Are death row cases plagued with racial bias?

No doubt race plays a part, but I suspect that murders of poor people of any race are not treated as strongly.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-12/msu-adr121316.php

Public Release: 13-Dec-2016
Are death row cases plagued with racial bias?
Michigan State University

Defendants charged with murder in North Carolina from 1990 to 2009 were more than twice as likely to receive the death penalty if the victims were white, Michigan State University researchers have found.

Catherine Grosso and Barbara O'Brien, associate professors at MSU College of Law, conducted the most comprehensive study of its kind to date, also finding the race of the defendant doesn't carry much weight.

"The white victim effect was the clearest and strongest finding in this study analysis," Grosso said. "Race still matters in the criminal justice system, and it shouldn't."

At the same time, the researchers found cases involving both a black defendant and a black victim were more than two times less likely to advance to a capital trial, where a jury decides whether to impose a death penalty or a life sentence.

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