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NC Study Shows Convicted Killers of Whites More Likely to Get Death Sentences

A new study of North Carolina death sentences shows that defendants accused of killing whites are almost three times more likely to be sentenced to death than those accused of killing blacks in similar homicides.

The study is the first examining North Carolina data since the state passed a law last year allowing convicted and suspected murders to present statistical evidence of racial bias, according to a press release by the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The study was conducted by University of Colorado sociology professor Michael Radelet and Northeastern University criminology researcher Glenn Pierce. It examined more than 15,000 homicides in North Carolina between 1980 and 2007. Defendants received death sentences in 368 of the cases.

“What it means is like so many other things in our society, race matters—explicitly or implicitly,” Radelet told the Associated Press.

A 1987 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, McCleskey v. Kemp, refused to strike down the death penalty based on statistical evidence of racial bias in the death penalty, but it permitted states to pass laws allowing consideration of statistical studies.

Seth Edwards, president of the North Carolina Association of District Attorneys, told the Charlotte Observer he strongly disagrees with the implication that prosecutors base death-penalty charging decisions on the race of the victim.

“Prosecutors do not look at skin color,” he said. “We consider lots of things, but race is not one of them.”

Hat tip to Sentencing Law and Policy.