R.J. Maratea - Killing With Prejudice: Institutionalized Racism in American Capital Punishment

R. J. Maratea

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

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2019 by New York University

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Maratea, R. J., 1973, author.

Title: Killing with prejudice : institutionalized racism in American capital punishment / R. J. Maratea.

Description: New York : New York University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018020941 | ISBN 9781479888603 (cl : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Capital punishmentUnited States. | Discrimination in capital punishmentUnited States. | Discrimination in criminal justice administrationUnited States. | RacismUnited States.

Classification: LCC KF9227.C2 M37 2018 | DDC 364.66089/96073dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018020941

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To Freddy and Sofie

Figure 1.1. Executions and lynchings by year in the United States, 18821972

Figure 5.1. Death sentences and executions by year in the United States, 19762016

Figure C.1. Executions by year in the United States, 18822016

Table 1.1. Pre-Furman executions in southern states, 19451972

Table 2.1. Cases in which prosecutor sought the death penalty and capital punishment was sentenced in Georgia, by race of defendant and victim, 19731979

Table 3.1. Louisiana executions in 1987

Table 5.1. Georgia legal executions, by race, 17352016

On September 25, 1991, Warren McCleskey was executed in the death chamber at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison. The culmination of a 13-year litigation process that twice reached the United States Supreme Court, McCleskeys closing moments were as chaotic and discomforting as many of the legal decisions that preceded his death. After a series of last-minute appeals were denied and his legal options exhausted, McCleskeywho at one point had been secured to the death chair only to be removed minutes later while his lawyers tried desperately to delay the executionrefused his last meal and made a final statement: I pray that one day this country, supposedly a civilized society, will abolish barbaric acts such as the death penalty (Applebome 1991:A18). With the Georgia Department of Pardons and Parole having denied a clemency petition and the Supreme Court rejecting one final request for a stay, Warren McCleskey was strapped into the electric chair, electrodes attached to his skull and a final prayer read.... A minute later the execution began, and he was pronounced dead at 3:13 [a.m.] (Applebome 1991).

This book chronicles the journey of Warren McCleskey from an innocuous criminal to the symbolic figure whose legal plight and execution underscores the lingering racial and socioeconomic inequalities endemic to capital punishment in the United States. The modern death penalty as it exists in the United States has been inexorably shaped by the state of Georgia and the Supreme Court decision in McCleskey v. Kemp (1987)the legal ruling at the heart of this storywhich affirmed institutionalized racial disparities as acceptable components in a functioning capital punishment system. Despite the gravity of Warren McCleskeys case, he has become an obscure figure in the decades since his death. Yet McCleskey v. Kemp sheds important light on the unwillingness of the judiciary to meaningfully address inequity in the justice system. Although the proverbial color line is deeply embedded in Georgias legal institutionserving as a powerful predictor of wrongful conviction and disproportionate sentencingthe Supreme Court in McCleskey chose to overlook compelling empirical evidence revealing the discriminatory manner in which the assailants of black Americans are systematically undercharged and the aggressors of white victims are far more likely to receive a death sentence.

Warren McCleskey might seem like an unlikely candidate to expose the frailties and failures of U.S. capital punishment. He was hardly someone who could be cast as a sympathetic figure, having had a string of arrests prior to that fateful day on May 13, 1978, when he and three accomplicesBen Wright, David Burney, and Bernard Depreearrived at the Dixie Furniture Store in Atlanta, Georgia, with the intention of committing armed robbery. As McCleskey entered through the front door and secured the area by forcing anyone present to lie face down on the floor, the others came through a loading dock in the rear of the store, where they searched the premises for cash. Although the robbers tied up all of the employees and customerseven threatening to kill anyone who movedone had already managed to trigger the silent alarm; police were quickly dispatched to the scene. Officer Frank Schlatt, a five-year veteran on the Atlanta police force, was the first to respond, parking his patrol car near the store and entering through the front door. According to court records, McCleskey noticed Schlatt arrive and quickly hid behind a couch on the showroom floor. As Schlatt maneuvered his way down an aisle in the middle of the store, McCleskey allegedly leaped up and fired two shots in Schlatts direction. The first struck the 30-year-old officer in the head, causing his death; the second ricocheted off a cigarette lighter in the left chest pocket of Schlatts uniform. As McCleskey and his accomplices fled the scene, Officer Schlatt fell to the floor into a pool of his own blood; he was pronounced dead several hours later. McCleskey was eventually arrested for Schlatts murder a few weeks later, after being apprehended for an unrelated crime (McCleskey v. Zant, 580 F. Supp. 338, 345 (1984)).

It did not take long for the authorities to pinpoint McCleskey as the perpetrator in Officer Schlatts murder. Two employees of the Dixie Furniture Store identified McCleskey as the robber who had entered through the front door. Although McCleskeys defense attorney, John Turner Jr., offered an unsubstantiated alibi defense during trial (Zant, 580 F. Supp. at 346), McCleskey in his confession statement to police never disputed the fact that he had participated in the crime but adamantly denied being the gunman who had shot and killed Officer Schlatt (see Kirchmeier 2015). We may presume that the murder conviction was at least partly influenced by the testimony of accomplice Ben Wright and the jailhouse informant, Offie Gene Evans, both of whom told jurors that McCleskey was the lone gunman, and Wrights claim that McCleskey had in his possession a .38 caliber silver pistol that matched the bullet used to kill Officer Schlatt (Kirchmeier 2015). Yet not all of the evidence presented during trial was conclusive. Two of the Dixie employees had seen McCleskey enter the store, but neither could identify him as the shooter; and while the gun used to kill Officer Schlatt was linked to McCleskey, it was never found by police and could have been fired by any one of the four offenders present at the time of the crime. In fact, during cross-examination by Turner, Ben Wright admitted to having a .38 caliber revolver, and when police arrested Wrights girlfriend, she claimed Wright carried a .38 and McCleskey carried a .45 weapon (Kirchmeier 2015:22).