Death Penalty and Race in the US

Racial prejudice towards accused persons of color and in favor of white victims has strong effect on who is capitally prosecuted, put on death row, and executed. The death sentence has long been under scrutiny for its racial bias. At the beginning of the 20th century when death penalty was applied for the offense of rape, 89 percent of the executions comprised of defendants who were African-Americans, most of them for raping a white woman. In the present times, when executions have been performed solely for homicide, 75% of the cases consist of the assassination of victims who are white, despite the fact that people of color (blacks) and whites are equally likely to be murder victims. The main aim of this paper is to establish how race plays a role in the use of the death penalty.