Justice Report on Death Penalty Shows Bias

Sept. 12 -- Racial and geographic disparities abound in the federal death penalty system, according to a Justice Department study released today.

It is the first such review since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988.

Of the 682 potential death penalty cases U.S. attorneys forwarded to Justice for review between 1995 and July of this year, 20 percent of the defendants were white and 80 percent were minorities. U.S. attorneys recommended the death penalty be sought for 183 of them, 26 percent of them whites and 74 percent minorities.

“The survey today finds that minorities are over-represented in thefederal death penalty system, as both victims and defendants, relativeto the general population. Sadly, the same is true of the entirecriminal justice system, both state and federal,” Attorney General Janet Reno said today. “This should be ofconcern to us all.”

The report shows, however, that Justice recommendations for federal death sentences roughly reflected the racial percentages of the pool of defendants chargedwith capital crimes.

Holder: Report ‘Disturbing’

The study’s findings also reveal a geographic disparity in the administration of the federal death penalty. Even though prosecutors are required to submit all possible death penalty cases to Justice, regardless of their recommendations, some U.S. attorneys have submitted none, and others submit in wildly disproportionate numbers.

In 1995, Attorney General Janet Reno began requiring U.S. attorneysto submit for review all cases in which a defendant is charged with acapital offense and no plea agreement is reached. Her goal was to achievea more uniform system.

Reno asked Justice officials, under the direction of Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, to conduct a review to determine if the system is fair. The disparities the team found, displayed in the report’s more than 400 pages of mainly charts and tables, will likely fuel the debate over the federal execution system.