Racial bias has always been a issue in death penalty debates. There have been many statistical studies indicating that race plays a significant role in determining who lives and who dies. a study released in 2003 by the University of Maryland concluded that race, along with geography, is an important factor in death penalty decisions in that state. Prosecutors are more likely to seek the death penalty when the race of the victim is white and less likely when the race of the victim is African-American.
Gender and the death penalty
A study by Professor Steven Shatz of the University of San Francisco Law School and Naomi Shatz of the New York Civil Liberties Union suggests that gender bias continues to exist in the application of the death penalty, and that this bias has roots in the historic notion of chivalry. This means that a man is more likely to be sentenced to death for killing a woman. Also a woman is less likely to be sentenced to death