Citation

Goodheart LB. Patterns Prejudice 2012; 46(1): 58-77.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/0031322X.2012.655888

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Goodheart's narrative of the death penalty in early Connecticut argues that the racist depiction of black men as violent sexual predators who preyed on white women goes back hundreds of years and flourished in New England. The depiction of African American men as lascivious and dangerous was well established during slave times. The resulting prosecutorial treatment of black-on-white rape was remarkably consistent during the colonial and early national period. After the only white man was hanged for rape in 1693, the remaining five executions were all of Blacks. No one of any race was hanged for the rape of a Native American or African American woman. A marker of the marginalization of African Americans is that the final person hanged in Connecticut for a crime other than homicide was a black man for rape in 1817. This persistent pattern of prejudice is a telling example of the impact of race on criminal justice, especially the capital crime of rape.