DPIC releases new report focused on racial history of Missouri’s death penalty

As reported in this DPIC press release, “the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) released a report that documents how racial bias and violence affected the past use of the death penalty in Missouri and how that history continues to influence the current administration of capital punishment in the state.”  The full 43-page report, titled “Compromised Justice: How A Legacy of Racial Violence Informs Missouri’s Death Penalty Today,” is available here.  The executive summary can be found here, and here is how it begins:

Missouri is one of a handful of states that has consistently executed people in the last five years.  In 2023, Missouri executed four people.  Understanding the historical application of the death penalty in Missouri helps our understanding of how capital punishment is used today.

Historically, Missouri’s Death Penalty Was Applied Discriminatorily Based on Race

Decades before Missouri gained statehood, the territory adopted capital punishment laws that were applied based on race.  There were at least four crimes that could only be tried capitally if committed by an enslaved person.  After Missouri became a state in 1821 and had adopted superficially race-neutral capital punishment laws, the death penalty continued to be applied discriminatorily: enslaved people were four times more likely to be executed than white Missourians before 1865.

Missouri Has a Substantial History of Racial Violence Directed at Black Missourians

The first documented lynching in U.S. history happened in Missouri in 1838. By the late 1800s, racial terror lynchings had increased in regularity, particularly in Southern, former slave-holding states.  Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, at least 60 Black Missourians were killed in lynchings, making it the state with the second highest number of racial terror lynchings outside of the South.

Although the number of lynchings declined, public executions continued in Missouri longer than all but one other state.  Public executions were a form of racial violence: there are examples of sheriffs providing execution attendees with souvenirs such as pieces of the ropes used to hang Black people and even the victim’s body parts.  After a quadruple execution in St. Louis, a drug store owner was permitted to display the severed head of a Black person who was executed in his shop.  The constant reminders of brutal lynchings and executions were used by white people to continually threaten and intimidate Black people.