NCJ Number
132729
Date Published
Unknown
Length
24 pages
Annotation
The Chattahoochee Judicial District in southwest Georgia offers a highly focused view of the use of the death penalty and indicates that Georgia has carried out more executions than any other State.
Abstract
Through the end of 1990, death sentences had been imposed in the Chattahoochee Judicial District against 20 people, more than any other district in the State and nearly twice as many as Atlanta which has three times the population. More than half the black men sentenced to death were tried by all white juries. While black people account for 65 percent of all homicide victims, the District Attorney (DA) has sought the death penalty almost exclusively in white victim cases. Families of white murder victims are treated with dignity and respect by the DA's office, while black victims' families are abused or ignored. For many years, a white public defender refused to challenge the systematic under-representation of blacks in the jury pool for fear of incurring community hostility. The DA sought the death penalty in nearly 40 percent of cases where the defendant was black and the victim white, in 32 percent of cases where both defendant and victim were white, in just 6 percent of cases where both defendant and victim were black, and never where the defendant was white and the victim black. Recommendations to minimize the effects of race and class in death penalty litigation are offered. 29 footnotes and 7 illustrations