This is a question that should not need to be asked because United States of America is a country that has a multitude number of different races and is one of the reasons I feel makes this a great nation. One race should not matter more than any other race. However we also live in a country where whites made slavery of blacks legal for over 200 years. With that understanding the race of the victim as well as the race of the defendant plays a crucial role in deciding who receives capital punishment. If we just look at the statistics it shows that African Americans account for an irregular of the total number of executions since 1976 and 55% of those that are currently awaiting execution. The total number of defendants executed from 1976 is 1436 of that 798 White (55.57%) 496 African American (34.54) 119 Latino (8.29%) 16 Native American (1.12%) 7 Asian (0.49%). How does the race of a victim affect being charged with capital crime the racial disparities are obvious and well documented and is not just isolated instances, this has been going for years. “White victims account for approximately one half of all murder victims, 80% of all capital cases involve white victims. Furthermore, as of October 2002, 12 people been executed where the defendant was white and the murder victim black compared with 178 black defendants executed for murders with white victims.” I strongly believe that race of the victim has a powerful influence of the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty. Defendants that murder whites are more likely to be sentenced to the death than those who murdered blacks.
