Race | Death Penalty Information Center

Overview

The death penal­ty has long come under scruti­ny for being racial­ly biased. Earlier in the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry when it was applied for the crime of rape, 89 per­cent of the exe­cu­tions involved black defen­dants, most for the rape of a white woman. In the mod­ern era, when exe­cu­tions have been car­ried out exclu­sive­ly for mur­der, 75 per­cent of the cas­es involve the mur­der of white vic­tims, even though about half of all homi­cide vic­tims . . .