{"id":559143,"date":"2021-06-10T10:51:43","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T14:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=559143"},"modified":"2021-06-10T10:51:44","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T14:51:44","slug":"fact-check-is-the-death-penalty-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-is-the-death-penalty-racist\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact Check: Is The Death Penalty Racist?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffact-check-is-the-death-penalty-racist%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=559143&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/og-default.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>Long before cancel culture insisted that <em>everything<\/em> is systemically racist, left-wing activists asserted that the death penalty is a racist institution. Capital punishment, they said, continued the legacy of Jim Crow by legalizing lynching. But is the allegation true?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why do people claim the death penalty is racist?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Al Sharpton <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=a9wPL7FQTWY\">encapsulated<\/a> the standard argument underpinning the claim that the death penalty is racist in his most recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=a9wPL7FQTWY\">episode<\/a> of MSNBC\u2019s \u201cPoliticsNation.\u201d In a segment titled \u201cThe Death Penalty Belongs In The \u2018Dustbin Of History,\u2019\u201d he said:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"15\">\n<p><em>Like many other facets of the criminal justice system, the application of the death penalty is racially biased, anti-black, and rooted in white supremacy. Black defendants are more likely than any other race to be sentenced to death, but the race of the victim sometimes matters even more. According to reporting from the AP, since 1972 , \u201c295 [b]lack defendants were executed for killing a white victim, but only 21 white defendants were executed for the killing of a [b]lack victim even though [b]lack people are disproportionately the victims of crime.\u201d The modern practice of capital punishment grew out of America\u2019s shameful history of lawless lynchings under Jim Crow. \u2026 That racist history lives through capital punishment to this day.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The AP story that Sharpton incorrectly quoted \u2014 the timeline referenced by the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/united-states-lifestyle-race-and-ethnicity-discrimination-racial-injustice-ded1f517a0fd64bf1d55c448a06acccc\">Associated Press<\/a> started in 1977, not 1972 \u2014 also included allegations that capital punishment is racist, because \u201cpeople of color have been overrepresented on death row \u2014 in 2019, 52% of the death row inmates were [b]lack, but that number has dropped to 42% this year, when approximately 60% of the population is white.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In other words, the primary claim is that the death penalty has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nolo.com\/legal-encyclopedia\/disparate-impact-discrimination.html\">disparate impact<\/a> on minorities: The percentage of minorities on death row exceeds their share of the general U.S. population.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Death Penalty Belongs In The &#039;Dustbin Of History&#039; | MSNBC\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a9wPL7FQTWY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are the facts?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Disparate impact holds that the number of inmates on death row should reflect the overall U.S. population. But that assumes that police officers randomly scoop up American citizens and place them on death row. In reality, the death penalty doesn\u2019t work that way.<\/p>\n<p>Sharpton and the Associated Press made the fundamental mistake of comparing the demographics of murderers on death row with U.S. demographics, not with the demographics of murderers.<\/p>\n<p>For the most part, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/wex\/capital_offense\">capital offenses<\/a> involve <a href=\"https:\/\/deathpenalty.procon.org\/federal-capital-offenses\/\">murder<\/a> (as well as treason and espionage), with certain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/18\/3592\">mitigating or aggravating factors<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI <a href=\"https:\/\/ucr.fbi.gov\/crime-in-the-u.s\/2019\/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019\/tables\/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls\">reported<\/a> that, in 2019, there were 16,245 murders \u2014 a nearly <a href=\"https:\/\/ucr.fbi.gov\/crime-in-the-u.s\/2019\/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019\/topic-pages\/murder\">12% rise<\/a> since 2010. Of the 11,153 murderers whose race was known to be either white or black, 6,425 were black \u2014 or 57.6%. This Monday, the Justice Department <a href=\"https:\/\/bjs.ojp.gov\/sites\/g\/files\/xyckuh236\/files\/media\/document\/cp19st.pdf\">released new data<\/a> regarding capital punishment. \u201cAmong prisoners under sentence of death at year-end 2019, about 56% were white and 41% were black,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/bjs.ojp.gov\/sites\/g\/files\/xyckuh236\/files\/media\/document\/cp19st.pdf\">according<\/a> to a Justice Department report released on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, those on death row who are black seem to be <em>less likely <\/em>to actually get executed than white convicts. The DOJ report noted that black convicts made up 41.4% of death row inmates but only 31.8% of those executed in 2019. That fell to 29.4% of executions in its preliminary count for 2020. From the time executions resumed in 1977 until 2019, a total of 1,512 prisoners have been executed: 850 white, 515 black, 133 Hispanic, 14 listed as \u201cother.\u201d That is, black death row inmates accounted for 34% of all those executed.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s true that black people are disproportionately likely to be victims of crime, but those crimes are primarily committed by other black people \u2014 it is also the case that white people are more likely to be victimized by white perpetrators. Of the 2,906 black murder victims in 2019, 246 were killed by white offenders (or 8.4%), <a href=\"https:\/\/ucr.fbi.gov\/crime-in-the-u.s\/2019\/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019\/tables\/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls\">according<\/a> to the FBI. Meanwhile, 17.2% of murders involving white victims were committed by black perpetrators.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is the death penalty a legacy of Jim Crow?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The death penalty far predates Jim Crow, going back at least to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/frontline\/article\/history-of-the-death-penalty\/\">Code of Hammurabi<\/a> in the eighteenth century B.C. The laws of the ancient Hitties, Chinese, Athenians, and Romans all contained capital punishment, which continued into English common law and made its way to the 13 colonies before the United States formally existed.<\/p>\n<p>At the time the U.S. Constitution was adopted, every state imposed the death penalty \u2014 including Maine and Massachusetts, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.org\/media\/us-census-1790\/\">had zero slaves<\/a> according to the 1790 census.<\/p>\n<p>And, as noted, black criminals under sentence of death are less likely to be executed than white offenders guilty of capital crimes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So, is the death penalty racist?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The death penalty is a punishment imposed on individuals who commit the most heinous of crimes, usually involving aggravated, premeditated murder against a vulnerable victim. It discriminates against behavior, not racial identity.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Long before cancel culture insisted that everything is systemically racist, left-wing activists asserted that the death penalty is a racist institution. Capital punishment, they said, continued the legacy of Jim &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2279861,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/og-default.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Fact Check: Is The Death Penalty Racist?","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-559143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/og-default.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Fact Check: Is The Death Penalty Racist?","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2279861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}