Fifita

Victoria Fifita
November 04,2014
Ms.Oberg
English

Does A Persons Race Affect Their Likelihood Of Him/Her

Receiving The Death Penalty?

Does A Persons Race Affect Their Likelihood Of Receiving The Death Penalty?

In The Research I have done, their are a lot of pros and cons to the question whether a

person's race affects their chances of being put on the death penalty. Before I done the

research, I believed that the race of a person does affect their chances of being put on

the death penalty. After doing the research I still believe that it does, but their are many

interesting facts that may lead you to convince you that it doesnt, but still enough to

believe that it does.

In the research, there are pros that you may find interesting enough to believe

that race has a lot of effect on people on the death penalty. African Americans make up

13% of the nation's population, 50% of those on the death row currently are African

American. In a conference Obama said In the application of the death penalty in this

country, we have seen significant problems- racial bias, uneven application of the death

penalty (Obama, 2014 news conference) People of color have accounted for 43% of

total executions since 1976. The death penalty is hard to understand, especially with the

way it is set up and whether or not race affects your chances of being put onto the

death penalty.
 Fifita 2

Information that states that the race of a person does not affect your chances of

being put on the death penalty are just as convincing as reasons why it does affect your

chances. In the research that i have done, most of it states that race doesnt have to do

anything with an individuals likelihood of being put on the death penalty, just like being

a female is no different from being a male on the death penalty. In the article i have

read, they state that their is no solid evidence that race affects a person on the death

penalty. Americans give the federal law for two known reasons, one reason is because

no evidence proves that minorities are treated unfairly. Another reason is because

people believe that capital punishment saves lives they way is it set up with a strong

foundation. Reading this information, it was interesting to think of it this way.

In conclusion, i still believe that race affects a persons chances of being put on

the death penalty. The part of this research that i understood well is that the minority of

the population is the majority on the death penalty. Something i dont understand is the

way they compared race with the sex of a person. Does the sex of a person affect a

persons chances of being put on the death penalty? Still after doing the research i do

still believe that the race of a person affects the chances of an individual being put on

the death penalty.

citation: http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001187