On his first full day on the Supreme Court, Justice Samuel Alito caused a stir among his conservative supporters by voting to stay the pending execution of Missourian Michael Taylor. While Alito's vote in favor of the stay might have been a move orchestrated to demonstrate that he is capable of acting independently of his conservative brethren on the bench, I prefer to believe that the newly appointed- judge is simply more reasonable than many of us have given him credit for. In halting the execution, the Court demonstrated for the third time in a week that it would consider death row inmates' claims that execution by lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. This move likewise prompted Maryland to stay the execution of Vernon Evans in what is hopefully becoming a pattern of prudence and humaneness among our nation's courts.
That capital punishment is a racist, and therefore unjust, institution has been understood for decades. A series of nationwide studies carried out since the 1970s has confirmed that the death penalty system unfairly and disproportionately targets minorities. Discrimination is rampant within the system, as evinced by studies that demonstrate that capital murder cases involving white victims are three times more likely to result in death sentences than cases involving black or Hispanic victims. Likewise, minorities convicted of capital crimes are significantly more likely to receive death sentences than whites convicted of identical crimes. In various studies, jurors in capital cases admit that race was a key factor in their supporting a death sentence, even when other punitive options were made available. In Vernon Evans'initial trial, the prosecutor dismissed nearly all of the black jurors, a common tactic in capital cases involving minority defendants.
It is also well known that the justice system has repeatedly erred, sending innocent men and women to death row. Since the reinstatement of capital punishment in the 1970s, over 120 death row inmates have been found innocent and were subsequently exonerated. Still in his teens, Ruben Canto was convicted of murder and was later executed by Texas in 1993. It is widely believed that Canto died an innocent man, and that others like him have likewise been killed by a flawed justice system. As his final act as Illinois governor, George Ryan in 2003 commuted the sentence of every state death row inmate, citing just this sort of travesty in his reasoning.
Advocates of capital punishment commonly, but erroneously, claim that the death penalty is a powerful deterrent against violent crime. Repeated studies that compare the murder rates in death penalty states with murder rates in non-death penalty states demonstrate that states without capital punishment consistently have significantly fewer homicides. In 2003, non-death penalty states reported nearly 45% fewer murders than death penalty states. This trend has caused criminologists and law enforcement officials alike to reject the belief in the efficacy of capital punishment as a tool of deterrence.
These and other facts concerning the death penalty have resulted in a steady decline in public support for capital punishment. Fewer Americans now support capital punishment than they have in the past three decades. The Supreme Court's recent moves against this unjust and cruel practice should act as a wake-up call to all Americans. We should demand that the United States act to remove our name from the shrinking list of nations who continue to embrace this archaic institution. We can not very well claim the moral high road when our partners in injustice include Iran, Syria and North Korea.
Brad Archer is a first year master's candidate in AU's EPGA program, and a member of AU's chapter of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
