Racial Disparities

THE HISTORICAL AND CURRENT CHARGING POLICIES OF THE COLLIN COUNTY PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE DEMONSTRATE THAT JOHN ALBA WAS SINGLED OUT FOR THE DEATH PENALTY BECAUSE HE IS HISPANIC AND HIS WIFE WAS WHITE.

Texas statistics in general show that race is at play in the decision as to who gets charged, tried and convicted of the death penalty for what offenses. Researchers have concluded that all other things being equal, a Texan who murders a white person is twice as likely to be charged with capital murder than one who murders a Hispanic person, and almost five times more likely to be charged with capital murder than one who murders an African-American. Jonathan R. Sorensen and James W. Marquart, Prosecutorial And Jury Decision-Making in Post-Furman Texas Capital Cases, 18 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 743, 765 (1990/91). Some legally relevant criteria also increase the chance that an offender will be charged with capital murder; for instance, those who commit murder-rapes and those who kill multiple people are more likely to be charged with capital murder than are other death-eligible offenders. Id. at 764-65. The fact that a murder victim is white increases an offender’s chance of being charged with capital murder more than if he is charged with multiple killings. Id.

Racial disparity is a problem not just in Texas, but across the nation. A study by the General Accounting Office found that 82% of studies conducted nationwide reported that the race of the victim increased the likelihood that a defendant would be charged with capital murder or receive the death penalty. That is, those who murdered whites were found to be more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks. United States General Accounting Office, Death Penalty Sentencing: Research Indicates Pattern of Racial Disparities, GDD-90-57, 5 (1990), www.gao.gov/docdblite/summary. The evidence for the race of the victim influence was stronger for the earlier stages of the judicial process (e.g., prosecutorial decision to charge defendant with a capital offense, decision to proceed to trial rather than plea bargain) than in the later stages. Id. It is evidence like this that has led the New Jersey Supreme Court to strongly recommend that the state adopt guidelines for use throughout the state by prosecutors in determining the selection of capital cases. State v. Koedatich, 548 A.2d 939, 955 (1988); State v. Marshall, 613 A.2d 1059, 1112 (1992). Guidelines would not only help to ensure uniformity, but would be able to screen out any possible effects of race or socioeconomic status in the charging and selection process. Marshall, 613 A.2d at 1112.

The demographics for Collin County’s death row show that it may be the most racist county in Texas. Even though the population of Collin County reflects smaller than average minority populations -- Collin County has a Hispanic community that comprises only 10.3 % of the general population and the African American a mere 5.2 %. But during the past ten years Collin County’s Prosecutors have used their discretion to insure that 100 % of all death sentenced individuals are minorities, and all but one of them were sent to death row for killing a white person. During that same ten-year period the Collin County Prosecutor’s office has given every white accused murderer eligible to be charged with a death sentence a free pass on facing the state’s ultimate sanction. In short, right now, in Collin County, the death penalty is reserved for minorities, and in particular those accused of killing whites.

The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the worst types of murders. John’s case, though a murder case, does not involve any of the additional factors typically seen in other death penalty cases. The Collin County’s Prosecutor’s office had to stretch the facts of his offense to even fit into a death eligible offense and that is murder in the course of a burglary. The main evidence of a burglary was that his wife’s body was found half in and half out of a doorway. Quite literally, the difference between a life sentence and death sentence in John’s case is a change in distance of less than two feet for where his wife was standing. That is, if every other fact of his offense remains the same, but his wife would have been shot less than two feet from where she fell, that is outside of the doorway, then the most the state could have tried John for was life in prison, not death. The result of the prosecutor’s odd stretching of the facts is that John Alba is the only person in Texas, on death row for killing their spouse in the heat of passion.

So if the murder of John’s wife was not heinous nor in the worst class of murders supposedly reserved for the death penalty, why is he on death row? The answer is apparently this, that in Collin County the facts of the crime are not as important as the race of the defendant and the race of the victim. Shockingly, during the past ten-year period the Collin County Prosecutor has reserved its use of death row for Minorities only. During that time it has rejected every single death eligible case involving white defendants. Initial investigation of all Collin County murders during the same period, indicate that there were as many white defendants accused of murder who could have been tried for death, as there where minorities actually sent to death row. That is, in at least seven cases, the Collin County Prosecutor’s office refused to try white persons for death, where the facts of the case would have supported a death conviction.

During this same period of time the single murder of a minority, no matter how heinous, has wholly failed to move the Collin County Prosecutor to call for the fullest sanction of the law. Two particulars cases deserve special mention: in one a Hispanic male was robbed and beaten to death in broad daylight with a baseball bat, an apparent hate crime committed against him for no other reason than he was Hispanic; and, in the other an African American female was kidnapped, beaten, sexually assaulted, stabbed, thrown in the trunk of a car, taken to some waste land and set on fire. Neither of these horrific crimes resulted in capital death charges.

That race is a primary factor in Collin County's capital death charging decisions is also buttressed by the fact that you have to go back almost 15 years to find a case Collin County Prosecutors thought bad enough to charge a white person. And that white person was convicted of killing twice as many people as the minority norm. Of course both of those victims were white. Prior to that Collin County prosecutors have only sent one other white person to death row, and that almost thirty years ago. That person has since been executed. He received the treatment usually reserved for minorities, but in his case the number of victims was three times the minority norm, that is he killed three people. Again fitting the racial pattern, all the victims were white.

The men the Collin County Prosecutor’s have sent to death row:

The men Collin County Prosecutor’s have had executed:

What is clear from these tables is that if either John Alba or his wife’s race were changed, he would not have been charged with, nor put on death row. That is, if he would have been white, or if his wife would have been Hispanic the prosecutors would not have pressed for his death. Whatever other objections one may have to the death penalty in 2003, it should be clear to everyone that the death penalty should not hinge on these incidents of birth. The challenge for John Alba next is making this racism so compelling that the Texas and Federal Court systems will not be able to ignore them.