Capital Defense Weekly

Rejon Taylor’s death sentence and race

In Chatanooga, local media are asking, did race play a factor in sending Rejon Taylor to death?

Statistically and overwhelmingly when the victim is white and the defendant is an African American they certainly ask and seek the death penalty,” Bill Ortwein, Taylor’s attorney, says.

With that in mind, we sat down and poured through a number of death row studies and statistics today. Taylor makes the 56th Federal Death Row inmate in the country – currently twenty-seven blacks and twenty-three whites make up the majority of prisoners waiting execution.

When specifically looking into race we went to the Death Penalty Information Center and found stats for executions involving interracial murders. Remember that Taylor, an African American, murdered Guy Luck, a white male. Since 1976, fifteen white defendant’s have been executed for murdering black victims. Compare that to two hundred and twenty-eight black defendants that have been executed for killing white victims, but Lucia Rajec, with the Information Center, questions the assertion that the Department of Justice always seeks the death penalty for black defendants with white victims.

“I’m not sure that’s necessarily true across the board for all states, I think it’s more so in the south where you have that happening,” Rajec tells us.

And Rajec goes onto point out that it’s the victim’s race that plays an integral part when seeking the death penalty. Since 1976, 79% of the victims in execution cases have been white, while 14% have been black.

“In a situation with white victims there’s a much higher likely hood of the death sentence being pursued as apposed to black victims,” Rajec says.