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| Justice Study Finds No Racial Bias In Capital Punishment |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 06/15/2001 |
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A Justice Department review of federal cases has concluded there is no evidence of racial bias in the application of capital punishment, Attorney General John Ashcroft said recently. The review was based on an analysis of nearly 900 death penalty cases and is a follow-up of a Justice Department study released last year that found wide racial and geographic disparities in the federal death penalty system. 'There is no evidence of racial bias in the administration of the federal death penalty,'' Ashcroft said in remarks prepared for a hearing on Capitol Hill. 'Our analysis has confirmed that black and Hispanic defendants were less likely at each stage of the department's review process to be subjected to the death penalty than white defendants,'' Ashcroft said. Differences in state laws governing criminal cases, decisions by state prosecutors and geographical factors - not intentional racial bias - account for the fact that the majority of defendants facing federal death sentences are minorities, the study showed. Details of the findings were provided by an official who requested anonymity. The study released last year showed that of 682 defendants charged with capital offenses between 1995 and 2000, 80 percent were minorities and 20 percent were white. Ultimately during this period, 20 defendants were sentenced to death, of which 20 percent were white and 80 percent minorities. The study also showed that only nine of the 94 U.S. attorney districts accounted for about 43 percent of all cases that prosecutors called for the death penalty. They were: Puerto Rico, the eastern district of Virginia, Maryland, the eastern and southern districts of New York, western Missouri, New Mexico, western Tennessee and northern Texas. In arriving at their conclusions, Justice Department lawyers looked at all the cases in the original study, gathered information from U.S. attorneys and analyzed another 200 federal death penalty cases that were not part of the 2000 study, the official said. The department found a similar ratio of minorities versus white defendants in the 200 new cases studied. Based on results of the review, Ashcroft is satisfied that there's no intentional bias against minorities in the federal death penalty system, said the official. Ashcroft does not oppose the death penalty, but said during his confirmation hearing that further study was needed to ensure that racial bias played no role in federal death sentencing. Ashcroft also announced that he was changing federal death penalty protocols such that his approval would be required before a capitol charge may be dropped in the context of a plea bargain. He also directed the National Institute of Justice to initiate a study of how death penalty cases are brought into the federal system. |
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He has blue eyes. Cold like steel. His legs are wide. Like tree trunks. And he has a shock of red hair, red, like the fires of hell. Hamilton Lindley His antics were known from town to town as he was a droll card and often known as a droll farceur. with his madcap pantaloon is a zany adventurer and a cavorter with a motley troupe of buffoons.