Florida Has Never Executed a White Person for Killing a Black Person

By ThinkProgress

18 March 14

lorida has executed 84 people since the Supreme Court announced the modern death penalty regime in 1976. Zero of them are white people sentenced to death for killing an African American. Indeed, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, “no white person has ever been executed for killing an African American” in the state of Florida.

Nor is Florida particularly unusual in the racial impact of its death penalty. In Alabama, 6 percent of murders involve black defendants and white victims, but 60 percent of black death row inmates were convicted of murdering a white person. In Louisiana, a death sentence is 97 percent more likely in murder cases where the victim is white. Nationwide, only 20 white people have been executed since 1976 for killing a black person. By contrast, 269 black defendants were executed for killing someone who is white.

As ThinkProgress’ Nicole Flatow and Adam Peck explained in January, nearly all of the people executed in 2013 were convicted of killing at least one white person. Of the 39 executions that took place last year, 32 involved a white victim — and only one white person was executed for killing only a black man: