Florida executes first white for killing a black since reinstating death penalty

[Max_Torque]

I posted this back in 2008:

@Max_Torque

An interesting question that has some peculiar nuances. Indeed, it does appear from the statistics that the death penalty is more likely to be sought in cases where the murder victim is white. As we discussed earlier, blacks commit more than 50% of all murders. Also, most murders are not interracial; “from 1976 to 2005, 86% of white victims were killed by whites, and 94% of black victims were killed by blacks” (BJS cite). Most interracial killings are “stranger homicides”, meaning that the victims didn’t know each other; in stranger homicides, blacks killed white victims about 17.5-21% of the time, while whites killed black victims 3.6-6.6% of the time. For acquaintance homicides, blacks kill white victims about 3.8-6.6% of the time, and whites kill black victims about 1.5-3.4% of the time (cite for all this). At least a part of the disparity may be because juries are more likely to assess the death penalty in a stranger homicide case than in an acquaintance homicide case, and whites are the victims in over 60% of stranger homicides. But, that’s a guess, I’m not sure if that’s ever been studied.