“Race has always been an issue in the death penalty, whether it’s Florida or anyplace,” said Florida International University law professor Stephen Harper, who runs the school’s Death Penalty Clinic.
A University of North Carolina study released last year that examined executions in Florida between 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated, and 2014, found that, while about 56 percent of Florida victims were white, nearly three-fourths of all executions involved white victims. More than 70 percent of the black defendants executed in Florida had been convicted of murdering white victims, the study found.
Of the 396 inmates on Death Row, 154 — or nearly 40 percent — are black, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The ratio of African-Americans awaiting execution is more than double the percentage of blacks in the state’s overall population.
Few believe that the controversy swirling around Ayala, Scott and inequities in the administration of the death penalty in Florida will spur significant changes, at least in the short run.
