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The Execution of Whites for Crimes Against Ethnoracial Minorities

A Case Study Analysis of the Exceptions that Prove the Rule

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2022

Ryan Alan Smith
Ryan Alan Smith*
Affiliation:
Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, Baruch College, CUNY, New York, NY, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: Ryan.Smith@baruch.cuny.edu
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Abstract

This article extends Michael L. Radelet’s 1989 study of rare cases in which Whites have been executed for committing capital crimes against Blacks to include an assessment of White executions involving Latinx and Asian victims. The threefold aim is to (1) establish the frequency of such rare cases, and (2) explore the extent to which status characteristics (beyond race, ethnicity or gender) are present for these rare events; and (3) offer social dominance theory as a viable explanation for the patterns found in the data. An analysis of unique data from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows that out of 570 executions imposed between April 1982 and July 2020, only six cases led to the execution of Whites for crimes against Blacks (1.1%), sixteen cases for crimes against Hispanics (2.8%), and one case for crimes against an Asian American (0.18%). Beyond the minority status of the victim, two or more status markers were present when Whites were executed for crimes against people of color. The results, which are consistent with expectations drawn from social dominance theory, highlight the differential value placed on minority lives and call into question the legitimacy of the death penalty in the United States.

Keywords

Death PenaltyExecution of WhitesMinority VictimsUnequal JusticeSocial Dominance Theory
Type
State of the Art
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , Fall 2022 , pp. 233 - 255
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hutchins Center for African and African American Research

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