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Michael Meltsner, George J. and Kathleen Waters Matthews Distinguished University Professor, emeritus, has argued for a lifetime against the death penalty. Photo by Matthew Modoono\/Northeastern University<\/p>\n
Meltsner, along with Amnesty International and other death penalty abolitionist groups, said that the evidence shows that the death penalty is used disproportionately on Black men, and that the practice largely is carried out in Southern U.S. states which have an entrenched history of racism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason we are different from other democracies is predominately due to the history of racism in Southern and border states emerging from slavery, Jim Crow and lynching,\u201d said Meltsner, who is Northeastern\u2019s George J. and Kathleen Waters Matthews Distinguished University Professor of Law Emeritus.<\/p>\n
He was an architect of a 1972 Supreme Court case, Furman v Georgia, that temporarily overturned the death penalty in the U.S. The justices ruled in that case that the practice was applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory way and violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Constitutional Amendments that provide protections against cruel and excessive punishment and equal protection under the law. Most U.S. executions happen in a handful of Southern states that fought during the U.S. Civil War to keep slavery, Meltsner said.<\/p>\n
Black men comprise most of the 40% of the almost 2,000 people on death row in the U.S., though African Americans make up only 12% of the U.S. population, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s evidence of the racial disparity, Meltsner said.<\/p>\n
Politics is another reason why, in Meltsner\u2019s opinion, capital punishment remains on the books in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He pointed to California, which still employs the death penalty. Although the practice is decried by the state\u2019s governor, Gavin Newsom, he has never granted universal clemency or commuted the sentence of anyone on death row.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat suggests that the death penalty is in deep decline, but there\u2019s also a political cost for coming out and being an abolitionist,\u201d Melstner said.<\/p>\n
Newsom signed an executive order in 2019, putting a moratorium on the practice and ordered that the death chamber, at San Quentin State Prison where executions take place, be dismantled.<\/p>\n
Newsom said in a statement at the time, \u201cI do not believe that a civilized society can claim to be a leader in the world as long as its government continues to sanction the premeditated and discriminatory execution of its people.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Florida\u2019s governor, Ron DeSantis, has held firm on allowing state executions, telling a press conference last November that he views the death penalty as a deterrent and \u201cif somebody goes and shoots 10 people, they should get the death penalty very quickly.\u201d He also called it justice for the families of the victims.<\/p>\n
Formal death penalty advocacy groups are rare, but the National District Attorneys Association officially supports capital punishment for certain heinous homicides, as a necessary tool in the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n