As a proponent of the death penalty I do think it’s important that it should be racially blind and if it cannot be made so it should regrettably be abolished. I feel that capital punishment should be revisited in, say, 20 years to judge whether bias has been removed from the system and a decision taken on abolition accordingly. I’m hopeful that today’s announcement is a step towards equality in punishment as in all other things.
On a side note Mark Elliott, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, told the Associated Press.
“This does nothing to change the 170-year-long history of Florida not executing whites for killing blacks.”
Just how does he suggest Florida go about changing that history? Absent a time machine I rather think they’re stuck with it. Changing the present is in its power and I’m pleased to see that it’s working on that.
Short of blindfolding juries or putting witnesses and defendants behind a screen to make determining their skin colour impossible, I’m not sure how you address bias, let alone reduce it. Also your headline is misleading - the execution of Mark James Asay is planned but has not yet occurred. It remains possible he’ll still die of old age. As of this writing, he has about seven hours, long enough to get a stay.
Any execution of a murderer is a step in the right direction. But WADR I think that kind of misses the point. DP opponents don’t oppose the DP because it is racially discriminatory, they allege that it is racially discriminatory because they oppose the DP.
Getting the DP correlates more with whether or not you kill a stranger than with a black killing a white. Since most murders occur between people who know each other, and since black people commit a hugely disproportionate number of murders, and since blacks and whites are less likely to interact on a level that tends to cause them to want to kill each other, a black person is more likely to kill a stranger than vice versa.
Most violent crime in the US is committed intra-group. Of the violent crime that crosses racial boundaries, a disproportionate amount is committed by blacks.
I look forward to the usual barrage of "CITE!!!’, anecdotes, and “what about the lynchings in 1922???”
As a Floridian who is opposed to the death penalty solely on racial disparity* and cost grounds, I think the point is that one executed white guy doesn’t mean racial capital sentencing disparity is over. It’s like saying that racism is over because look, Obama!
*I am reliably informed by Shodan that I do not exist, but cogito ergo sum, etc.
Does that mean that you don’t have any cites and are hoping to discourage people from asking for them?
Because if not, then actually I would like a cite for your claim that the racial disparity in Florida’s DP sentencing is accounted for by blacks committing a disproportionate number of interracial murders.
I know that the incidence of black homicide convictions is about 8 times greater than white ones overall, but this disparity is way bigger than that: namely, at least 18 black people have been executed for killing a white person before any white person was executed for killing a black one.
Are you really claiming that blacks are as much as 18 times more likely to commit interracial murder than whites are, and if so, where’s your data?
Since white men commit about one third of the murders in Florida and are about two thirds of the people executed in Florida, it seems like they are being discriminated against. Progress would mean executing more black murderers if Florida.
The FBI did a report that showed for all solved murders committed by a single person and with a single victim the number of black people killed by whites per year averages around 175 and the number white people killed by black people averages around 500.
Namely, the death penalty is far more likely to be meted out to killers of white female victims. So, since the people most likely to kill white females are white males, it would make sense that white male murderers would disproportionately receive DP.
One third? Really? That seems low; AFAICT, the national percentage of murderers who are white men is more like 45%. Got a cite for those numbers, while I’m waiting for Shodan’s cite?
Thanks for the cites. Could you now please go back to your original post and provide specific cites for each assertion you made? I promise I will read them.
I might have a better idea, since in 20 years we may discover that any bias that may exist today has not been removed. Instead, why don’t we abolish the death penalty everywhere, and in 20 years do a study to see if punishments for murder are being given out on a fair and equal basis. If so, the death penalty could be reinstated, even though I would oppose it then as I oppose it now.
I believe calling another poster a liar in GD is verboten. But in any case, you can take your inferences and shove them. I also think it has questionable deterrent value versus incarceration, but that’s not a reason I’m against it; it’s just a reason I’m not for it. I was, in fact, an enthusiastic supporter of the death penalty at one time (when I was younger and dumber), and I don’t have any problem with the government executing people in principle, only in practice.
Anyway, if you don’t believe me you can go pick on Bricker, who has posted frequently that he opposed the death penalty only on race grounds.
Oh, you wrong me, dear Shodan, I do read the cites that I ask for.
And having read the one you provided, I still don’t see how it justifies the claim that an 18-to-1 racial disparity in death penalty sentencing for interracial murder is likely due to the disproportionate rate of interracial murder by black people.
Yes, your cite supports that violent crimes are less likely to be committed by strangers, which I wasn’t disputing. But how do you get from that to your specific claim in this thread that death penalty sentencing is more dependent on stranger murder than on racial bias? In particular, what are you claiming about its significance for the specific racial-disparity issue of an 18-to-1 sentencing ratio, where you brought it up?
Are you in fact attributing this level of disparity mostly or largely to the “stranger murder” factor, and if so, could you please point out exactly where in your cite you found quantitative evidence to support that specific attribution? Thanks.