Governor Doesn't Understand Death Penalty's Racial Biases
-- By Michael Radelet
It was an honor for me, an East Lansing native
and
MSU
graduate, to have worked with Illinois Gov. George Ryan and
his Commission on Capital Punishment over the past three
years.
Thanks to
Ryan,
Northeastern
University
Professor Glenn Pierce and I were able to obtain comprehensive
records on some 5,300 first-degree
murder
convictions
in
Illinois
from 1987 to 1997.
After statistically
controlling
for
some
two
dozen factors, we found that for similar homicides, the odds
of
a death sentence were about 60
percent
higher
for
those who killed whites than for those who killed blacks.
Again,
for
similar
murders,
the
odds
of
a death sentence were about 84 percent higher for those convicted
in
rural areas of the state
than
for
those
from
the
city of Chicago. The full report was published in the spring
2002
issue of Oregon Law Review.
Now,
as
a professor
at
the
University
of
Colorado
at Boulder, I am putting the final polish on a similar study
of
death sentencing here in
Colorado.
Although our
governor,
Bill
Owens,
will
never
admit
it,
the racial bias in Colorado capital cases is just as common,
or
even more, than that
found
in
Illinois.
What
differentiates
Illinois
from
Colorado
is
not
a flawed
system
of
capital sentencing, but rather the willingness and integrity
of
our
governors
to
investigate
it.
The only
reason
Owens
can
travel
to
East
Lansing
and
claim
the death penalty in Colorado is applied fairly is because he
has
never bothered to
study
it.
Between
1980
and
2000,
some
3,841
people
were
murdered
in
Colorado.
The
death penalty was sought 102 times, undoubtedly costing taxpayers
more
than
$1
million
per
case.
For
all
these
efforts,
there has been only one execution.
Once pending
litigation
finishes
in
the
next
month
or
so,
Colorado
will
have
only one man on death row (a defendant with a long history of
mental
problems
who
pleaded
guilty
and
refused
to
be
represented
by counsel during his plea or his
sentencing).
In seven
cases
during
those
20
years,
Colorado
prosecutors
sought
the
death
penalty
for
defendants who, luckily, were acquitted by juries that
determined
the state could not
prove
its
accusations
against
them.
So much for his argument that Colorado prosecutors are
infallible.
And
over
those
two
decades
in
Colorado,
the
odds
of
a death
sentence
being
pursued
were
more than two and a half times higher for those who
kill
whites than for
those
who
kill
minorities.
This
racial
bias
is
not new.
This summer,
the
definitive
history
of
the
death
penalty
in
Colorado
was
published
in
the
Colorado
Law Review.
This history
is
a history
not
only
of
racial
bias,
but
of
cases
where
inmates
have
been
executed
despite strong doubts about guilt and strong evidence of
mental
retardation
and
outright
psychosis.
The
real
losers
in
Owens's
zeal
for
the
death
penalty
are
families
of
homicide
victims.
Executing
one
or
two of every 3,800 murderers ranks quite low on
the
list of what types of help
families
of
homicide
victims
want.
I invite Owens
to
spend
some
time
with
those
families
and
learn
from
them,
rather
than
grandstanding
and
politicking
on
the lecture circuit.
In fact,
if
Owens
wants
to
spend
money
or
time
helping
families
of
homicide
victims,
their
number
one
request
is
that we do something to remove the backlog of
unsolved
cases.
The
racial
bias,
political
shenanigans,
potential
for
error
and
horrendous
waste
of
money
are
only
a few
of
the
reasons
why
virtually
every religious organization in the United States stands
opposed
to
the
death
penalty.
Owens,
who
describes
himself
as "a devout Catholic" when
it
is
convenient for him, might be surprised to learn that his own
religion is at the forefront of international efforts to
abolish
the
death penalty.
Yet, unlike
Ryan,
Owens
never
has
expressed
any
interest
in
calling
for
a
thorough
study of
capital
punishment
in
his
state.
Only
through
denial
and refusing to study the issue can Owens defend
the
broken machinery of death
that
he
oversees.
As
a Michiganian,
I
am proud that
our state
was the
first English-speaking
democracy in
the world
to abolish
the death
penalty. As
a Coloradan, I am embarrassed that Owens is visiting my alma
mater
to bolster the false impression
that he,
or anyone,
can make
these godlike decisions without godlike skills.
Michael Radelet
is
an MSU
graduate and State News guest columnist.
He can
be reached
at michael.radelet@colorado.edu.
This first appeared as an Opinion
column in the November
13, 2003
State
News.
It is
republished
here
with
the author's
permission.
