In the United States, Black defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death than their white counterparts exclusively due to their race. There are several aspects that work to explain why this pattern is present, and this paper analyzes our current sentencing disparity through the lens of race to understand why this is the case. First, the historical context of legal racial discrimination will be explored as I discuss the legacy slavery and how the trade and ownership of Black people led to the devaluation of African Americans long after the 13th Amendment abolished the practice. This is seen from the establishment of convict leasing directly following abolition, to the development of Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, and eventually this legacy became the foundation that contributed to the targeted mass incarceration of African Americans beginning with Richard Nixon’s 1970s “war on drugs” campaign and spanning to today. Next, six important milestone Supreme Court cases relating to the evolution of capital punishment in the United States will be described. These cases include Furman v. Georgia, Gregg v. Georgia, Lockett v. Ohio, Batson v. Kentucky, and McCleskey v. Kemp. This research also presents data that illustrates the current trends in death penalty sentencing within 26 states who currently implement this punishment. The results show that there is an overwhelming amount of data in support of harsher criminal sentences and therefore a higher likelihood of Black defendants being sentenced to death in comparison to their white counterparts. Lastly, the systemic inequalities embedded within several aspects of capital trials are outlined—both in terms of juror bias against African American defendants as well as racial issues when hiring an attorney—and works to inform my argument that the death penalty should be abolished. An offender’s race should not play any role in determining the severity of their punishment, but the historic criminalization of Black people works to ensure that these groups of people are typically at a severe disadvantage when navigating the American justice system. Overall, the application of the death penalty can not be applied in a standard manner, nor can there be regulations passed in such a way to guarantee an absence of racism within our current system. Therefore, the United States should abolish this unjust, discriminatory practice.

This project consisted of a review of the jury instructions used in the aggravating phase of death penalty cases in Arizona. Originally the project was looking for deviations between the definitions used for the F(6) aggravator (especially cruel, heinous, or depraved), but when none were found the focus shifted towards competing points within the instructions. Which begs the question of which instructions are being valued more than others, and how can we ensure jurors have the competency to accurately understand all the instructions given to them.

In 1972, the United States Supreme Court found that the death penalty was being applied too arbitrarily in the United States and that this arbitrary application constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the eighth amendment (Furman V. Georgia, 1972). This lead to a moratorium on capital punishment until the case Gregg V. Georgia, which outlined guidelines for the states in applying the death penalty in order to ensure that its application was constitutional (Gregg V. Georgia, 1976). These guidelines included enumerated aggravating factors and a bifurcated capital trial (Gregg V. Georgia, 1976). Despite these findings from the Supreme Court, the application of the death penalty in Arizona has remained problematic. In practice, Arizona has adopted a death penalty statute that appears to conform to the standards set by Furman and Gregg. Arizona state law includes a list of aggravating factors to help guide juries in capital trials and these trials are bifurcated. However, Arizona's aggravating factors are both numerous and inclusive, to the point that it is challenging to commit a first-degree murder in Arizona that does not include an aggravating factor. The statute fails to limit the crimes that qualify for the death penalty so state budgetary concerns become the limiting factor. Arizona's application of the death penalty remains arbitrary, in consistent, and as a result, unconstitutional as defined by the United States Supreme Court.