Fact Sheet: Ethnicity and the California Death Penalty

California Death Row, 2008

About one in five inmates on death rows in the United States is on death row in California. California has 654 people under sentences of death and an additional 22 people awaiting resentencing or exoneration after reversal of their death sentences.*

California death row inmates are 5.6 percent of the approximately 12,000 inmates serving sentences for first-degree murder in the state.**

Death Judgments – 1977-2008

Black defendants but not Latinos have received a disproportionately high percentage of the 887 death judgments handed down against 827 defendants in California since reinstatement of capital punishment in 1977. Of these death judgments, 296, or 33 percent, have been handed down against black defendants and 175, or 20 percent, against Latinos.*

The percentage of blacks on California’s death row is slightly below the national percentage. But the percentage of blacks in the California population – 6.7 percent, according to 2006 census estimates - is much lower than the national black population – 12.8 percent. California’s ratio of blacks on death row to blacks in the population, in percentages, is about 5 to 1. The national ratio is about 3 to 1. Latinos are 20 percent of California’s death row inmates and 36 percent of the state population.*

California’s 5 to 1 ratio for blacks is higher than the ratios in most other states with large death rows, including Texas, 3.4 to 1; Georgia, 1.4 to 1; South Carolina, 2 to 1; Alabama, 1.8 to 1; Tennessee, 2.4 to 1. California’s ratio is lower than Pennsylvania’s 5.6 to 1 ratio.

Life Without Parole

The 3,732 inmates serving sentences of life in prison without parole in California include black inmates, 36 percent; Latinos, 28 percent; non-Latino whites, 26 percent.**

Victims

Death judgments are disproportionately high in homicide cases involving at least one white victim.

Among California’s 887 death judgments for which victim ethnicity is known, 520, or 58.6 percent, involved at least one white victim.*

Blacks - Among the 296 death judgments against black defendants since 1977, 133, or 45 percent, involved at least one white victim.*

Latinos - Among the 175 judgments against Latinos, 55, or 31 percent, involved white victims.*

A study of victim ethnicity and the death penalty concluded that, taking into account aggravating factors and other variables, “those who kill non-Hispanic African Americans are 59.3 percent less likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill non-Hispanic whites. This disparity increases to 67 percent when comparing the death sentencing rates of those who kill whites with those who kill Hispanics.” - The Impact of Legally Inappropriate Factors on Death Sentencing for California Homicides, 1990-1999, by Glenn L. Pierce and Michael L. Radelet, Santa Clara Law Review, Vol. 46, p 37-38.

Among homicides “with solely non-Hispanic white victims,” 81.4 percent are committed by white offenders, Pierce and Radelet, p 44.

Homicide in California, 1996-2005 ***

Selected Counties

Los Angeles: 133 death judgments, or 49 percent of the county’s total, have been against black defendants, and 67, or 25 percent, have been against Latino defendants.* The county population is less than 10 percent black, for a ratio of about 5 to 1, and more than 47 percent Latino, for a ratio of about 1 to 2. The county has handed down 43 death judgments against black defendants for killing white victims and two death judgments against white defendants for killing black victims.* Whites are about 11 percent of the county’s homicide victims.***  Black defendants, additionally, are serving 45 percent of the county’s life-without-parole sentences and Latinos, 33 percent.**

Alameda: Black defendants have received 44 percent of death judgments* in a county with a 14 percent black population, for a ratio of more than 3 to 1. Additionally, 70 percent of the county’s defendants currently serving life-without-parole sentences are black.**

Riverside: Black defendants have received 42 percent of death judgments* in a county with a 7 percent black population, for a 6 to 1 ratio.

Orange: Black defendants have received 12 percent of death judgments* in a county with a 2 percent black population, for a 6 to 1 ratio.

San Diego: Black defendants have received 34 percent of death judgments* in a county with a 6 percent black population, for a ratio of more than 5 to 1.

San Bernardino: Black defendants have received 27 percent of death judgments* in a county with a 9 percent black population, for a 3 to 1 ratio.

Among counties with numerous death judgments only San Mateo and Contra Costa have handed down more death judgments against white defendants for killing black victims than against black defendants for killing white victims.*

Executions

California has executed 13 men since reinstating capital punishment in 1977. These include eight white inmates, two blacks, two Native Americans and one Asian.

Michael Morales, whose execution is on hold, pending a review of the state’s lethal injection procedures, would be the first Latino executed in California.

Clemency

Three clemency cases are pending before Gov. Schwarzenegger or are being prepared. The defendants:

• Stevie Fields, black, convicted of killing a black victim, Los Angeles County, 1979.
• Mitchell Carlton Sims, white, convicted of killing a white victim, Los Angeles County, 1987.
• David Allen Raley, white, convicted of killing a white victim, Santa Clara County, 1988.

Court Decisions

McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 1987 - The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a showing that black defendants who killed white victims in Georgia were most likely to get death sentences, saying the statistics did not prove that race was a factor in the case of Warren McCleskey, a black defendant convicted of killing a white police officer.

In re Seaton, 34 Cal. 4th 193, 2004 - Defense lawyers presented statistics showing that between 1974 and 1990, blacks were accused of committing about 18 percent of Riverside County homicides and received 80 percent of death sentences. The California Supreme Court, citing McCleskey, said the statistics were insufficient to prove bias against any particular defendant.

*        Figures based on raw data collected by the California Appellate Project, which to the best of its ability has attempted to determine unreported matters such as the race of the victim but cannot guarantee their accuracy.
**      Figures based on reported and unreported data of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
***    Figures based on reported and unreported data of the California Department of Justice.
 
Compiled for the Institute for Justice and Journalism, USC Annenberg School for Communication, by Claire Cooper, cooperclaire@sbcglobal.net, June 2008.