The Death Penalty
... in a racially discriminatory manner” (Walker, 2002, p. 276). In 1949, seven black men, known as the Martinsville Seven, were accused of raping a white woman. They were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by an all white jury (Kennedy, 1997, p. 312). The defendants’ attorneys filed appeals to the Virginia Supreme Court on the premise that because of race, an African American man was generally given the death penalty for offenses that drew a less severe punishment when committed by a white man (Kennedy, 1997, p. 313). The Virginia Supreme Court rejected their appeals, asserting that differences in punishments administered by juries were not dependent upon the race of the defendant, “but upon the circumstances, aggravation, and enormity of the crime proven in each case” (Kennedy, 1997, p. 315). Appeals on behalf of the seven men would be made to the Supreme Court of the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the case and the seven men were put to death by electrocution (Kennedy, 1997, p. 316). Historically, American courts often administered the death penalty in cases where African Americans were accused of raping white women. A study of rapes cases in Florida revealed that 54% of African American men that were found guilty of raping whites received the death sentence (Walker, 2002, p. 265). These findings are disturbing, given that only 5% of the whites who were convicted of raping whites received the death penalty (Walker, 2002, p. 265). These and similar studies sparked a campaign for death penalty reform, which ended in 1976 when “the Supreme Court, in Coker v. Georgia, prohibited states from punishing rape with death” (Kennedy, 1997, p. 323). The Martinsville Seven case would not be the last time claims were made pertaining to racial disparities in the application of the death penalty. In 1978, Warren McCleskey was accused of killing a white police officer in Atlanta, Georgia (Kennedy, 1997, p. 328). He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by a jury consisting of eleven whites and one black (Kennedy, 1997, p. 328). An appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court was unsuccessful. McCleskey’s attorney “sought habeas corpus relief in Federal District Court” (McCleskey v Kemp, 1987, p. 279). McCleskey maintained “that the Georgia capital sentencing process was administered in a racially discriminatory manner” (Walker, 2002, p. 277). To support his claims, he used a study conducted by Baldus, which concluded that blacks convicted of murdering whites were the most likely to receive a death sentence (Walker, 2002, p. 277). The Supreme Court discarded McCleskey’s claims, finding that “The Baldus study does not establish that the administration of the Georgia capital punishment system violates the Equal Protection Clause” (McCleskey v. Kemp, 1987, p. 279). McCleskey would file numerous appeals, “requests for clemency, and requests for commutation”, all of which were denied (Walker, 2002, p. 280). On September 26, 1991, he was executed in the electric chair at a Georgia State Prison (Walker, 2002, p. 280). In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, the U.S. House of Representatives added the “Racial Justice Act to the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill” (Walker, 2002, p. 282). The bill would have enabled “condemned defendants to challenge their death sentences by showing a pattern of racial discrimination in the capital sentencing process in their jurisdictions” (Walker, 2002, p. 282). Furthermore, once the pattern had been established, the State would have to prove that its application of the death sentence was not racially biased (Walker, 2002, p. 282). Those who opposed the Racial Justice Act claimed that it would successfully put an end to the death penalty in the United States. The act proved to be so controversial that it was eventually removed from the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill. (Walker, 2002, p. 282) This would not, however, prevent the issue from resurfacing. In February 1997, the American Bar Association (ABA) publicly voiced their opposition to the current manner in which the death sentence was applied and requested that executions in...