The Effects of Race on Sentencing in Capital Punishment Cases Sam Houston State University, Huntsville CJ 478W-Introduction To Methods Of Research Throughout history, minorities have been ill-represented in the criminal justice system, particularly in cases where the possible outcome is death. In early America, blacks were lynched for the slightest violation of informal laws and many of these killings occured without any type of due process. As the judicial system has matured, minorities have found better representation but it is not completely unbiased. In the past twenty years strict controls