The Impact of Race, Gender, and Geography on Missouri Executions
Frank R. Baumgartner
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Frankb@unc.edu
July 16, 2015
Missouri’s use of the death penalty in the modern era has been marked by substantial disparities
by the race and gender of the victim of the crime, and by geography.1 These disparities are so
great that they call in to question the equity of the application of the harshest penalty, adding to
growing concerns that the death penalty is applied in an unfair, capricious, and arbitrary manner.
Here are a few key findings of this research:
● A person convicted of homicide in St. Louis County is three times more likely to be
executed than if they were convicted of the same crime in the vast majority of other
counties in the state, and 13 times more likely to be executed than if they are convicted of
the same crime in the city of St. Louis.
● Homicides committed in Callaway, Schuyler, and Moniteau counties are 30 to 70 times
more likely to result in an execution than homicides committed in the vast majority of
state’s counties.
● A majority of the state’s 80 executions that occurred between 1976 and 2014 come from
just three, or 2.6%, of the state’s 114 counties and the independent city of St. Louis.
● Homicides involving White victims are seven times more likely to result in an execution
than those involving Black victims.
● Homicides involving White female victims are nearly 14 times more likely to result in an
execution than those involving Black male victims.
● Eighty-one percent of the individuals executed in Missouri were convicted of killing
White victims even though White victims are less than 40% of all murder victims in the
state.
● Even though the vast majority of murders involve an offender and victim(s) of the same
race, 54% of the African-American men executed by Missouri were convicted of crimes
involving White victims.
Between 1976 and 2014, the state of Missouri executed 80 men. Eighty-one percent of these men
were executed for the murder of White victims. This is striking given that 60 percent of all
homicide victims in Missouri are Black. White women represent just 12 percent of all homicide
victims, but constitute 37 percent of the victims in execution cases. Black men, by contrast,
1

A more complete analysis is available in the following article, which is based on the same dataset as used here.
That published and peer-reviewed article contains a full bibliography of relevant studies on the issue of race-ofvictim effects. See Baumgartner Grigg and Mastro 2015.
Note that the homicides data stem from a U.S. Department of Justice report that covers the 1976 through 1999
period. Percentages by race, gender, or a combination of race and gender change little over time, however. Further,
executions in 2014 are typically for crimes committed 10 to 30 years previously. The crimes for which Missouri
inmates were executed through the end of 2014 were committed between 1977 and 1998.

represent 52 percent of all homicide victims, but just 12 percent of the individuals who were
executed were convicted of killing Black men.
Table 1 shows these data.
Table 1. Missouri Executions and Homicides by Race and Gender of Victims.

Whites
Blacks
Others
Males
Females

Homicides
Number
Percent
4,036
36.23
7,027
63.08
41
0.37
8,588
2,545

77.09
22.84

Executions
Number
Percent
87
80.56
21
19.44
60
48

55.56
44.44

Executions
Per 100
Homicides
2.16
0.30
0.70
1.89

White Female
1,331
11.95
40
37.04
3.01
White Male
2,705
24.28
47
43.52
1.74
Black Female
1,198
10.76
8
7.41
0.67
Black Male
5,828
52.31
13
12.04
0.22
Note: Numbers refer to the number of victims, not offenders. There were 80 executions in
Missouri from 1977 through 2014, with 108 victims
With 80 executions in the modern period, but over 11,000 homicides, the average likelihood that
a homicide will lead to an execution is 0.696 percent: very low. However, Table 1 shows that
this likelihood that a murder will result in an execution is 2.16 percent when the victim is White,
but only 0.30 when the victim is Black. The percent is 0.70 when the victim is male and it is
1.89 percent when the victim is female. The greatest disparity occurs when combining race and
gender, as the likelihood that the crime will result in an execution increases to 3.01 percent when
the victim is a White female and decreases to 0.22 percent when the victim is a Black male.
Figure 1 puts these differences in stark comparison.

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Figure 1. Comparison of Likelihood of Execution by Race and Gender of Victim

Note: The figure shows the percentage of homicides that eventually result in an execution.
Figures 2, 3, and 4 show how homicides (on the left side) and executions (right) compare. Each
is a simple pie chart. Figure 2, for example, shows that homicides are largely focused on men,
who constitute 77.1 percent of the victims. Among execution cases, however, men are a lower
percent of the victims: 55.6 percent. Figure 3 shows the equivalent data for race, and Figure 4
shows race and gender combined.

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Figure 2. Gender of Victims

Figure 3. Race of Victims

Figure 4. Race and Gender of Victims

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Figure 4 makes clear that Black males are severely underrepresented among victims in execution
cases, considering that they constitute a majority of all homicide victims statewide. Figure 5
compares the race and gender of victims with the race of the executed offender. Of the 80 men
who have been executed by the state of Missouri between 1976 and 2014, 48 were White males,
31 were Black males, and one was a Native American male. Table 2 shows the relevant data.
Figure 5. Race and Gender of Victims for White and Black Inmates Executed
a White Inmates
b. Black Inmates

Table 2. Victims of White and Black Male Inmates Executed.
White Inmates
Black Inmates
Victims
N
%
N
%
White Female
26
40.6
13
30.2
White Male
37
57.8
10
23.3
Black Female
0
0.0
8
18.6
Black Male
1
1.6
12
27.9
Other Race
0
0.0
0
0.0
Total
64
100.0
43
100.0
One Native American male has been executed in Missouri; he had a single White female victim.
No Hispanic/Latino or Asian-American inmates have been executed in Missouri.
Just a single White person has been executed in Missouri for the crime of killing a Black person.
Baumgartner, Grigg, and Mastro (2015) provide this short description of the crime:
Robert O’Neal, MO, December 6, 1995: In 1984, Robert O’Neal was a member of a
White supremacist prison gang and had been incarcerated since the age of 18 for
murdering a 78-year-old man during the commission of a burglary. On February 3, 1984,
O’Neal, Rodnie Stewart, and Lloyd E. Schlup, approached a Black inmate, Arthur Dade.
Steward threw hot liquid in Dade’s eyes and Schlup restrained the victim while O’Neal
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stabbed him to death with a 12 inch long homemade knife. Prosecutors called the murder
an “Aryan hit.”
In sum, an Aryan nation prison murder is the only case in which a White person has been
executed for killing a Black person in the modern history of Missouri.
In contrast, of the 31 Black men who have been executed in Missouri, a majority of their victims
have been White. Nationally, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that from 1980 through
2008, White perpetrators killed 84 percent of White victims of homicide, and 93 percent of
Black victims were killed by Black perpetrators. Further, this tendency for crimes to be within
racial group remains true even among “stranger homicides” – where the victim does not know
the offender. Just 26.7 percent of stranger homicides were cross-racial (as were just 9.7 percent
of homicides involving friends or acquaintances) (BJS 2011). Black-on-Black crimes are
extremely unlikely to be punished with the death penalty, however. The importance of the
victims’ race in the application of the death penalty has created a system where Whites are likely
to face the death penalty only for within-race crimes, and Blacks for cross-race crimes. In other
words, the race and gender of the victim is a key determining factor in deciding who faces
execution in Missouri.
Missouri’s death penalty system is arbitrary not only on the basis of the race and gender
characteristics of the victims, but it also shows dramatic disparities by geography. The map
below shows the number of executions across the state’s 114 counties.

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As the legend makes clear, 92 counties have had no executions, and just 3 counties and the
independent city of St. Louis account for 44 of the 80 executions that have taken place in the
modern period. Table 3 provides more complete information. Table 3 also shows the 2010
population, the total number of homicides reported by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics for
the period of 1984 through 2012, the number of homicides, and the rate of homicides per
population and executions per homicide. The table includes only those counties with any
executions, with the note providing summary information about the others.

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Table 3. Missouri Counties with Executions, by homicides and population
Homicides
Population
Homicides
Executions
per 1,000
County
(2010) (1984-2012) (1976-2014)
population
St. Louis County
998,954
1,008
23
1.01
St. Louis City
319,294
4,462
8
13.97
Jackson
674,158
2,879
8
4.27
Callaway
44,332
22
5
0.50
Clay
221,939
550
4
2.48
Jefferson
218,733
105
4
0.48
Boone
162,642
136
3
0.84
St. Charles
360,485
117
3
0.32
St. Francois
65,359
37
3
0.57
Butler
42,794
49
2
1.15
Lafayette
33,381
29
2
0.87
Warren
32,513
17
2
0.52
Washington
25,195
15
2
0.60
Schuyler
4,431
4
2
0.90
Greene
275,174
218
1
0.79
Platte
89,322
204
1
2.28
Franklin
101,492
75
1
0.74
Cole
75,990
58
1
0.76
McDonald
23,083
25
1
1.08
Marion
28,781
24
1
0.83
Randolph
25,414
21
1
0.83
Audrain
25,529
19
1
0.74
Moniteau
15,607
3
1
0.19
Total for state

5,988,927

11,489

80

1.92

Executions
Per 100
Homicides
2.282
.179
.278
22.727
.727
3.810
2.206
2.564
8.108
4.082
6.897
11.765
13.333
50.000
.459
.490
1.333
1.724
4.000
4.167
4.762
5.263
33.333
.696

Note: The table lists all Missouri counties with any executions and the independent city of St. Louis. Homicide
data come from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics and have been aggregated from annual reports from 1984
through 2012, all the reports that are available. Among the 92 counties in Missouri with no executions in the modern
period, the average number of homicides is 15, and the range is from zero to 107. The state totals include counties
with no executions.

Perhaps the most relevant demonstration of the great disparity in the use of the death penalty is
in comparing executions per 100 homicides. Whereas the overall average for the state is
approximately 0.7 executions per 100 homicides, St. Louis County has more than three times
that rate. St. Louis City, with four times the number of homicides and more than 10 times the
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homicide rate, has fewer than 0.2 executions per 100 homicides. Callaway County, with five
executions, has seen only 22 homicides over several decades.
Conclusion:
The findings of this research indicate that factors such as the victims’ race and gender, as well as
the county in which the offender is convicted, inappropriately influence who is executed in
Missouri. At the very least, this data should give prosecutors pause when determining whether to
seek the death penalty. If left unaddressed, these racial, gender, and geographic disparities may
erode judicial and public confidence in the state’s ability to fairly administer the ultimate
punishment. A punishment that is so arbitrarily and unfairly administered could reasonably be
deemed unconstitutional. As the nation considers so many elements of the debate surrounding
capital punishment, we should look closely at the recent history of how it has actually been
administered. This review of simple statistics associated with Missouri’s modern experience
with the punishment shows clearly that it is geographically arbitrary and that the race and gender
of the victim of the crime are associated with dramatic disparities in the likelihood of execution
for the offender. These disparities are not measured by a few percentage points of difference.
Rather, they differ by orders of magnitude, clearly demonstrating that vast inequities characterize
the implementation of capital punishment in Missouri.

References:
Frank R. Baumgartner, Amanda Grigg, and Alisa Mastro. 2015. #BlackLivesDon’tMatter:
Race-of-Victim Effects in US Executions, 1977-2013. Politics, Groups, and Identities 3,
2: 209–21.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2011. Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008.
Washington, DC: US DOJ, NCJ236018, November.

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