National News
Racial bias cited in death penalty cases
by Michael Z. Muhammad
PHILADELPHIA—Black defendants are three times more likely to get a death sentence than any other ethnic group, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Center for Legal Education Advocacy and Defense Assistants.
His organization, along with 17 defense attorneys, defense organizations and civil rights advocates, recently filed a 32-page petition calling on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to investigate this disparity.
The petition cites the policy of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office to engage in racially discriminatory jury selection. This practice came to light during the last election when a training video was uncovered. The video showed a prominent trainer for the district attorney’s office teaching a group of young prosecutors the ins and outs of effective jury selection. The group was admonished to keep Blacks from low-income areas along with young Black women, teachers, doctors, social workers and "smart people" off juries.
The petitioners also used a study released last June by David Baldus of the University of Iowa. A respected law professor, Mr. Baldus looked at approximately 1,000 murder cases between 1983 and 1993. From this data he concluded that Black defendants were four times more likely to get the death sentence than other defendants in similar types of murder cases. If the victim was white, the study pointed out, the death penalty was a virtual certainty for the Black defendant.
The study likens skin color to what prosecutors call "aggravating factors"—such as the murder victim’s extreme pain, suffering and/or torture—in its influences on juries to impose the death penalty.
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office dismissed the petition, stating, "the allegations of racial bias were meritless." Assistant District Attorney Ronald Eisenberg said he has heard it all before.
"They (defense attorneys) have been making all these same claims in individual cases and have not been succeeding so far," he said. "They have been losing. So what better way to tip the cases in their favor than to come up with some kind of official sounding report."
He also denied any kind of racial bias when it comes to jury selection on the part of the district attorney’s office. "These lawyers know that in Philadelphia, jurors who are ultimately selected to sit on these cases represent a fair cross-section of the community from all races and backgrounds," he said.
The petition requests the court to appoint an independent investigator to study the charges and make recommendations on how to eliminate discrimination in capital murder cases in Philadelphia.
Attorney Leon Williams, the lone Black candidate in last year’s elections for district attorney, told The Final Call the petition should be taken a step further.
"Clearly, racial and economic bias play a part in the way sentences are handed down," he said. "People on death row in Pennsylvania are disproportionally Black and from Philadelphia. You hardly ever find a rich man or a white person who has killed a Black person go to the electric chair.
"I would also add that Governor Tom Ridge should suspend the death penalty until a decision is made by the Supreme Court on the merits of the petition," he said.
