e a part of the United States Constitution in 1789. Capital punishment is both a cruel and an unusual punishment. No punishment can be crueler than death, especially if it is applied to an innocent person. In Wendy Kaminers book, It's All the Rage, Kaminer describes the death penalty as, barbarously cruel . . . . shocking, unjust, and unacceptable (106). The Fourteenth Amendment is also violated in cases of the death penalty. Once again, the Fourteenth Amendment in the United States Constitution promises equal protection of the laws and due process to everyone, but Vilbig says, Death penalty critics say defendants, many of whom are poor, frequently get a poor legal defense, often by court-appointed lawyers (4). This fact indicates that the unfortunate are not being given equal protection under the law. However, the death penalty was found to be discriminatory based on the color of one's skin (Bedau 6). Therefore, the death penalty clearly violates the Fourteenth Amendment. The application of the death penalty sentence shows racial discrimination, sex discrimination, and socio-economic class discrimination all over the nation. Over the years, the statistics of the executions have been studied. According to these statistics, from 1930 to 1990 the Government Accounting Office (GAO) reports an interesting conclusion about racial discrimination. The GAO confirmed that, . . . a consistent pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in charging, sentencing and the imposition of the death penalty after the Furman decision . . . . race of victim influence was found at all stages of the criminal justice system process . . . (Bedau 5). Along with this finding, they also asserted that . . . those who murdered whites were more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks (Bedau 6). This information revealed that the convict's race, as well as the race of the victim, influenced the criminal justice process. In 1...
