This is why the recent report from Amnesty International is of such significance. The Amnesty report points out that African-Americans are stopped more frequently, charged with higher level offenses, afforded less competent counsel, and punished more severely than whites charged with the same crimes. White attorneys who are unable to relate to the black community may be unable to properly defend their black clients. A central contributing factor to the pervasiveness of racial prejudice and racial bias with regard to the use of the death penalty is the fact that so much of the discretion given to prosecutors and law enforcement officials is unchecked. The police have discretion to decide whom to stop and frisk.
State prosecutors have discretion to determine whom to prosecute, and what charges to bring.
And judges have a great deal of discretion, before trial, when the jury is selected, through the trial itself, and after the trial during sentencing. The existence of such discretion makes possible the pervasive and cumulative discrimination faced by many African-Americans who come into contact with the criminal justice system. In addition to the findings of Amnesty International, other reports and commissions continue to attest to the racial prejudice prevalent in the manner in which the death penalty is used in the United States. The Stanford Law Review published a study that found patterns of racial disparity, based on the race of the victim, in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Virginia. An example closer to home can be found in the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit, which encompasses eight counties in central Georgia.