While Philadelphia's District Attorney asks for the death penalty in almost all cases that technically qualify for such a prosecution, Pittsburgh's DA does so in about a fourth of such cases . In the district with the highest rate an accused was 2.8 times more likely to be tried on a capital charge than in the county with the lowest rate. Today, however, it is clear that the procedures instituted to achieve that goal have not been successful in accomplishing that goal. The defense of a capitally-charged defendant is a difficult task needing specialized skills and adequate investigative resources. This takes money.
Most capital defendants are poor.
They must rely on a court-appointed attorney or a pubic defender. The public resources available to capital defendants differ greatly among jurisdictions. Thus, the death lottery is further influenced by whether one is poor or able to retain a good attorney. Inadequate investigational resources further influence one's chances of being sentenced to death. A large body of research records the persistence of racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty in the U.S. Data from murder cases in Florida, Georgia, Texas and Ohio showed that an African-American defendant was about 3 times more likely than a white defendant to be sentenced to death.