Local and national civil rights and racial justice leaders signed a letter to Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, calling on him to halt the series of executions scheduled in the coming weeks. EJUSA Campaign Strategist Mona Cadena was on hand at the Capitol to deliver the letter (left), which outlined the concerns the group has with the death penalty’s racial bias and its disproportionate effect on communities of color.
“Racial bias in the criminal justice system, including the death penalty and its application, is undisputed,” the letter says. “From slavery to Jim Crow to the present day, the death penalty has long been a tool of injustice and discrimination in the USA and the State of Arkansas.”
The letter comes just 4 days before the first of 7 executions scheduled in 10 days. (One of the original “8in10” has been postponed.)
“When faith leaders, civil society, the private sector, and citizens of conscience unite behind a just cause, elected leaders should listen. The death penalty has a documented history of being applied arbitrarily, based on racial and ethnic bias, and too often used against the innocent. State-sponsored executions should not happen next week in Arkansas or ever again across our great country,” said State Representative, Ángel Cruz (PA), President of the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators, in a separate statement. “Latino legislators reiterate our call for an immediate and permanent ban on the death penalty, at the state and federal levels, to prevent the type of irreversible injustice that is the death penalty. We also stand firm behind our belief that the government should devote its scarce resources to prevention and rehabilitation, where taxpayers’ dollars will be more effective.”
To the Honorable Governor Asa Hutchinson,
We write you with great concern as we read and watch the news of a planned execution of 8 men in 10 days. History has never forgiven these types of actions, and it would be a failure of our own humanity not to urge that you seriously reconsider letting this happen. Our community has worked to move this country forward and we have seen firsthand how the continued use of the death penalty only plunges our communities into despair and further entrenches racial bias. States around the country are turning away from the death penalty because the risks of error and racial bias are far too great.
Racial bias in the criminal justice system, including the death penalty and its application, is undisputed. Discrimination in capital punishment was explicitly written in many states’ laws during slavery. Black people – whether slaves or not – faced the death penalty for crimes that were not even be eligible for death if committed by a white person. A recent study by the University of Arkansas shows that— when convicted of a capital crime— Blacks were over two times more likely to receive the death penalty than whites. The study shows that this racial bias is also present in the charging and sentencing of all homicidal offenses in the state.
Racial bias extends far beyond who is sentenced to death. Studies show that when the victim is white, a defendant is more likely to be charged with, and sentenced to, death. Nationally, almost half (47%) of all murder victims since the 1970s are black, but for cases ending in an execution, only 17% of murder victims are black. This is but one piece of the long, familiar story of systemic bias in our criminal justice system.
From slavery to Jim Crow to the present day, the death penalty has long been a tool of injustice and discrimination in the USA and the State of Arkansas. George Hays, Governor of Arkansas wrote in 1927 that states needed the death penalty to address the “negro problem.” Racial bias impacts not only Black defendants. Studies show that Latinos, Native Americans, and all people of color are also sentenced to longer prison terms, more likely to be tried as adults, and are more likely to be sentenced to death in the USA. The death penalty is steeped in racial injustice and this is unacceptable.
We ask that you, Governor Hutchinson, stop all 8 executions.
With respect,
Reverend Dr. Fredrick D. Haynes, Chair, Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference
Van Jones, CNN Commentator
Thomas A. Saenz, President and General Counsel, Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF)
Kimberly Davis, Murder Victim’s Families For Reconciliation and sister of the late Troy Davis
Juan Cartagena, President and General Counsel, Latino Justice
Matt Howard, Co-Director, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW)
Brent A. Wilkes, National Executive Director, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
Caitlyn Breedlove, Vice President, Movement Leadership, Auburn Seminary
Marisa Franco, Director, Mijente
Dr. Khalilah Brown-Dean, Associate Professor of Political Science
Danel Carillo, Executive Director, ENLACE
National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators
Reverend Dr. Anika T. Whitfield, Arkansas
Dr. James Ross, University of Arkansas, Little Rock, History Department
Marion Andrew Humphrey Jr.
Morgan Holladay, LMSW, Executive Director, Compassion Works for All
Gloria J. Sweet-Love, President, NAACP, Tennessee
Nimrod Chapel, Jr., President, Missouri State NAACP Conference
Shari Silberstein, Executive Director, Equal Justice USA
