One of the most prevalent arguments against the death penalty is the contention that it is unfairly administered. Critics of capital punishment often maintain that minorities and the poor receive a disproportionate number of death sentences. Many point out, for example, that black defendants are more likely to receive death sentences than are whites charged with the same crime. Moreover, as Democratic congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. asserts, “the race of the victim—more specifically, whether or not the victim was white—can have an even stronger influence” on sentencing decisions in capital cases.

Statistics lend support to Jackson’s claims. Researcher David Baldus, who has studied more than twenty-five hundred Georgia murder cases, discovered that defendants accused of killing whites are 4.3 times more likely to be given death sentences than those accused of murdering blacks. While...