Report: Federal Prosecutors Didn’t Base Death Penalty Charges on Race

WASHINGTON — The decision to recommend the death penalty for federal trials is based on the heinousness of the crime committed and not on race, according to a RAND Corporation report submitted to the National Institute of Justice.

Researchers constructed a database that contained information from 312 cases from Jan. 1, 1995 to July 31, 2000 where defendant- and victim-race data was available. The 312 cases involved 652 defendants. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno sought the death penalty in 25 percent of the 600 cases that came before her. Most of the remaining 52 defendants plead guilty before the attorney general made a decision.

The database shows that the victim and perpetrator in most homicides were the same race. White defendants were more likely to be charged with the death penalty than black or Hispanic defendants, according to the report. Data also showed that defendants that were accused of murdering whites were more likely to face capital punishment then those accused of killing nonwhites.

After the database was created, three independent research teams investigated whether the racial differences could be explained by the differences in the heinousness of the crime. The teams used their own methodology to analyze the database and they did not discuss procedures and findings until after the research was completed.

Despite substantial differences in their analytic methods, according to the report, the three teams came up with the same conclusion: When case characteristics were considered, the decision to pursue the death penalty was based on the heinousness of the crime and not race.