and the alternative punishments must be considered before the death penalty could be justified. It was pointed out by a researcher named Bowers that support for the death penalty fell when poll respondents have the option to choose other punishments which could more appropriately fit the case. It was also shown that far fewer African Americans supported the death penalty than whites and Hispanics. Some think that African Americans see bias in the justice system; others say that whites are racist and support it because they feel that African Americans are more likely to be tried for the death penalty. The overall idea that the system is inclined to sentence more African Americans to death is pretty well documented. African Americans only make up about 12 percent of the population, yet they represent a significantly larger proportion of those executed on death row. This is both before and after Supreme Court efforts to curb this discrimination. Some believe that conflict theory is at play here. It has been pointed out by some that this system is in place to exert the upper-hand of the dominant white race. They claim that this legalized murder is a way to keep the power of blacks in check. It also explains that blacks killing whites is more harshly punished to emphasize the importance of maintaining the social control imposed by whites. For those who are charged with a crime, it was suggested by Gross and Mauro that jurors have to really relate to the victims. It has to be more than just empathy, as they must be truly horrified. This isn’t something that will really happen for jurors unless they can identify with the victim’s race. Because so many prosecutors are good at removing any non-whites from the jury, this is something that happens often. A guy named Bright suggested that the actual individuals who make up the system are racist, and not just the jurors themselves. He said that lawyers and judges are also tied up in all of this. Bright believes that African Americans killing whites inspired those in power to seek a greater punishment, including the death penalty. This was driven by their fear of African Americans as well as the idea that they are inferior beings. The Martinsville Seven were a group of African Americans who were charged in the gang rape of a white woman. They were the first to argue that the death penalty being sought was given under racial bias. They were tried in front of an all-white jury, thanks to the hard work of the prosecution to remove African American peers. After several years and many attempts to prevent their execution, they all died at the hands of the state. Warren McCleskey was an African American who was sentenced to death for the killing of a white police officer. He fit claimed that the Georgia capital sentencing process had an inherent racial bias and therefore his trial could not be fair. The Supreme Court rejected his claims, despite their agreement with a study showing that the system does show racial bias. All of the statue changes in the world don’t seem to have changed the outcome that the Supreme Court didn’t do enough to change the justice system’s racial bias, specifically in reference to the death penalty. The numbers continue to show that the court system will punish black perpetrators over white perpetrators a significant amount of the time. It seems that all of the facts are leaning my way, doesn’t it? The system continues to have a racial bias, resulting in less death sentences for those who perpetrators who are white, especially when the victims are black. Meanwhile, the exact opposite is true. Black offenders are facing higher rates of execution, especially when their victim is white. Although I have less to worry about today; I wonder how I would feel if the situation were reversed tomorrow.