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The Effects Of Race On Sentencing In Capital Punishment Cases - Online Term Paper

The Effects Of Race On Sentencing In Capital Punishment Cases

Throughout history, minorities have been ill-represented in the criminal justice
system, particularly in cases where the possible outcome is death. In early
America, blacks were lynched for the slightest violation of informal laws and
many of these killings occured without any type of due process. As the judicial
system has matured, minorities have found better representation but it is not
completely unbiased. In the past twenty years strict controls have been
implemented but the system still has symptoms of racial bias. This racial bias
was first recognized by the Supreme Court in Fruman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238
(1972). The Supreme Court Justices decide that the death penalty was ...

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are
so many discretionary stages: whether the prosecutor decides to seek the death
penalty, whether the jury recommends it, whether the judge gives it" (As cited
in Smolowe, 1991, 68). It is in these discretionary stages that racial biases
can infect the system of dealing out death sentences. Smolowe (1991) shows this
infection by giving examples of two cases decided in February of 1991, both in
Columbus. The first example is a white defendant named James Robert Caldwell
who was convicted of stabbing his 10 year old son repeatedly and raping and
killing his 12 year old daughter. The second example is of a black man, Jerry
Walker, convicted of killing a 22-year-old white man while robbing a
convenience-store. Caldwell's trial lasted three times as long as Walker's and
Caldwell received a life sentence while Walker received a death sentence. In
these examples, it is believed that not only the race of the victims, but also
the value of the victims, biased the sentencing ...

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The Effects Of Race On Sentencing In Capital Punishment Cases. (2008, June 7). Retrieved April 26, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Effects-Race-Sentencing-Capital-Punishment-Cases/84870

"The Effects Of Race On Sentencing In Capital Punishment Cases." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 7 Jun. 2008. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Effects-Race-Sentencing-Capital-Punishment-Cases/84870>

"The Effects Of Race On Sentencing In Capital Punishment Cases." Essayworld.com. June 7, 2008. Accessed April 26, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Effects-Race-Sentencing-Capital-Punishment-Cases/84870.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 6/7/2008 11:08:45 AM
Category: Legal Issues
Type: Free Paper
Words: 894
Pages: 4

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