Abstract
In 2020, amidst a global pandemic, political chaos, and economic recession, the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, among too many others, brought international attention and outrage to the institutionalized racism which characterizes the U.S. criminal justice system. In a country that claims itself "the leader of the free world," people of color, and Black Americans in particular, are disproportionately policed, arrested, convicted, and, ultimately, executed in a deeply flawed capital punishment system. Asylum law may be an emerging option of relief from this discriminatory practice, especially with the current global support for reform movements. The closest the international community has come to addressing this complex issue are the Convention Against Torture extradition cases of Burns and Soering; however, these cases fail to address pervasive racial disparities. To date, there is very little discussion on the plausibility of acknowledging a U.S. national as a refugee. This Article discusses the potential recognition of racial discrimination within U.S. capital punishment as persecution warranting asylum relief under existing international law, while simultaneously exploring the capital punishment practices of the few other remaining retentionist states. Ultimately, this Article highlights the need for universal abolition to cure the inherent discrimination in death sentences.
Recommended Citation
Alexandra Lauren Horn,
Recognizing Persecution in U.S. Criminal Justice and Capital Punishment: A Potential Path to Asylum Relief for U.S. Nationals,
32 Fla. J. Int'l L.
(2021).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/fjil/vol32/iss3/3