Should the death penalty be abolished?

The death penalty targets racial minorities

Question: Should the death penalty be abolished?
Position1 of 2›: Yes, we should abolish the death penalty
Argument‹4 of 6›: The death penalty targets racial minorities

Minorities receive death penalty sentences at a disproportionately high rate.

The argument

According to the United States Census Bureau, 13% of the U.S. population is Black. However, Black Americans comprise 42% of the death row population, a startlingly disproportionate number compared to their presence in the population. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that in executions for murder, "75 percent of the cases involve the murder of white victims, even though blacks and whites are about equally likely to be victims of murder." Undoubtedly, the criminal justice system is racially biased. We cannot trust it to execute people fairly, without discriminating based on race. For this reason, we should abolish the death penalty.

Premises

[P1]Black Americans are vastly overrepresented on death row relative to their share of the population, and executions disproportionately follow cases with white victims. [P2] These disparities show the criminal justice system applies the death penalty in a racially biased manner. [P3] A punishment as irreversible as execution cannot be justly administered by a system that discriminates by race. [C] Therefore, the death penalty should be abolished.

Counter-arguments

The death penalty's discriminatory use is horrible, but abolishing it is not a proper response to this injustice. This racial bias suggests that our system is broken, not the punishment itself. We must not abolish capital punishment, because it still serves as a fitting and retributive sentence for those who deserve it. Instead of abolishing the death penalty, we must reform the criminal justice system, ensuring that racial bias plays no role in deciding punishment.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The figures establish disparity but not where it enters. Death row composition reflects who is charged capitally, which varies by county prosecutor, by the offence charged and by the quality of the defence available — so the numbers alone do not isolate the sentence itself as the discriminating step. [Rejecting P2] Bias in application is an argument about administration. The same disparities appear at charging, bail, sentencing and parole, and nobody concludes from that that imprisonment as such should be abolished. [Rejecting P3] The premise assumes the fault cannot be corrected. If the objection is discrimination rather than the punishment, what follows is reform of charging and defence — not the removal of a sentence the opposing position holds to be deserved in some cases.