Criminals who commit serious crimes in the US are FIVE TIMES more likely to face the death penalty if the victim is white, new figures reveal.

The stats, which paint a bleak picture of racial discrimination on America's Death Row, also show that just a handful of murderers who killed black victims have been executed.

Of the 1,499 executions carried out in the US since 1974, 76% were for crimes committed against white people – compared to just 15% when the victim was black.

This is despite just 50% of US murder victims being white.

It has prompted critics to brand capital punishment in the US a "racist system".

Just this week US President Donald Trump came under fresh fire after a Netflix series highlighted his call for the death penalty to be brought back in New York when five black and Hispanic teenagers were accused of raping a white woman.

The show, When They See Us, tells the story of the Central Park Five, who were convicted of the 1989 crime despite their innocence.

At the time Trump – then a real estate magnate – spent $85,000 taking out adverts in New York newspapers saying "crazed misfits" should be "made to suffer".

He later told talk show host Larry King he was referring to the five – who were later acquitted after DNA evidence revealed who the real rapist was.

Lawyers for the five said Trump had inflamed public opinion against the defendants – Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson and Korey Wise – and Salaam later described Trump as a "fire starter".

Despite the city making a $40 million settlement to the five in 2014, Trump maintained their guilt while campaigning to be president.

He wrote in 2014: "Settling doesn't mean innocence."

It prompted Ken Burns, who made a documentary about the innocent men, to brand Trump "out and out racist".

And actor Joshua Jackson, who plays lawyer Mickey Joseph in the Netflix drama, told the Hollywood Reporter: "He was calling for the murder of children.

"That’s the president of the United States. The murder of children."

The US President has yet to comment on the new dramatisation, but tweeted in 2013 after a separate documentary on the case: "The Central Park Five documentary was a one sided piece of garbage that didn't explain the horrific crimes of these young men while in park."

Critics say racism is endemic in the justice system.

Latest figures, released by the Death Penalty Information Center, come as pressure mounts to address racial bias over use of capital punishment.

In March the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, announced that executions in the state would be halted, saying discrimination was rife.

In a TV interview he said: "Just last year we had someone who was exonerated that spent 26 years on death row – joining the ranks of 164 human beings that have been exonerated, that have spent time on death row.

"It's a racist system. You cannot deny that."

And he continued: "It's a system that is perpetuating inequality. It's a system that I cannot in good conscience support."

The figures from the Death Penalty Information Center reveal that while 290 black defendants have been executed for murdering a white person in the last 45 years, just 21 white people have been given the death penalty for murdering a black victim.

Activists say this needs to change.

A study published by the University of Washington in 2014 said jurors in Washington are three times more likely to recommend a death sentence for a black defendant that a white one in a similar case.

That was finally acknowledged last year when Washington became the 20th US state to abolish the death penalty because of concerns around race.

In a ruling published by the state's supreme court, justices wrote: "We are confident that the association between race and the death penalty is not attributed to random chance."

In Texas all seven convicts executed last year were black.

And of the 28 people sentenced to death in the state between 2014 and 2018, 20 were members of minority ethnic groups.

A study by the Louisana Law Review in 2011 found that the odds of a death sentence were 97% higher for those whose victim was white than for those whose victim was black.

In a statement, civil rights group the NAACP said: "In states across the country, African Americans are disproportionately represented on death row and among those who have been executed. 

"Black people make up 13% of the population, but they make up 42% of Death Row and 35% of those executed.

"In addition, many studies have found the race of the victim to affect who receives the death penalty, with homicides of white victims more likely to result in the death penalty."

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